Making course changes

Important information for College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) Visiting Students on a Study Abroad/Exchange programme about making course changes and the CAHSS Course Change Request Form.

Deadlines for 2026/27 Academic Year

The course change deadlines below are for the 2026/27 academic year 

Students have until the end of Teaching Week 2 in each semester to add or drop courses:

  • Full-Year and Semester 1 courses: 12 pm (noon) on Friday 2 October 2026
  • Semester 2 courses: 12 pm (noon) on Friday 22 January 2027

Important information regarding course requests and enrolments

We will not be enrolling CAHSS visiting student applicants in any courses until August, even those who have been made an offer of study. This is because course availability for each academic year is not confirmed until the summer.

All students who have been made an offer for a programme beginning in September 2026 (Semester 1 and Full Year programmes) will receive an email communication in May explaining how and when to request courses for the coming academic year. Applicants for a programme beginning in January 2027 will be contacted in November 2026.

We will begin accepting requests for courses in July for Semester 1 courses starting in September, and November for Semester 2 courses starting in January. Your initial enrolments will be confirmed in August and December respectively. You will then be able to submit further requests to change courses if you wish, before the final course enrolment deadlines listed above.

In the meantime, students are encouraged to review the Visiting Student Course Finder for an idea of the type of courses that will be available, as well as pre-requisites and any restrictions to enrolment. The Visiting Student Course Finder will be updated for 2026/27 by June 2026. 

Course enrolment guidance for visiting students

This information is only for incoming undergraduate visiting students on a Study Abroad/Exchange programme based in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), or alternatively a College of Science and Engineering (CSE) visiting student requesting a course within CAHSS. 

  • There is no guarantee of receiving a place in a specific course, regardless of your major or exchange agreement. This is especially true for any course within one of our popular subject areas listed below. 
  • You will only be enrolled to courses for which you meet the academic pre-requisites and the English language requirements.  You can find the specific requirements of a course on the Course Finder.
  • Visiting Students must be enrolled on a full course load of 60 credits per semester (120 credits per academic year) unless their home university has approved a reduced course load of 40 credits. This means that if you are enrolled in 60 credits, you will be required to remove course(s) from your enrolments to add additional courses.
  • You should check the course timetable before you make a course change request.  You can use the Course Timetable Browser to build a timetable and see which courses fit together timetable wise. However, please be aware that not all courses shown on this website are available to visiting students. 
  • If there are several tutorial group options for a course, you will be automatically allocated to a tutorial group that will fit with your timetable by the Timetabling Department. This allocation will take place at the start of the semester.
  • For subject specific exchange students, you are expected to take two-thirds of your credits within the relevant subject area of your exchange agreement.  If your course change request does not meet the terms of your exchange agreement, we may have to refuse your request.
  • This form cannot be used to request to audit a course. 

 

We do our best to ensure that students are allocated their preferred course choices, but sometimes this is not possible.

The subject areas listed below cannot guarantee access to visiting students who are not on a direct exchange in the subject area, either because these subjects are very popular courses (with limited capacity & strict pre-requisites), or because they have limited study options available for visiting students.  

Enrolment will be subject to availability and availability of specific courses cannot be guaranteed.

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences:

  • Archaeology
  • Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Architectural History
  • Art
  • Celtic and Scottish Studies
  • Classics
  • Design
  • Divinity
  • Economics
  • Education
  • EFI Courses
  • English Literature
  • Health
  • History
  • History of Art
  • Law
  • Languages
  • Music
  • Nursing
  • Philosophy
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Psychology
  • Sociology and Social Policy
  • Sport Science

As spaces are limited on these courses, most students will be limited to pre-enrol for one or two courses only (depending on the subject and depending on your exchange agreement) and invited to fill any remaining spaces on a first-come, first-served basis once the relevant semester starts.


Any courses you requested in your application will be deleted when your offer is made. You will not be able to see any courses in your Applicant Hub after you have received an offer.

Instead, you will be able to view any courses you are enrolled in via your Student Hub on MyEd. This record will not be created until around six weeks before the semester starts. Instructions on how to view your course enrolments via your Student Hub on MyEd is available in our guide:  


The course change form is not current available. We will update this section in summer. 


The course change form is not current available. We will update this section in summer. 


Auditing is a process where students take an extra course, in addition to their normal course load, for no credit.  They would be enrolled in the course as 'Class Only'.  Students at the University of Edinburgh generally do not audit courses, so it is often not possible to do so.

Not all subject areas allow auditing. If you wish to seek permission to audit a course, you must contact the Visiting Student Office directly (CAHSSVisitingStudents@ed.ac.uk) after the start of the semester.  

Please bear in mind the following:

  • You must enrol in a full courseload (60 credits per semester) aside from your audited course.

  • You cannot audit more than one 20-credit course per semester.

  • Your audited course will not show on your UoE transcript, and you will get no credit or grade for it.

  • You cannot audit any course that you are not academically qualified to take, that is unavailable to visiting students, or that is already full.  


If you would like us to re-evaluate your eligibility or have any questions about the courses you can take, please email us at CAHSSVisitingStudents@ed.ac.uk.

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