How to Apply for an Exchange Program

Get nominated for exchange by your home institution and get confirmation that your nomination has been accepted by UAlberta.

Your nomination must include: 

1. Your full name as it appears in your passport
2. Your level of studies (i.e., undergraduate or graduate)
3. A brief description of what you study at your home institution
4. Your intended area(s) of study while on exchange at UAlberta
5. The requested duration of your exchange (i.e., Fall Term, Winter Term, or Full Year)
6. An email address at which you can be contacted

Please Note:

1. Only exchange nominations of students meeting the relevant admission requirements will be considered.
2. With one exception, acceptance of your nomination does not guarantee that you will be accepted for exchange.  Although it doesn't happen often, your nomination could be accepted but your exchange application may later be rejected by the UAlberta faculty or department in which you wish to take all or the majority of your courses. (The exception is for participants in the National Student Exchange (NSE) program; participants in that program whose nominations are accepted are guaranteed to be accepted for their desired exchanges if they submit correct and complete exchange applications by the deadlines given.)

For students with disabilities

If your nomination is accepted and you have a documented disability affecting mobility, vision, hearing, learning and/or physical or mental health, then you will need to register with our Academic Success Centre (ASC) as soon as possible once you have been issued a Campus Computing ID (CCID) and a UAlberta Student ID number (and this might happen even before you discover that you have been accepted for the exchange).

As part of your registration, be sure to identify yourself as an international student who is currently applying for an exchange experience at UAlberta. Personnel from the ASC will arrange an online conversation with you to assess the functional impact of your disability.

You may be asked to provide a description, in English, of the disability from any disability services office at your institution or a medical professional who may be currently assisting you. We encourage exchange students to utilize the academic accommodations that UAlberta recommends and can offer once your assessment is complete.

You may also wish to contact our Residence Services team (at housing@ualberta.ca) if your disability(ies) might impact your on-campus housing requirements.

1. When you are asked to list courses of interest in your application, UAlberta uses that information to further assess your suitability for the exchange, NOT to register you in those courses. 
   • You will need to register in courses on your own, after you have been admitted for your desired exchange.
2. Depending on when you are applying for an exchange you may not see courses in Bear Tracks for the term or first term when you will actually be on exchange at UAlberta. 
   • Course listings and schedules for the upcoming school year are not typically updated until March or April of the previous school year at the earliest. 
   • If you don't see course listings for the term or first term when you would actually be at UAlberta on exchange then please instead view the course listings for the closest Winter or Fall term instead.
3. PLEASE NOTE that some UAlberta departments and faculties won't make graduate course determinations for the time you wish to be at UAlberta on exchange AND/OR permit you to register in courses until after you may have to make some financial and other commitments related to the exchange. 
   • Unfortunately, you might eventually discover that you have no desire to register in any of the courses offered AND/OR all of the spaces available in one or more of your desired courses are gone. 
   • If you are admitted for the exchange before knowing the course options open to you (i.e., before course options in your destination department or faculty at UAlberta are advertised on Bear Tracks AND before you know that you can register in courses that interest you), then you should pause and seriously consider if it's a good idea to proceed with the application knowing the financial and other risks you might encounter.
4. You will need to be assigned to a "home department" at UAlberta.  Therefore, all of the courses you list in your application documents must be selected from one department only. 
   • If you plan to go on exchange to a faculty without departments then all of the courses you list in your application documents must be selected from only that faculty. 
   • You *might* be able to take courses in other departments or faculties but that would be something to investigate after you have been admitted for the exchange and is not guaranteed.
5. The courses listed on your "Application for Visiting Graduate Student" form and "Permission to Participate Form" need to be the same and in the same order.
6. If you wish to conduct research while on exchange (instead of taking courses) then you will need to indicate that you wish to register in only "RSCH 900" on your "Application for Visiting Graduate Student" form and "Permission to Participate Form" along with writing the name of your UAlberta host supervisor.
7. Whenever you are asked to provide your name, please be sure to provide your full name exactly as it appears in your passport.
8. Should you have to, or choose to, demonstrate the required English proficiency with test results from an approved external testing organization (like TOEFL, IELTS, etc.), then please obtain a copy of your test results and include them with your application sent to UAlberta.  Please do not have test results mailed directly to UAlberta from the approved external testing organization.
9. Test results used to demonstrate English proficiency must not be more than 2 years old at the time of application.
10. Additional application materials may be required for certain programs and/or courses and will be requested upon receipt of your application.
11. Please only submit what you are asked to submit and nothing more.

If the decision is to admit you for your desired exchange it would be done through an official letter of admission.

After you submit a complete and error-free application, it can take up to 4 to 6 weeks for it to be processed and for a decision to be released.  It might take some faculties and departments longer to make decisions.

Students applying for an exchange to UAlberta will be issued a student ID number, a computing ID (called a "CCID") and a password (and undergraduate students can expect to receive this information even before decisions are released). The CCID and password will give you access to a ualberta.ca email account and a Bear Tracks account.

Decisions may be available through one or both of the accounts mentioned above or, if you are an undergraduate student, through your UAlberta Launchpad Status Page, and you are advised to check all of those locations 2 - 3 times per week for it. Decisions may also be mailed as hard copies directly to you or to the Exchange Office at your home institution or emailed to your Exchange Office.