FAQ

Go to the Registrar website, Home->My registrar->Personal schedule. On this webpage, in the upper left corner, you will find Academic Info. There is information about your advisor(s).

The Academic Calendar contains all important dates of the semester/year. It is updated regularly. Please, visit the Registrar website under “Quick Links”, choose the academic year and NU Undergraduate.

It is a new module that became available in Fall 2020 for students at myRegistrar. It contains a list of forms like Retake, Transfer between Schools/Majors, Course Withdrawal, Leave of Absence etc.

Please, refer to the updated Manual on the Student Requests at the Registrar website–> on the left bottom corner -> Resources -> and in the list of available User Manuals, pick the most updated the Student Requests Form Manual where you find step by step instruction.

Please, read the document here.

Please, meet with your advisor to discuss your intentions. Before the meeting, you could inform yourself by reading the Regulations on Leave of Absence, Dismissal and Voluntary Withdrawal.

To graduate with a Bachelor’s degree within the four-year scholarship award, students are required to earn a minimum of 240 ECTS or as designated by each School.
Degree program requirements are usually updated every year, and may include changes.

These updates are published once a year in the Undergraduate handbook. Please, visit the Registrar website or Academic Advising Office website or the School website.

Undergraduate Core Curriculum Framework (UCCF) was designed to create common curricular elements that unite to deliver a common educational experience to all NU students, leaving an indelible NU brand and ensuring all of our undergraduates develop the knowledge, skills and attributes that will position them for future success. For more details and list of UCC courses please check your Academic Handbook.

Class Attendance

Students are expected to attend all classes in courses for which they are registered at the University.
Penalties, as set forth in relevant internal documents of the University, will be applied if attendance falls below that stated in course syllabi or Handbooks.
Students are required to be present at the beginning of the semester or term and to remain until the semester or term is completed (which includes final examinations).
Students who do not attend classes from the first day may be penalized or dropped from the class based on the relevant Handbook.
Students who exceed the maximum number of absences in the current and previous semester or term, as defined in the Handbook will not be eligible for University sponsored study abroad programs or other University sponsored events.
At the start of the semester or term, each instructor is responsible for informing students in the course documentation of the attendance policy, its impact on their learning opportunities and on their potential grade.
Faculty has the right to lower grades or initiate a drop/withdrawal from a course if there is a violation of the attendance policy.
Only the instructor may approve a student’s request to be absent from class.
In the event of a dispute, the matter may be reported to the Vice Dean of the School. The determination of the Vice Dean shall be final.

If you have the medical certificate from other medical organizations, you should verify it to have an excuse for absence. To do that you need to send a high-quality (with good resolution) image of the certificate to: uhc.reception@nu.edu.kz and oh-students@nu.edu.kz. Image of spravka must have good resolution so UHC can read stamps and the following details that should be stated in the email.

Email subject should be: Student’s name_School_Year_Spravka.

Please, indicate the following information: city, name of the clinic, contacts, name of the doctor and his/her contacts, your contact, ID and IIN.

Academic Standing and GPA

A student having a CGPA and GPA of a 2.00 or above is considered to be in Good Academic Standing.

The Cumulative GPA (CGPA) is computed by dividing the total cumulative grade points by the total graded credits attempted for courses taken in residence at NU. Grade points are calculated by multiplying the number of credits by the numeric value of the grade for each course. The sum of the grade points is then divided by the total graded credits attempted. The total graded credits attempted, not the credits earned toward graduation, are used in computing the GPA. Login into MyRegistrar -> choose GPA Calculator module.

For more details, please refer to the Registrar’s website -> Undergraduate Students -> Grades & GPA

Students who have GPA 2.33 and above receive stipend and increased stipend for GPA 3.67 and above.

Every semester the Dean’s list recognizes students who achieved a 3.75 GPA or higher. This award will be posted on the student transcript at the end of any semester in which this is awarded.

A student with 3 (three) or more NS grades is placed on Academic Warning after the mid-term status reports are submitted. This status warns the student that he/she is at risk of being placed on academic probation at the end of the semester. Notification of Academic Warning will be sent by the Office to the student, the School’s Vice Dean and the student’s advisor. The student will be advised to limit his/her social activities during this period and may not be considered for University sponsored travel.

A student who fails to satisfy conditions for Good Academic Standing (GPA 2.00) at the end of Fall and Spring semesters, will be placed on Academic Probation. Students who are progressed on a conditional basis are required to achieve a GPA of 2.00 or above during their first semester as a student. Under no circumstances may a student be on Academic Probation more than 2 (two) consecutive semesters or for more than 3 (three) semesters in total.

Grades received at the end of Summer term will not affect a student’s academic standing, unless it is their final term of study.

The AAO offers the Academic Probation Support Program for students in need.

Major/Minor

It is a very important decision that you have to make during your student life. You can always make an appointment with your Advisor to discuss the choice of the major. Some general questions to ask yourself:

What are your interests?
What are you good at?
What subjects/hobbies/services have you really enjoyed studying/doing?
What kind of future career path are you considering?
Read through the program of your potential major in your Academic Handbook. You can find a list of required courses and a recommended 4-year schedule of classes.

Check out the AAO Youtube Channel with many videos from Major Month, where current NU students share their experiences on how they made their decisions.

Rules governing the declaration of a student’s minor will be made by each School and specified in the Academic Handbook. Check your Handbook for available minors and their course requirements. Minors must be declared by the end of the first semester of the student’s 4th year. Please, remember minors do not provide priorities for registration.

A double major is a program of study that meets the requirements of two distinct majors in a single Bachelor’s degree. A double major may only consist of two fields of study. Only one program will be considered as primary. Please, remember double majors do not provide priorities for registration.

Course Registration

The “Course registration” module is where students register for courses online. For more details, follow the instructions provided in:

How to register for courses online? Watch the tutorial

How to understand the registration requirements (priorities and requisites)? Watch the tutorial

How to interpret the notations and terms in the course schedule by Schools? Watch the tutorial

For general inquiries, please write to registrar@nu.edu.kz. For specific questions about Schedule, Registration, Retake issues, Transfer of credits, and Transfer between Schools and Majors, please write to schedule-registrar@nu.edu.kz

Some courses have registration priorities which open registration only for a specific group of students. Priorities are based on School/year of study/major. For students outside of the current priority, such courses will be marked in red in the “Course registration” module.

Prerequisite – course required to be taken prior registration and then graded not less than passing grade. In some cases it can be replaced with special requirements (if listed) such as department placement test, high score in related CPS course, etc.

Corequisite – course which should be taken concurrently (or prior) registration. If the corequisite was taken before then it has to be graded not less than corequisite passing grade.

Antirequisite – equivalent or advanced course taken before that forbids registration for the course.

Passing grade – grade established for each type of requisite within one School.

First priority – category of students who can register first. Second priority – category of students who register after first priority category. Blank(not defined) priority – course is open for all students.

List of priorities and requisites is available under the “Quick links” section on registrar.nu.edu.kz -> Course list with requirements

Please, visit the Registrar website -> Course schedule by Schools

There is a Waiting list (WL) option available for those courses which are fully occupied. If the course capacity is full and has a WL, a student can register for the WL the same way as for a regular course. If somebody drops the course, the first student on the WL will be automatically registered for the course. A corresponding email will be sent to the student.

Consult with your advisor and refer to the relevant section of your Academic Handbook on course requirements by Schools.

The updates to the list of Social Science and Humanities electives have been made and come into force strating from Spring’21. The list of electives can be found in Academic Handbook.

Technical electives differ depending on your major. For this information, please refer to your Academic Handbook.

NOTE, that these requirements should be completed outside of your major. For example, an ANT student should choose ECON, PLS or SOC, etc. courses to fulfil Social Sciences elective requirements.

NU does not provide any priority for double major/minor requirement courses. Given that minor declaration is optional, it is the student’s responsibility to build their schedule based on major and minor requirements.

Registration for the Kazakh language courses is based on student’s language level verified by the Kazakh Language and Turkic Studies department at SSH. For any questions, please contact the Kazakh language department coordinator Aidar Balabekov at aidar.balabekov@nu.edu.kz

Click the “Send to advisor” button only if your schedule is complete. Please, note that your schedule has to be approved until the end of Add period.

Please wait–when your schedule is approved/rejected, you will receive an automatic notification by email. If you don’t receive any email, please contact your advisor.

Make adjustments in your schedule taking into consideration the rejection statement from your advisor.

Contact your advisor to remove a hold from your registration.

Maximum credits to be enrolled – 36 ECTS

Minimum credits to be enrolled – 24 ECTS

Under exceptional circumstances, a student may be permitted to enroll for fewer than 24 ECTS credits or more than 36 ECTS credits if received written permission from the Dean of their School and from the Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs.

In summer term students are allowed to take maximum TWO courses (up to 16 ECTS). If you are doing an internship, then only one course for registration is allowed.

Go to My Registrar and “Course registration” module, which is available during the registration period. Then “Go to the selected courses”. Add courses by choosing appropriate time-slots and clicking on the “register” button. If you want to drop the course, simply click on the “X” in the right corner of the course block.

An administrative drop occurs when a student has failed to attend the first week of any class for which they have completed registration and appear on the class roster. This process is initiated by the appropriate School to which this course belongs.

All dates and deadlines are listed in the Academic Calendar at the Registrar website under “Quick Links”, choose the academic year and NU Undergraduate.

No courses can be added after the Add period.

After Drop period there is a Withdrawal period when dropping the course is called Withdrawal. It differs from the simple drop since it records a “W” note in your transcript.

A student may withdraw from a course prior to the Withdrawal deadline as stated in the official Academic Calendar. A “W” appears on the transcript when a course is withdrawn. A “W” does not affect the GPA or CGPA.

To do so, meet your Advisor first to discuss your options. Then, go to My Registrar -> Student Requests -> Course Withdrawal Form.

There is no limit on how many courses a student can withdraw , unless a student maintains minimum credits per semester (minimum 24 ECTS). BUT, a student will not be allowed to withdraw from a course in which he/she has taken a grade of “W” in a previous semester.

Any student who receives a grade that would prevent academic progress in their program of study may retake that course. There is no limit to the number of times a student may retake a course, or the number of eligible courses for which retakes are permitted.

All attempts will remain in the student record and on the transcript, and will be counted towards semester’s GPA, semester CGPA, semester earned credits, semester attempted credits and total attempted credits. Only the last retake will be counted in the final CGPA and total earned credits.

Major declaration/confirmation

The student should meet the requirements according to the handbook after the first 2 semesters. The students provide information that they meet the requirements. Then after checking student major changes in the system.
If the student doesn’t meet the requirements, he/she can retake the courses in the summer semester and declare after the summer semester of the first year.

The student should meet the requirements according to the handbook. No actions are needed from the students. Students will be automatically transferred to Undeclared SSH if they don’t meet the requirements. In other cases, nothing changes.

The students are required to confirm their majors after the first 2 semesters. If the students don’t meet the requirements, they can retake the courses in the summer semester and confirm after the summer semester of the first year.

The student will remain as an Undeclared SSH student.

At the end of the spring semester email with all instructions about the procedure will be sent. Students fill in their grades in the form first. Then, all information will be checked by AAO and SSH. The list of students who meet the requirements will be provided to the OR. Finally, OR will change student information in the system.

After major declaration, a student can change a major through a transfer to that Major.

All requirements for Major declaration are written in the Handbook. Academic Handbook can be found on the AAO websitehttps://aao.nu.edu.kz/-> NU learning journey-> Academic Handbook

There are no restrictions on changing majors multiple times. But, a student should note that they might not be able to graduate in 4 years.

After the Major declaration, a student will get priorities according to the Major. It will increase the chances of having 1st priority for core courses.

If a student doesn’t declare/confirm the major after the first academic year, a student will be transferred to Undeclared SSH. It will affect the priorities during the registration. Also, the requirements to declare/confirm increase after each semester. It may result in dismissal from the University.

Transfer

To transfer from one major to another, a student must satisfy the transfer requirements of the department he/she is applying. Once the transfer requirements are completed, he/she needs to submit a transfer between majors/schools form via my registrar.
Please talk to your academic advisor to discuss a potential transfer.

In order to transfer to another major, students have to meet certain requirements.
First, for a transfer between schools, a student must not be on academic probation, i.e. remain in good academic standing.
Second, if you are a first-year student thinking of transferring to another school, the transfer between schools is possible only after the completion of the 1st year of studies. Students in the 2nd year or higher can transfer between schools as soon as they complete the transfer requirements.
Third, a student needs to satisfy the transfer requirements of the department s/he is willing to transfer. Please check the academic handbook to clarify the transfer requirements and meet your academic advisor to discuss your potential transfer.

It depends on the Major. Usually, they will be counted as General electives. You can check it in the Academic Handbook. Please consult with your academic advisor regarding the transfer of credits.

There are no limitations on the number of transfers. Transferring to another major later in a semester may pose challenges like falling behind the course load for a major you are transferring to.

There are certain time restrictions on a transfer period for first-year students. Students can transfer between schools only after the completion of the 1st year and if they satisfy the transfer requirements, though, there are some exceptions as well. If you are a first-year SEDS Engineering (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, or Chemical), SMG, or SSH Science (Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry) student, you can change your major within your school to another Engineering/SMG/SSH undeclared major of your school, respectively, after the Fall semester of your 1st year.
For students in their 2nd year or higher, there are no exact time restrictions, though, a student must remember that transferring to another major later in a semester can pose challenges like falling behind the course load for a major you are transferring to.
First-year students of other majors can change their majors after the spring term. Second-year students can change majors after the Fall semester if they close all the requirements.

It is recommended to meet your academic advisor to discuss a potential transfer to make sure you understand the transfer requirements and are aware of transfer details.

Dismissal

You will receive an email if you are subjected to dismissal. In the email, the deadline for appealing a dismissal decision will be written. You have to reply to the email and attach an explanatory letter. The explanatory letter will be reviewed by the Vice Dean, the Dean.

The reasons for dismissal can be academic, disciplinary, financial, and other. Detailed information can be found in the Regulations on Leave of Absence, Dismissal and Voluntary Withdrawal for students of Nazarbayev University can be found on the NU regulations website.

The dismissal procedures involve a multi-step process. Initially, the Dean reviews academic progress and relevant documentation, with dismissals based on financial obligations being communicated by the Bursar's Office. The Dean approves the list of recommended dismissals, and the School notifies students via email. Students can appeal within five days, and if not submitted, the dismissal proceeds. The Dean then recommends dismissal to the President, with all recommendations requiring evidence and documentation. The Office coordinates communication with the student and family, and after a review, the Provost and President make final decisions. The President's decision is considered final, and in certain cases, the student may be allowed to withdraw. The process concludes with the distribution of the decision and the release of the student's original documents. Dismissals based on specific grounds follow the Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.
Detailed information can be found in the Regulations on Leave of Absence, Dismissal and Voluntary Withdrawal for students of the Nazarbayev University can be found on the NU regulations website.

It may take 2 weeks or up to 1 month from the moment the final decision is made.

Former students dismissed on disciplinary grounds shall not be considered for the Re-admission.
Recently withdrawn or dismissed former students can apply for Readmission only after one year since the withdrawal/dismissal Decision.
If the former student has been out of the University for 2 (two) years or more, they have to pass English Proficiency test requirements defined by admissions criteria applicable for that year.
Re-admitted former students will study on a fee-paying basis.
Directly re-admitted students may be considered to be awarded for a grant or any financial support according to the internal documents of the University.
During Re-admission, former students can apply to any UG program, even if it is different from their previous one.
Former students can apply for Re-admission to start classes at the beginning of any Semester or Term.
Former students need to submit the documents for Re-admission a minimum of 3 (three) months before the start of the Semester or Term they are planning to be back.

OR
Former students dismissed on disciplinary grounds shall not be considered for the Re-admission. All other information can be found Regulations on Re-admission of the Undergraduate students of the Nazarbayev University on the NU regulations website.

Disciplinary dismissal may occur due to reasons such as unauthorized absence from the first week of classes, failure to attend the mandatory orientation session, insufficient class attendance, violation of the Student Code of Conduct, intentional submission of false documents during admission, and failure to return from a Leave of Absence within the specified timeframe without certified justification.
Detailed information can be found in the Regulations on Leave of Absence, Dismissal and Voluntary Withdrawal for students of the Nazarbayev University can be found on the NU regulations website.

You have to check the email from the school. If it says to wait, then wait for the school's final decision. If you receive a message with the final decision, you have a chance to appeal within 5 working days.

Additional Support Services

Please, refer to Career Advising Center CAC for the future career perspectives, internship and other career opportunities. You can also make an appointment with the CAC manager for the personal consultancy.

Also, our Peer Advisors had a series of webinars where current NU students are sharing their Internships, Research, NU Student life and external academic experiences. How to find and where to look for such opportunities? Check out MentorCon Videos

Joining a student club or organization is a great way to make new friends and expand your network. Please check out the list of Student Clubs and contact those you might be interested about. For joining student clubs or learn about extracurricular activities for students at the university, please refer to the Student Portal (my.nu.edu.kz) or send an email to studentevents@nu.edu.kz or student.affairs@nu.edu.kz.

Health and Wellness Center helps students to reach a state of positive mental health. It provides a safe and confidential environment to help students to discover any issues that may interfere with their well-being, happiness, or effectiveness. Commonly addressed concerns include but are not limited to relationships, stress, self-esteem, body image, sexuality, anxiety, and depression.

Please check Other useful contacts on our website.

Email us

For further questions, visit your Advisor or email us at aao@nu.edu.kz

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If you have any questions please let us know via email. Send us your request at aao@nu.edu.kz
For further clarifications and concerns, you may visit our FAQs page on our website