Students may talk with their academic advisors about their desire to study abroad as soon as they enroll at UVM, generally using the Academic Planning form for Study Abroad specific to their UVM School/College. Advisors should be able to speak with students about when might be best for them to study abroad (based on their degree requirements, and course sequencing and availability), what types of courses students should look for while considering their study abroad program options, and what electives, distribution or other degree requirements students may want to ‘save’ to take while abroad. 

Although the OIE does not collect the academic planning forms, students attest in GoAbroad that they have followed the instructions on the form for their unit. 

Students will sometimes ask questions of academic advisors that might be beyond your core area of expertise. As always, helping guide students to where they can get answers is helpful. A few important pages that have many of the answers about study abroad are:

• UVM's Study Abroad Process - Outlines eligibility, deadlines, key steps in the process for students
• Approved Study Abroad Programs
• Costs, Financing, and Billing for Study Abroad Programs
• Academics Abroad Guide - there is a section which includes distinctions between OIE's roles, the academic unit's role, transfer affairs' role. 

About a year before the student plans to study abroad, students should begin to actively work on the UVM study abroad application and approval processes.  

After a student is accepted into their chosen study abroad program, they will have a new UVM study abroad approval process checklist in GoAbroad to complete. A large part of this post-acceptance checklist deals with UVM policies and processes for transferring credit from study abroad.  During this post-decision stage, students are also working on many requirements for their program abroad, applying for visas, working on financial aid transfer, etc. The Office of International Education communicates key steps with them throughout. 

Independently, students will:

• Read about earning credit abroad through the Academics Abroad guide. They will take a quiz on this material in GoAbroad.
• Sign a document saying that they understand a set of transfer credit policies and agree to follow them.
• Learn about grade and credit conversion rates for their study abroad program using a spreadsheet maintained by the Office of Transfer Affairs (conversions subject to change, credits will be verified once final transcript is received). They will input their academic requirements for grade and credit conversion in GoAbroad, though the submission is not reviewed. 

With the support of their academic advisor, students will: 

• Complete a Course Planning Worksheet, on which they plan out courses they are thinking of taking while abroad and learn about how they might transfer back to UVM. This worksheet is not collected but can be used by the student for their own planning purposes, and students are instructed to bring it to their meetings with academic advisors for study abroad approval (see below).
• Meet with their Academic Advisors one last time to complete a Faculty/Staff Advisor Study Abroad Approval Form. These forms are different for each School/College, but they require the student and their advisor to discuss their School/College and academic department's rules requirements, and the types of courses a student should look for abroad. In GoAbroad, the student is instructed to bring a blank approval form with them to their meeting with you, along with their completed Course Planning Worksheet. 

As the academic advisor, you will: 

• Sign off on approval for the student to go abroad. Student Services Offices in CALS, CAS, CEMS, CESS, and GSB will have admin access to GoAbroad to attest that the student is in good academic standing, and has the School/College approval to study abroad. (Students in CNHS and RSENR receive School/College approval directly from their faculty advisor.).

While a student is abroad, they are still active UVM students through an "Overseas Study Program" (OSSP) course registration. Because of this, they still have access to many of UVM's resources. 

They may contact their Academic Advisor and/or Transfer Affairs with questions or changes to their course schedules. It is very common that students might need to change their course plans based on what courses are available to them once they are abroad (for example, if a course is full before they can register for it). 

OIE recommends that students email their Academic Advisor and Transfer Affairs to let them know of any changes to their plans. For many programs course syllabi are not always available until after the student arrives abroad and starts their classes. Once classes have started, students can email their syllabi to their academic departments for further review and evaluation, if needed, to determine how the new course might apply to the student’s degree requirements. 

UVM only supports students to study abroad if they follow the UVM study abroad process, which means only through approved programs. It is imperative that academic advisors not guide students towards unapproved programs, and equally important that academic advisors help guide students away from unapproved programs if they indicate exploration of not following UVM processes. 

Students sometimes will ask about taking a leave of absence to go on an unapproved program. This is unadvisable for many different reasons: 

• Programs have not been vetted for health, safety, and other reasons
• Students will not be an active student and there are immediate implications on any financial aid and ability to use certain funds
• Students will not have UVM emergency health and safety support while abroad
• Students will not be included in regular registration processes for future semesters

Importantly, many providers will also not allow students to study abroad with them unaffiliated from a university - this is for a range of reasons linked to their own processes. Advisors should never guide students towards unapproved programs - doing so may feel additionally frustrating for the student if they feel like they were told by someone at UVM to go on an unapproved program only for the program to tell them that is not possible.