International Student Services

CPT Application

Enrollment

  • Discuss your eligibility for an internship or practical training course before accepting any offers. Not all programs of study have courses for practical training and most have prerequisites. Your academic advisor will be able to help you determine eligibility.
  • Career Services offer an employer search engine (with a filter for CPT) and advertise employment fairs. They can also help you improve your resume for your search.

Requesting CPT

You can complete your request for CPT on the International Student Portal. Your request will not be considered if you’re not enrolled in a course that requires CPT.

  1. CPT Questionnaire
    • Start & end dates
      • Your start and end dates are determined by the time necessary to complete the curricular activity. These dates are typically the first day of the quarter and the final day of exams for the quarter. These dates must align with the dates on your CPT offer letter.
      • Each curricular activity must be aligned to the enrolled course. No authorization can stretch across multiple quarters. If you have split your course credits across multiple quarters, you will need a letter for each quarter. Do not submit one letter to span multiple quarters.
      • If your dates do not match the regular quarter start and end dates, your academic advisor must approve the non-standard dates as being required to earn credit for the quarter. Any extra time needed must either start or end during a published break time at the institution and cannot span into another quarter (including summer).
    • Full-time or Part-time
      • This is determined by the hours/week your employer or training provider indicates on the CPT offer letter. Anything below 20 hours/week is part-time. Anything 20 hours or more is full-time
      • If authorized for part-time, you cannot switch to full-time
      • One year of full-time CPT will make you ineligible for OPT
    • Employer Name
      • Indicate the official business name of your employer or training provider
    • Address
      • The address is the physical site of the company in the US
    • Address Line 1
      • Street number, street name, street type
    • Address Line 2
      • Suite, unit, etc.
    • City
    • State
    • Zip Code
  2. Additional CPT questions
    • My CPT is during my academic quarter or vacation quarter
      • Indicating academic quarter incurs scrutiny of all other courses for the quarter. If you’re request is for full-time CPT in an academic quarter, your academic advisor can be asked about your ability to successfully complete all other degree requirements.
    • I have registered for internship credit as advised by my Academic Advisor
      • Yes/no – If no, your application will be paused while we wait for clarification from your academic advisor.
    • Enter the course code for your CPT
      • For example, CSS-397
    • I have reviewed my US physical address
      • Check your local address in myUW and update if necessary.
    • Will your training be completed remotely?
      • If yes, provide the full address of the remote location you will complete your training (for example, your home address).
  3. Document to upload
    • You CPT offer letter must be uploaded here. Please ensure it covers all requirements listed in the request. If the letter is missing required information, your request will be denied during review and you’ll have to apply again.
  4. Approver instructions and Approver box
    • Enter the name and email address of your Academic Advisor. An approver form will be sent to the Academic Advisor electronically. Neither International Student Advisors nor Faculty Advisors are Academic Advisors. Please make sure you list an Academic Advisor.
    • While waiting for your Academic Advisor, your request will show “Approver Review”. After your Academic Advisor has submitted their approver form, the request will change to “Submitted”.
    • ISS will not be aware of your application until it moves to the “Submitted” stage. Please contact your Academic Advisor if you need them to take action on your approver form.

Submit

  • After you submit your application, allow 5 – 7 business days for review. We do not expedite requests. Your request will be processed in the order it was received.

Clarification

  • If your request requires clarification, we will reach out to either you or your academic advisor.

Approval

  • After your CPT has been approved, you can begin training off-campus at the training site indicated on the I-20.
  • Double check the CPT information printed on the second page of second page of your new I-20.