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Free Round Trip Home

Swarthmore College provides one free round trip home for students with F-1 visas who receive financial aid.

Steps to take for your trip:

1. Plan your trip and get a price. Try to be frugal and plan early. Tickets must be purchased/approved within one week of the exam schedule being published.

2. See Jennifer to approve your itinerary.

3. Complete the Free Round Trip request in the ISC Portal after you purchase tickets for your approved itinerary.

Students are advised to be mindful of the following guidelines when applying.

Eligibility Guidelines:

  • The trip is available after the third semester. Please use this benefit to purchase a round trip ticket from Swarthmore area to your home country and back.
  • The request in the portal must ONLY be completed after the costs of your travel have been approved by the Assistant Dean and Director of International Student Programs. Once your itinerary has been reviewed and approved, you can go ahead and book your tickets. 
  • Student is responsible for any land transportation or additional fees, such as re-ticketing, baggage, and other changes in travel plans after ticket is purchased.

Travel Arrangement Guidelines & Restrictions: 

  • Avenue Two Travel can make the travel arrangements. They can be reached at (610) 243-1100 or beth.heckman@avenuetwocorporate.com and please ask for Beth Heckman. The request must be submitted to them in time to get the lowest fare. 
  • Please try to get a few prices on line to make sure you are getting a competitive rate - think, would this be a reasonable rate if you were paying for it yourself?
  • Ticket purchase may not be used retroactively. 

  • Students are responsible for any land transportation or additional fees, such as re-ticketing, baggage, and other changes in travel plans after ticket is purchased.

Double check your final exam schedule. Additionally, please make sure that you book your flight on a date before the residence halls close for the semester, you may not stay in the residence halls after the resident hall are closed.

Transit Visas/ Direct Airside Transit visa (DATV)

You may need a Direct Airside Transit visa (DATV) if you’ll be changing flights without going through immigration control. If you are planning to transit through certain countries, make sure to check if you are required to obtain an "airport transit visa" in advance based on your country of citizenship.  It is crucial to check the relevant web site of the embassy for each country that you are traveling through before you depart the United States.

This is your responsibility to research this concern in advance. This type of visa requires a processing fee and may take weeks to process. Travel agencies and Swarthmore College are not responsible for transit visas.