All students will be required to submit SiPN’s Course Pre-Approval Sheet as part of their application process. At the end of the semester, the SiPN office will receive transcripts from the local university you attended. SiPN will then develop a packet for each student that includes the following materials:

• a cover letter from SiPN
• a copy of the student’s signed and dated credit transfer pre-approval sheet from their home university
• the original stamped transcripts (in English) from the Portuguese university partners*
• a copy of the SiPN grade conversion table that serves as a useful guide for your home university officials for interpreting your performance on the Portuguese grade scale.

*In some rare cases, SiPN allows students to take classes from 2 different university systems. In those cases, if a student, say, takes 2 classes from our partner University X and 2 other classes from University Z (doable given the close physical proximity of our member schools to one another), then at the end of the semester, such a student would have 2 stamped original university transcripts with grades in the 0 – 20 Portuguese scale, in English. 

These original documents will then be sent to the address that students provide on their “Student Disclosure and Approval of Information Form,” usually registrar/study abroad advisor at their home university for credit transfer processing. An electronic version will also be sent to the student and other relevant personnel at our student’s home university in the US.

We advise our students to gather a full understanding of their school grading and credits policy for initiatives developed abroad. These are some of the questions that our students should know how to respond to:

• Will my grades/credits received abroad will affect my GPA?
• Do my schools require me to have a specific credit load (for student aid, or other purposes)?
• How does my school convert European-based format (0-20) to the American grade format (A-F)?

For all member schools, transcripts are generally sent within 60 days after the last final exams (2ª fase). Fall semester grades, therefore, typically go out around late March; Spring semester grades are only sent in early-mid October and Summer session grades also in October.

Note: Final exam calendars may vary slightly from school to school.