By College regulation, for college level work done elsewhere, domestic or abroad, to receive Swarthmore credit, it must be evaluated by the appropriate Swarthmore academic department(s) or credit granting program(s) to determine how much Swarthmore credit it may receive. The only exception to this is work done at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Penn under the four college agreement. To be eligible for evaluation for Swarthmore credit, a course done elsewhere must receive a grade of straight 'C' or better.
For foreign study, here's how this plays:1. Before departure, the courses you propose to do abroad will be pre-approved for evaluation and pre-estimated for amount of credit, by the academic department(s) and/or program(s) that will evaluate them for credit upon your return.
2. Upon return, your completed work will be evaluated by the appropriate department(s) and/or program(s), and the credit awarded by them will be entered upon your Swarthmore transcript.
3. When appropriate, credit for work done elsewhere may count toward completion of specific requirements for the degree (e.g., major, distribution, 20 course rule) as well as toward the 32 units needed to graduate.
4. The grades you earn with your foreign study program are the grades that will be entered upon your Swarthmore transcript, with clear indication that they are foreign study program grades and not Swarthmore grades. These grades are not part of your Swarthmore GPA.
5. The transcript you receive from your program is the official record of the work you have completed with the program.
6. Please N.B.: Successfully to complete your foreign study courses, you will be obliged to comply with the practices and standards for production and evaluation of academic work specified by the program or university that you attend. Virtually without exception, these practices and standards will differ from what you are used to at Swarthmore. Often, less flexibility will obtain re, e.g., extensions or incompletes. Please remember: when you're over there, you will be playing by your program's rules, not Swarthmore's rules.
Further important points:
1. With proper planning, most Swarthmore students who do foreign study get full credit for the work they complete abroad. There should be no mystery about this for you, and the required procedures - pre-departure and upon your return - are straightforward and not time consuming.
2. The Office for Foreign Study will instruct you in detail about both the pre-departure and return procedures, regarding the credit drill.