• Apply for an F-1 student visa through a U.S. Consulate abroad
• To maintain F-1 student status in the United States

The University of Utah will begin processing your I-20 once you’ve been admitted to a degree-seeking program.

Admission to a Certificate Program does not qualify as a degree program and will not grant I-20 eligibility.

If you are a continuing student requesting an initial I-20, please refer to the following guide.

To ensure the timely arrival of international students on campus before the start of the academic term, please be mindful of the following deadlines.

Spring

NOV 1 For students currently outside the U.S.

DEC 19 For students currently residing in the U.S.

Summer

APR 1 For students currently outside the U.S.

MAY 1 For students currently residing in the U.S.

Fall

JUN 1 For students currently outside the U.S.

AUG 1 For students currently residing in the U.S.

Documents pertaining to the I-20 process are not necessary for admission to the University of Utah. Applicants may submit their I-20 related documents at any point during the application process. It is important to note that these documents will be reviewed only after a decision has been made regarding the student’s application.

Our staff must confirm, evaluate, and process all of the following before the I-20 document deadline in order for the Office of Admissions to issue an I-20 Certificate of Eligibility.

Required Documents

Financial Documentation

Admitted students at the University of Utah seeking an I-20 are required to demonstrate access to sufficient liquid funds to cover the total estimated expenses for the upcoming semester. There are multiple approved methods available for students to validate their financial support. Students may utilize funds from multiple sources as necessary to meet the minimum estimated expenses based on their admission type.

All funding information must meet the following criteria:

• The funds must be liquid
• Proof of funding documents must be dated within the last six months

The total estimated expenses for the 2024-2025 academic year are as follows:

• $61,025 USD for Undergraduate (Bachelor’s degree) students
• $64,549 USD for Graduate (Master’s and Ph.D. degrees) students

Estimated expenses are not the same as the actual tuition cost a student will be paying. More in depth information about estimated expenses and financial documents can be found lower on this webpage.

Affidavit of Support

Affidavit of Support Requirement

When a financial document is issued in a name other than that of the student, the individual listed on the document is required to complete and sign an Affidavit of Support. This document should be submitted alongside the financial documentation. In the case where multiple sponsors are submitting proof of funding documents, separate Affidavits of Support must be provided for each sponsor.

Students enrolled at the University of Utah’s Asia campus in Korea are expected to transfer to the main campus in Salt Lake City for their senior year of study. Before their final year, students will schedule a meeting with their academic advisor to complete the necessary paperwork. Once the advisor has submitted the form to our office, our staff will initiate the processing of the student’s file in order to issue them an I-20.

The Office of Admissions will review a student’s file for I-20 issuance after a student has been admitted to the University of Utah and the official admission letter is issued.

This includes review of financial and identification documents.

Your patience is appreciated as the time that it takes to evaluate all documentation and to process an I-20 varies from applicant to applicant.

Paying attention to the following points will help you to avoid unnecessary delays.

Keep in Touch

• Monitor your e-mail account and application tracker.
• If we need additional information you will be contact via email.
• Please inform our office of any changes in your situation, including but not limited to changes in your mailing address, email address, passport change, dependents information or immigration status.

Submit the required documents for I-20 processing early (rather than waiting until after the admission decision is made).

NOTE: documents must not be older than 6 months at the moment of I-20 issuance.

We will have to contact you to request updated (more recent) documents if needed, which can delay your I-20 processing.

When submitting documents by e-mail, please send them as an attachment and have good resolution/quality.

All information needs to be clearly visible.

Only submit documents asked for; the more documents or duplicates you submit for proof of funding, the longer it will take to finalize your I-20.

Instead of submitting multiple types of bank statements, consider requesting a Consolidated Account Summary from your bank.

We will expect you to submit the following:

• A copy of the biographical page of your passport.
• Proof of funding that shows coverage for the University of Utah annual estimated expenses.
• Affidavit of support, if the proof of funding is not on your name.
• Home country address (foreign address) information, if not indicated on application.
• Phone number (if not indicated on application).
• U.S. address (only for students transferring from another U.S. university/school).
• Completed International Transfer Form with released SEVIS record (only for students transferring from another U.S. university/school).
• If you have any dependents, their passports and additional proof of funding of $6,000 USD per dependent.

• Your passport needs to be valid and current at the moment of I-20 issuance and must accurately reflect your name.
• If there are errors, please apply to your government to have them corrected before your I-20 is issued.

A foreign/home country address (an address outside of the U.S.) is required by SEVIS to be able to issue an I-20.

• This address will be used only for I-20 purposes and may differ from your mailing address.
• It cannot be a post office box or an organization’s address.

A U.S. address is required by SEVIS to be able to issue an I-20.

• This must be your US physical address.
• It cannot be a post office box or an organization’s address.
• If you have left the US, it can be where you lived before leaving or where you will be living when you return.

If the financial statement is not in the student’s name, the account holder will need to fill out and submit an affidavit of support.

The form must be completely filled out.

See the link for an affidavit of support here.

Students who will be receiving a government scholarship to study at the University of Utah do not need to submit an affidavit of support, if their scholarship fully covers academic and living expenses.

Filling out an affidavit of support:

• The name of the sponsor on the affidavit must match exactly the name on the bank statement.
  • It is also easier to identify the sponsor if the address stated on the affidavit of support matches the address on the bank statement.
• The sponsor is required to check or circle a correct semester (fall, spring or summer) and input the year when the student will begin studies at the University of Utah.
  • The term and the year are also indicated on an admission letter.
• There are two signature options at the bottom of the affidavit of support.
  • Signatures have to be hand-written, electronic signatures are not accepted. The sponsor needs to sign only one box (option 1 OR option 2) and put a date when the document was signed.
  • Option 1 in the signature section means the sponsor is willing to provide all funds on the bank statement towards your education.
  • Option 2 (partial responsibility) is chosen when a sponsor is willing to provide only a portion of their funds towards the student’s education.
  • The amount the sponsor is willing to share needs to be indicated.
  • The balance on the bank statement must be equal or higher than the amount indicated in the Option 2 box of the affidavit of support.

A complete copy of the biographical page of a student’s passport must be received by our office. This is the page that has the student’s full name and date of birth on it. Make sure the image is of a high enough resolution for our staff to read all of the information. Also, if any part of the passport image, such as the MRZ number code along the bottom of the page, is cropped out, obscured by a finger, or in a shadow, our staff will need to request a new copy.

The passport must be valid and current at the moment of I-20 issuance. The passport must accurately reflect a student’s name. Documents such as an expired visa, expired passport, or other forms of identification cannot be substituted for a valid passport.

SEVIS Transfer-in Form

This form is only required for students transferring their active SEVIS record directly from another U.S. institution to the University of Utah. The form can be found here.

The SEVIS Transfer-in Form is structured into two sections. The upper section requires completion by the student, while the lower section, which comprises the majority of the form, must be filled out by an International Student Advisor/DSO at the student’s current or previous educational institution (the institution that currently maintains the student’s SEVIS record).

Important details to remember about the SEVIS Transfer-in Form:

• Our office can only issue a student’s new I-20 after their SEVIS record has been released to the University of Utah.
• The International Student Advisor/DSO at the student’s current or former school completes the document and sends it directly to the U of U offices. The advisor can send the completed form to this email address: immigrationdocs@utah.edu
• The “Release Date” is a specific calendar date decided upon by the student and International Student Advisor/DSO together. This is the date that access to the student’s SEVIS record will shift from the current school to the University of Utah.
• Text signatures cannot be accepted. Only a hand-written or electronic digital scrawled signature can be accepted on this form. Only the signature of the International Student Advisor/DSO is required on the form.

Utah Asia Campus Transition Form

Students enrolled at the University of Utah’s Asia campus in Korea are expected to transfer to the main campus in Salt Lake City for their senior year of study. Before their final year, students will schedule a meeting with their academic advisor to complete the necessary paperwork. Once the advisor has submitted the form to our office, our staff will initiate the processing of the student’s file in order to issue them an I-20.

Certain information may have already been submitted by the student during their initial application. But, submitting all of the following information together in the body of an email submitted to the DSO team in the Office of Admissions after admission, provides a convenient single reference to which our DSO staff can refer. This streamlined approach expedites the review process of a student’s file and facilitates the prompt issuance of their I-20 form.

• Foreign address: An address (outside of the U.S.) in the same country as the student’s citizenship is required by SEVIS to be able to issue an I-20. This address will be used only for I-20 purposes and may differ from that student’s mailing address. It cannot be a post office box or an organization’s address.
• Phone number: A phone number is required to issue an I-20. It may be updated at any time.
• City of birth: This information is required during creation of the nonimmigrant SEVIS record.
• Dependents: A dependent is either a spouse or children under the age of 21. A student needs to confirm whether or not they will be requesting additional I-20 documents for any dependent F2 visas. If a student will be accompanied by and dependents, our office will need to receive copies of all of the dependents’ valid passports. In addition, the total estimated expenses for which a student must show available funding increases by an additional $6,000 in funding per dependent.
• U.S. address: (Only required for those already living in the U.S. or who recently were living in the U.S.) This is required by the SEVIS database in order to issue an I-20. This must be your U.S. physical address. It cannot be a post office box or an organization’s address. If a student recently left the U.S., it can be where they lived before leaving or where the student will be living when they return.

Submitting the Required Documents and Information

All of the above mentioned, required documents and information can be submitted to our office through email to the following email address:

immigrationdocs@utah.edu

The following are helpful tips and guidelines for when a student emails their documents and information to our office. Keeping these suggestions in mind can avoid delays in issuing a student their I-20:

• Attach all requested documents as .PDF files: Embedding an image or attaching a document as an image may result in delays as our staff have to reformat non-.PDF documents.
• Do not include different document types within the same .PDF: Documents such as passports, Affidavits of Support, or bank statements should be attached as separate documents. This also may result in delays when our staff has to separate documents before adding them to your file.
• Answer all of the information requests: Forgetting or skipping any of the requested information will cause delays as our staff will have to re-request any information not included in your reply.
• Check for follow-up requests often: After submitting materials, if additional information or updated documentation are found to be needed, these requests will be made through email. When an I-20 is issued, it will also be sent to the student as a .PDF attachment in an email.
• Documents older than 6 months cannot be used to issue an I-20: Delays in issuing a student their I-20 may take place if our office has to contact a student to request updated (more recent) documents.
• Only submit requested documents: The more unnecessary or duplicate documents submitted, the longer it will take to review a student’s file. Instead of submitting multiple types of bank statements, consider requesting a Consolidated Account Summary from a bank if possible.
• Please be patient: The issuance of a new I-20 may take several weeks after all immigration materials are received. Repeatedly emailing or calling into our office will divert our limited staff’s attention from processing submitted I-20 documents, to responding to requests for updates on files.

In order to receive an I-20 for your dependents, please notify the Office of Admissions about your decision and send us the following additional materials for each dependent:

• Proof of funding: $6,000 per person. Dependents are spouses and unmarried children younger than 21 years of age.
• Copy of the passport (biographical page only)
• If your dependents plan to enter the United States after your arrival to the University of Utah, you need to request an I-20 for each of them through the International Student and Scholar Services Office.