Procedure for Transferring Courses taken on an Exchange Program to KIMEP
The information on this page is designed to help KIMEP students studying on exchange programs stay registered at KIMEP and transfer courses they took on the exchange program abroad.
In general, credits for courses taken during the exchange program at one of KIMEP’s partner universities can be transferred to KIMEP and will count towards the requirements of a KIMEP undergraduate or graduate program if the student has earned a “pass” grade in the course and has followed the Course Transfer Procedure as stipulated below. There may be additional college or program requirements determining whether the course can be counted towards GPA or major/minor requirements.
I. Course transfer procedure prior to departure
Please consult the web-site of the partner university you will attend and select the courses you would like to register for. When selecting courses, please take the following into account:
Before selecting courses, please, look through the table of transferable courses . Notice that the courses in the table are not the offered in the certain semester by a partner university, these courses are only transferable.
- Exchange students remain registered at KIMEP and pay tuition to KIMEP for the courses they study while at the partner university. The same scholarship and tuition waiver requirements apply when studying abroad.
- A student may only transfer the number of credits he/she has paid for in advance to KIMEP. Students prepay for a approved number of courses, with a minimum of twelve credits for undergraduate students and nine credits for graduate students. If a student is unable to register for some courses or withdraws from a class, he/she may receive a refund. However, in all cases an undergraduate student must pay for at least nine credits, and a graduate student must pay for at least six credits. The maximum number of credits graduate and undergraduate exchange students may take in a semester is eighteen credits (or six courses), but we recommend that students take no more than fifteen credits (or five courses), due to the difficulty of studying abroad in an unfamiliar academic and cultural environment.
- Consult your academic advisor and/or instructors who teach similar courses at KIMEP to determine which courses to select and which courses at KIMEP they correspond to.
- Once you have selected your courses you should complete a Course Approval Form for each course separately. This must be done prior to your departure.
- Collect the following documents:
- Course descriptions and syllabi for the courses selected (if the syllabi can not be downloaded from the website of the partner University, please ask the International Relations Office for a hard copy)
- Description of the credit system of the partner University (again, if this is not available on the website of the partner university please consult the International Relations Office).
- Bring all the documents and forms listed above to Yuliya Rogozhina, International Student Adviser, prior to your departure. Each semester there are two deadlines to submit your documents: one for partner Universities that start their semester around the same weeks as KIMEP and one for partner Universities that start their semester one or two months later. The deadlines depend on when the Departmental Committees (the bodies at KIMEP that approve course transfers) meet. Please ask Yuliya Rogozhina about the dates. Without syllabi, approval cannot be obtained. Should syllabi be unavailable it is possible to arrange for the transfer of these courses on your return to KIMEP (see the section below). However, in this case there is no advance guarantee that the courses taken at the partner University can be transferred. The advance payment and refund conditions (for a minimum tof welve credits for undergraduate students and nine credits for graduate students, no refunds for failed courses) remain unchanged. Make sure your courses have been approved.
- If a student applies to an exchange program that operates on a different academic calendar (i.e. universities starting in October/March), he/she may enrol in classes at KIMEP while waiting to hear if he/she has been accepted on the program. If the student is later notified that he/she has been accepted and decides to participate in the program, full tuition for the classes started at KIMEP will be refunded and applied to the fees due for the exchange program. Any additional refund will be handled according to the exchange program refund policy.
- Students cannot receive a grade of ‘incomplete’ for a class at KIMEP while studying at an exchange university cannot be permitted. His/her registration must be canceled and the student must re-register for courses upon return from their exchange program. Students should submit a list of courses to Yuliya Rogozhina for cancellation.
- Should a student you fail one or more courses at the partner University, he/she will not be entitled to a refund of the tuition fee paid to KIMEP for these courses.
The Course Approval Form is important and has a number of functions, including:
- Maintaining your full-time enrollment at KIMEP while you are abroad
- Allowing financial aid to be disbursed while you attend a foreign institution/program
- Allowing the International Relations Office to assist in registering you for courses in the upcoming semester
- Assisting in the credit transfer process.
II. Add/drop period at the partner University
As at KIMEP, most foreign Universities have an ‘add/drop period.’ Upon arrival, you may find out that some courses are canceled during the semester you are exchanging, you may find the number of courses your selected give you an academic load that is too heavy, or you may find that the content of certain courses are different than expected, etc. Please remember that all students who participate in exchange programs must pay for a minimum of nine credits (three courses) at KIMEP, regardless of how many courses they take at the partner institution.
During the add/drop period at the host university students can still obtain approval for revised courses, provided they follow the following procedure:
- Download the Course Approval Form for each course and fill in the changes (which course to add/drop);
- When adding courses, obtain an electronic copy of the syllabi for those courses;
- Send both files to Yuliya Rogozhina by email at yuliyar@kimep.kz;
- The International Relations Office will arrange the approval and inform the student as to whether or not the courses he/she have selected have been approved.
- The student will be required to pay in advance for any additional courses taken.
III. Course Transfer Procedure upon your return to KIMEP
The International Relations Office receives students’ original transcripts from partner universities and submits them along with the Course Approval Form to the Registrar. Only courses passed at the partner university and for which approval was received will be eligible for transfer.
An unofficial (emailed or faxed) transcript is valid only if a student has to waive a prerequisite for the course they plan to take at KIMEP in the semester following the semester abroad.
If you have any questions concerning the course transfer procedure outlined above, please contact:
Baurzhan Shayakhmetov, International Student Adviser
Email: shayakhmetov@gmail.com, exchange@kimep.kz
Tel: +7 (727) 270 44 80 ext. 2107
Office 409 / Dostyk building
