If you have been enrolled full-time in any post-secondary educational institution, your application to Grinnell will be considered a transfer application.
International transfer students are eligible for the same financial aid as international students entering as first-year students. For more information regarding financial aid, please visit International Student Financial Aid. Please note that you have to submit a separate application for financial aid if you need financial assistance at Grinnell College.
You may not wish to apply as a transfer student and would rather start your university studies over again at Grinnell. This is, however, not an option available at Grinnell. All university-level course work must be assessed for transfer.
Applications are due May 1 for the fall semester. Please note that international transfer students are accepted for the fall semester only. We strongly encourage you to submit the Common Application and supplements electronically, but you can also download the forms and send them in the mail by printing them at Download Forms from the Commonapp web site.
- The Common Application — including:
- $30 application fee, which is automatically waived if you apply online
- Personal statement
- excluding the Mid-Year Report
- The Common Application Supplement: This is a short form specific to Grinnell College available at the Common Application website. (After choosing Grinnell College as one of your colleges, you will be able to click on the Supplement tab to complete and submit your supplement form.)
- College Official's Report
- Two Teacher/Faculty Evaluations/References/Recommendations — If you are in your first year at college we will accept these from high school teachers as long as they are from teachers who have taught you in an English, mathematics, science, social science, history, or foreign language class; we encourage you to submit at least one reference from a faculty member at your current/last college; if you are already in your second year of college, we suggest that the two recommendations are from faculty at your university.
- Secondary School Report including Counselor Recommendation — We request this form even if you graduated from high school two or more years ago
- Official transcripts — If these are not originally in English, we will need an official copy of the transcript in its original language and an official English translation. We need transcripts from your Secondary School (high school) and from each college or university you have attended. From your high school, we also need the final high school certificate or diploma.
- SAT (or ACT) and TOEFL scores — We require these tests even if the college/university you currently attend did not require them
- Additional essays
- Transfer essay describing your reasons for wanting to transfer to Grinnell College.
- If you are not currently attending school or were at any point not attending school full-time, please write an essay describing in detail the activities you pursued during this time.
Any university-level coursework that you have completed that is comparable to Grinnell courses will be considered for transfer. It is possible that not all of the university coursework that you have completed will transfer to Grinnell College. Students are expected to complete at Grinnell at least 62 of the minimum 124 credits needed for graduation. Individual departments generally expect that the majority of courses constituting a major program will be Grinnell courses.
Transfer students who enter Grinnell College will be required to complete the following minimum number of credits at Grinnell College:
| A Transfer student who enters as a: | Must complete at Grinnell at least: |
| Second-semester first-year | 92 credits |
| First-semester second-year | 78 credits |
| Second-semester second-year | 62 credits |
| First-semester third-year | 62 credits |
All students who have completed any amount of university-level studies are required to submit official transcripts from that university to Grinnell at the time of application for admission. Failure to do so would result in rescindment of admission and expulsion from Grinnell College. If you are accepted to Grinnell College, at the time of admission we will provide you with an estimation of the number of credits that will transfer. A final and official evaluation of your transfer credits will be conducted prior to your arrival to the College in August.
Students admitted to Grinnell as transfer applicants are not obligated to pursue the same line of studies that they followed at their previous university; the international transfer student advisor and your academic advisor will work closely with you to design an academic program that fulfills your needs and the College's requirements for graduation.
For more information on transferring credits, read the Transfer Credit section of Grinnell's course catalog.