Once you have chosen Birmingham as your Exchange or Study Abroad Fee-Paying destination, you can apply online. If you are an exchange student, then your home university must nominate you first and when your nomination has been approved, you will be sent the link to our application form.
If you are a Study Abroad Fee-Paying student, you should contact the Study Abroad team via our contact form, which you can find within our Frequently Asked Questions. We will then send you the link to our application form. Please be aware that our application form is only for students who wish to study for one or two semesters as part of their home university degree. It is not for applying to the University of Birmingham to study a full undergraduate or postgraduate degree.
Before you apply, please check our academic and English entry requrements for incoming Study Abroad and Exchange students coming to the UoB for one semester or full year.
When applying, both exchange and study abroad fee-paying students will need to upload:
- A copy of an official Transcript of Records in English showing the courses taken and grades (signed and stamped);
- A copy of your passport valid for the period of your exchange;
- English Language Proficiency (ELP) certificate (if applicable).
To support you with your application, we have created a Guide to completing the application and a video below that takes you step by step through the process of becoming an exchange or study abroad fee-paying student at the university. Scroll down to see the most frequently asked questions about application procedure and offer letters.
Steps to becoming a study abroad and exchange student at the University of Birmingham
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are an exchange student (not fee-paying), nominations are completed by your home university (usually your study abroad/international office team). Please check with them to ensure you have been nominated.
The nominations deadlines are:
For the Autumn semester and full year: March 31
For the Spring semester: September 30
When will I receive my application link?
Usually, the application link is sent around 5 working days after the nomination deadline and after our online application information sessions.
When can I expect my offer letter?
If you are joining us in Autumn, you can expect to receive your offer between June and July. If you are joining in January, you can expect to receive your offer letter between November and December.
What happens if I receive a conditional offer?
If you receive a conditional offer, it will explain the reason on the letter. Most likely it’s because your English proficiency certificate doesn’t meet our entry requirements. As soon as you send us a new certificate, we will upload it onto your application and our admissions team will process it again.
We ask you to accept the conditional offer using the link in the offer letter as you will not receive an unconditional acceptance unless requested. This might take time to because the priority will be to send out offers to applicants that have accepted their conditional offers.
Will I receive a document for my visa?
You will receive a visa document after being made unconditionally accepted. Please note that you might not receive an unconditional offer letter itself but will get your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) number (if you are a full year student) or Standard Visitor Visa (SVV) letter (if you are a one semester student) to apply for the visa.
Not all students will receive letters at the same time. They are completed in no particular order, and we cannot expedite this process but do not worry, you will have enough time to apply for the visa.
What happens next?
Once you have been made an offer of a place you will receive an offer letter. All of the information that you require prior to your arrival at the University will be sent to you electronically or it will be available online. You can also visit the Welcome pages on the University's website which contain useful information for students starting at Birmingham.
All students who have had an offer will be sent full details of the orientation events by email. It is important that you check your emails regularly, as some of our events will be tailored individually for you.
English language courses
If you do not have the required level of English or would like to improve your English before the start of the academic year, you can take one of our pre-sessional English language courses.
These courses are run by our Birmingham International Academy. Find out more about the details, costs, and application process for those courses. You can apply for this once you have applied to be an Exchange or Study Abroad Fee-Paying student.
Data Protection
For full information on how the University will process your data please see Student Applicant Privacy Notice.