The College defines international students as those who do not hold US citizenship or US permanent residency or qualify for US refugee or DACA status. If your academic documents and letters of recommendation are not in English, you must submit notarized translations along with original documents. Translations are also required for any documents submitted to the Office of Student Financial Services. Transcripts, standardized test results and English proficiency results are expected to be submitted as official documents. Academic transcripts must be submitted directly from your school and test results must be sent by official test organizations.
Student Visas
We are unable to offer student visas. The majority of our programming is online, and you can participate in any of the Master of Arts in Teaching programs from anywhere in the world. There is no residency requirement; however, if you are seeking a degree with Massachusetts teacher licensure, you must have a visa status that allows you to legally be in the US and do your student teaching in Massachusetts.
Accessing Courses
Please take into account that many of our classes are live, interactive courses that are accessed online, and your experience may be affected by the timezone you are connecting from. During the fall and spring, courses are scheduled in the evenings Eastern Standard Time (e.g. between 4–9 pm ET).
During the summer, several courses are accelerated one-week intensives, with classes running all day, from 8 am–4 pm Eastern Standard Time. Most of our summer courses are hybrid, which allows students to choose whether to access courses online or come to our campus in South Hadley, MA.
English proficiency exam
Non-native English speakers must provide evidence of their proficiency, usually by submitting TOEFL or IELTS results. Mount Holyoke College Graduate Programs expects our students to achieve a TOEFL score over 100 or an IELTS score over 7. Please refer to the test agency's score reporting procedures to request your official score report: TOEFL, IELTS (electronic score reporting is accepted by MHC) Mount Holyoke does not "superscore" English proficiency results; if multiple test results are submitted, the Admission Committee will review all results, usually putting most emphasis on the test date with the highest composite result. Based on native language and secondary school language of instruction, or college school language of instruction, or work experience in an English speaking country, a waiver of this requirement may be granted by contacting the graduate programs office 48 hours after the application and required academic credentials have been submitted. If a waiver is approved, but the Admission Committee needs more information to assess the readiness of a candidate, the Committee may request English proficiency testing, a writing sample or an interview at a later date.
Transcript evaluation
All students with a bachelor’s degree from a college or university outside of the United States must have their transcript evaluated by The Evaluation Company (TEC), World Education Services (WES) or a similar organization. This will provide us with a credential evaluation that compares your academic accomplishments to standards in the U.S. or Canada. This report helps us better understand your educational background. A report from WES identifies and describes your credentials; verifies that your credentials are authentic; may include a grade point average (GPA) equivalency; and includes an evaluation of the authenticity of your documents.
TEC (formerly SpanTran) has created a custom application for Mount Holyoke Professional and Graduate Education that will make sure you select the right kind of evaluation at a discounted rate.
