Transferring to Another Institution

Transferring Schools

Many students will transfer schools during the time they are students in the U.S. In addition to the academic process F-1 students must also follow an immigration transfer procedure.

In order to transfer, a student must be admitted to the new school and be issued a new I-20. You have 15 days from the beginning of school to complete the DHS transfer process, or you will be illegal. The new school is responsible for notifying DHS that you have reported and submitted the appropriate documents. They cannot do this until you have done your part. No special permission is required from the old school except in special cases which are mentioned later.

What Happens

The new school must determine that you are in legal status. They do this by examining all your old I-20's and attempting to construct a paper trail of your school attendance in the U.S. Lost I-20's can create a problem, so do not lose any of these forms. The new school also needs to see some reasonable proof that you have been enrolled full-time. This is normally accomplished by showing a transcript or letter from the previous international student advisor attesting to your legal status. The transcript you send for the admission process may never be seen by the international office so it is a good idea to have one with you to hand over.

Once the new school is satisfied that you are eligible for the “notification transfer” process, the international student advisor “notes” the transfer on the new I-20 and sends page 1-2 to a data processing firm and gives back page 3-4 to the student. That ends the transfer.

Transferring by re-entering the U.S.

If you left the U.S. at a time you were maintaining legal status and use the new school’s I-20 to reenter, that will accomplish the transfer with DHS.

If you have not maintained legal status you may still use the new school’s I-20. However you lose all previous time accumulated toward the 1 year in status rules for working off-campus and for practical training. These “clocks” are set to zero. There are also other problems in these cases, please see your international advisor.

If you enter on one school’s I-20 and decide to enroll at another school this calls for some special processing. It takes special circumstances and is not always possible. Talk to the international advisor as soon as possible.

What you need to transfer

• The new school’s I-20
• All old I-20s
• Proof of legal status:
  • A current transcript from your previous school, showing grades from the last semester or term you attended there.
  • or, A letter from the international student advisor at your previous school verifying your legal status while enrolled there.
  • or, If you are re-entering the U.S. on your new school’s I-20, all you have to do is use the new I-20.