If you receive a grant for your semester abroad (e.g. ERASMUS), you have to document the beginning and end date of your study period in Cologne precisely to get paid the full amount of money.

Soon after your arrival in Cologne, you should therefore have your "Certificate of Arrival" issued/signed at the International Office (SSC building, Universitätsstr. 22a). The Certificate of Arrival officially confirms the beginning of your study period in Cologne.

If you participate in the ERASMUS programme of the European Union, you are required to complete a "Learning Agreement" for your semester abroad listing all the courses you are going to take at the University of Cologne. Your Learning Agreement is an agreement on your programme of study und has to be approved and signed by both your home university and the University of Cologne. You will receive the form for your learning agreement from your home university.

Please send you Learning Agreement for approval to philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de

Winter semester: please hand in a draft Learning Agreement until the end of July (course listings of the winter semester are published at the beginning of July)

Summer semester: please hand in a draft Learning Agreement until the end of February (course listings of the summer semester are published at the beginning of February)

To avoid unnecessary paperwork, we kindly ask you not to send Learning Agreements before the course listings of the upcoming semester have been published!

At the end of the stay, most exchange students require a "Transcript of Records" (ToR) to document their academic achievements at the University of Cologne (courses taken, ECTS credits earned and grades received).

IMPORTANT: Your Transcript of Records will not be issued automatically!

Here is how you get it:

Once your exams have been marked, lecturers will enter your grades in KLIPS 2.0 and send them to the examination’s office for validation. As soon as the examination's office has validated the grades, they will appear on KLIPS 2.0 (see "Transcript of Records" > "Print Transcript"). Winter semester grades are usually released in March or April, summer semester grades in September or October.

In case you have a tight deadline at your home university, ask your lecturers to send your grades to the examination's office as soon as possible. Note, however, that lecturers can send your grades only after the official exam date shown in KLIPS 2.0!

If you have completed full modules, credit points will appear automatically in KLIPS 2.0 once your grades have been validated. If you have taken workload-reduced options, ZIB PhilFak needs to enter your credit points manually. 

Please send an email to philfak-incomings(at)uni-koeln.de once all your grades are shown on KLIPS 2.0 to ask for finalization of your Transcript of Records!

Following your email, ZIB PhilFak will enter missing credit points (if necessary), seal your Transcript of Records and send it to you by email. Upon request, we will send a hard copy by post as well.

Please note that without an official seal your Transcript of Records is invalid!

If you receive a grant for your semester abroad (e.g. ERASMUS+), you must document the beginning and end date of your study period in Cologne precisely to get paid the full amount of money.

At the end of your stay, you should therefore have your "Certificate of Departure" or "Confirmation of Study Period" issued/signed, either at the International Office (SSC building, Universitätsstr. 22a) or at the Center for International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (ZIB PhilFak). This document officially confirms the duration of your study period in Cologne.

Please note: We can only issue a "Confirmation of Study Period" if you hand in a "Certificate of Arrival" or some other proof of your date of arrival (e.g. flight tickets, rental contract with date etc.)!

Please also note that we will enter the date of signature as your date of departure.