Course Load

All students are required to enroll in a per semester course load equivalent to four Duke course credits, unless noted elsewhere by GEO program descriptions. No overloads or underloads are permitted. Course load information for each program option can be found on individual program brochure pages in MyExperientialEd.

A good summary of course load information can be found in the Course Credit Basics resource. We strongly recommend reading the Course Credit Basics document in full. The following are critical policies to be aware of and adhere to on your Duke-approved program: 

• Courses must meet for a minimum of 4 weeks/35 contact hours.  
• You must take courses that are equivalent to a minimum of 3 U.S. semester hours each.  
• You must earn the U.S. equivalent of a C– or higher in all courses taken at another institution.  
• Do not take courses Pass/Fail. Credit is not granted for any study away course taken as P/F.  
•  No underloads or overloads are allowed.  
•  No online courses are allowed

Duke-Administered Programs

Students on Duke-Administered programs will normally take four or five courses per semester, depending on how courses are valued. Please review the program-specific webpage for more information and contact GEO if you have specific questions about credit.

Duke-Approved and Petitioned Programs

On semester study away programs, you must take whatever is considered a normal, full-time course load (not the minimum load) on your program or at your host institution. Failure to complete a full course load while on study away may result in being put on academic probation or being dismissed from the university due to continuation requirements not being met. Your course load could end up being more/fewer than four classes.  This means the required number of courses will vary. 

The key for many Duke-Approved programs is that one Duke semester course credit is equivalent to four semester hours for transfer credit purposes. For the typical, semester-hour-system school, this means credit would transfer as follows:

At some institutions in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, Duke requirements may vary from the “normal” course load of the host institution; refer to the individual program brochure pages in MyExperientialEd for details. Students enrolling in some British and Japanese programs fewer than 12 weeks in length will only receive three credits for a full course load. At these same institutions, the spring and summer trimesters must be taken together and earn no more than five credits combined.

If it is discovered that you engaged in an unauthorized underload while away, you may be blocked from registration in your next registration period until the final available registration window. Don’t set yourself up for a surprise; ensure that you are taking what Duke will transfer as a full load.

When a full load for the Duke-Approved programs includes more than four courses in a single semester, students will be able to transfer no more than the maximum credit allowed by Duke for the program. For most programs, this is a maximum of four course credits per semester or eight course credits for the academic year.

For example, it is common that students must take five courses to constitute a full course load. In this case, five transfer courses will appear on your Duke record, and each could, upon approval, fulfill Areas of Knowledge and/or major/minor/certificate requirements, but only four will count toward the 34 semester credits graduation requirement. The fifth course will be denoted as “TR*” on your transcript.

Course Credit Discrepancies

When Duke University receives an official sealed transcript from your study away program, GEO staff will compare it with the GEO Approved Course Database. The Registrar will award credit only for those courses that appear BOTH on the transcript and in the database. When the transcript and the database give different information regarding the course credit value for a particular course, you will receive the lesser amount of credit indicated. For example, if the course is worth three, four, or five semester hours and approved at Duke as one (1) course credit, but the transcript indicates that the course was two semester-hours, the Registrar will transfer only one-half (0.5) course credit for the course. Likewise, if the transcript indicates that a course could count for two (2) course credits, but the course is approved at Duke for one (1) course credit, the Registrar will transfer only one (1) course credit for the course.

Course Approval

As a reminder, every single study away course you take for transfer credit must be approved and assigned a corresponding Duke course number by a specific Duke department. See: Course Approval Process.  All non-Duke courses taken abroad must receive course approval from the department the student is seeking credit from. If a course is not already in the GEO Approved Course Database, students should follow the course approval process outlined above to have their course(s) approved for credit. 

Dual Enrollment

While enrolled in a study away program, Duke students are not allowed to enroll in any courses based on Duke’s Durham campus, including online courses, independent studies, research courses such as Bass Connections, etc.