Students must meet specific requirements and deadlines in order to be eligible to participate in any study abroad program. These requirements differ from program to program, but for all of them, prospective participants must complete and submit required application materials. Incomplete applications will be considered late and will not be processed until completed. Students may only apply for one program at a time.

Students meeting the College’s and any program-specific eligibility requirements are selected for participation in the study abroad program on the basis of such items as their cumulative grade point average, their grades in the appropriate foreign language (where applicable), the strength of the required essays, faculty letters of recommendation (for some programs), an evaluation of the transcript, and other information provided in their application and their College records. The Center for International Programs may also require applicants to be interviewed.

The final decision regarding admission to and participation in specific programs rests with the staff of the Center for International Programs and host institutions abroad. CIP staff members reserve the right to deny participation in study abroad when students’ actions either on or off campus raise doubt that they are ready for an international study experience or prepared to represent Kalamazoo College appropriately. Programs may be changed, suspended, or withdrawn at any time due to political, economic, global health issues, or other conditions.

Approximately 95% of study abroad applicants are admitted to their first-choice program.  We do have a handful of programs with enrollment limits. When we have more applications than spots, we refer to these programs as “oversubscribed programs.” Only a small number of programs are oversubscribed each year. When this happens, the CIP notifies all applicants in oversubscribed programs as soon as we receive more applications than the enrollment cap. This gives students time to switch to a different program or to make improvements to their application materials before the application deadline. Although some sophomore students are allowed to study abroad on certain programs, if they are applying to a program that becomes oversubscribed, applicants who will be juniors when beginning their study abroad program will be given preference over sophomore applicants. 

Students who are not admitted to their first-choice program, still have a chance to go abroad! In this case, students enter a secondary application cycle we call “Open Programs.” This process only allows applications for programs that still have open spots from the initial application cycle. Because of this, there may be some programs which are not available for Open Program applications. However, students will have the opportunity to apply for and participate in a program that does have availability. Students may schedule an appointment with a CIP staff member if they have any questions about this process.