Advisors, Supervisors & Department Chairs
International Students
What you do and say can make the difference between students being able to do what they came here for successfully or worry over falling out of visa status and becoming deportable, which can negatively impact their performance and their lives. All of our forms are fillable PDF documents. Please complete any form before printing it out, to ensure legibility.
J-1 Interns
Departments inviting students from foreign universities to intern at WVU should submit the following documents, along with a copy of the invitation letter, statement of financial support and the candidate’s passport to karen.bird@mail.wvu.edu Interns may not enroll in classes and the internship may not exceed 12 months.
- Student Internship Regulation
- Request for J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa - Document DS-2019
- Internship Form - Document DS-7002
Maintain Visa status:
Students in F-1 visa status MUST be registered full-time during the academic year (Fall and Spring semesters; graduate students require 9 credit/hours, undergraduate students require 12 credit/hours). IF a student is in their last semester and needs less than the required number of credit/hours to graduate, or is finishing up their thesis/dissertation/problem report, THEN you may recommend that we give them permission to register less than full time using our form.
If the I-20 expires, the student will be out of visa status and deportable. You may file for an extension using this form:
Curricular Practical Training (CPT)
Curricular Practical Training must be directly related to a specific academic course and is to be used BEFORE completion of the academic program. There is no time limit, but 1 year or more of CPT makes the student ineligible for OPT. We have created a chart delineating the differences between CPT & OPT. Remember, CPT is NOT a jump-start for OPT.
Optional Practical Training (OPT)
Students may engage in one year of employment anywhere in the U.S., directly related to the student’s major area of study. It may be used before completion of the academic program (part-time during the academic year, full-time during breaks including summer), but is usually used full-time following completion of studies.
