Graduate Nostrification Instructions

Completing nostrification is strongly recommended, especially if you plan to continue studying or working in Europe in the future, or are a Czech citizen. If you do not complete nostrification, and consequently do not enrol in the Czech accreditation of your programme (so you study the American accreditation only), you are not entitled to any of the benefits listed above (you cannot get a student visa, you cannot work with “other” visa, you cannot go on Erasmus or get an accommodation scholarship, you will get only a US diploma upon graduation, you cannot get a job-searching visa after graduation; if you are Czech, you do not have a student status and insurance paid by the state).

As such, completing nostrification is voluntary. You can choose to study in the American accreditation only. It is not obligatory to be enrolled in the Czech accreditation of your program at AAU.

However, it is obligatory to obtain the nostrification certificate if you want to be enrolled in the Czech-accredited program and do not have an automatically recognized diploma (see the question below). Without submitting the nostrification certificate (a result of nostrification), you cannot be enrolled in the Czech accreditation.

You do not need to be in the Czech Republic to start working on your nostrification. Incoming and some continuing students (who started in the Spring 2021 semester and later) have the option to give power of attorney to AAU’s Nostrification Specialist who receives their documents prepared for nostrification, submits their application, communicates with the authorities on their behalf, receives mail and decisions on their behalf, and can comment on the decisions made by the authorities and obtain additional information. You can also use a private professional company (we recommend working with Foreigners) or give power of attorney to a friend or family member residing in the Czech Republic. Graduate students doing nostrification of their bachelor degree may also mail their application and documents to the deciding authority (university).

AAU is a private university, and as such, is not allowed to provide internal (institutional) nostrification. Therefore, AAU students pursuing nostrification must do the process externally. Their application is submitted to a deciding authority (a state university) in the Czech Republic, and the deciding authority makes the official decision. The appeal institution is the Ministry of Education. No part of the process takes place at, or is organised or by AAU; nor has AAU a say in an individual’s application process or any decision made by the deciding authority. If you have given the power of attorney to an AAU representative, they can comment on any decisions and attempt to influence it, but the final say is always up to the official deciding authority. AAU’s Nostrification Specialist, however, is available to help you navigate and assist with the process step by step, so it is as smooth as possible.

No, you are free to do nostrification on your own, either completely, or with the Nostrification Specialist’s consultation. You can also use a private professional company (we recommend working with Foreigners), whether you are abroad or already in the Czech Republic. For students in their first semesters or incoming students, it is beneficial to work with AAU on nostrification, as in that case you do not need to prepare two separate sets of authenticated documents (one to submit to AAU to complete the admission process in the American accreditation, and another one to submit officially for nostrification to the deciding authority). To complete AAU’s admission process in the American accreditation, you are asked to submit an authenticated diploma and transcript/diploma supplement. If you do nostrification independently, please keep in mind that you need to provide the authenticated documents to AAU first (we can copy them) before you use them for nostrification, or you need to obtain two sets of authenticated documents, for each accreditation’s admission process separately.

No, there is no difference. The classes you take and the content of your program are the same, whether you study in the American accreditation of your program, or in the Czech and American accreditation. To graduate, you will take state exams at the end of your studies. The difference is the way you are viewed as a student by Czech law. If studying in both accreditations, you hold a full-time university student status in the Czech Republic, in the sense of continuous preparation for future professions (official student status determined by Czech law). If you study in the American accredited program, you are registered as a life-long learning student, not a university student in an accredited program.

There are costs connected with nostrification. Some of them are flexible and some fixed. Below are estimated costs for the steps in the nostrification process. 

Fixed: 

➢ Graduate nostrification administrative fee payable to the deciding state university: 3000 CZK

Flexible: 

➢ Costs connected with authentication of documents (fees payable to the authorities who provide legalization of documents abroad or in the Czech Republic). 

➢ Translation costs – your documents may have to be officially translated to Czech (by a Czech court-certified translator or with help and verification of a Czech Embassy) or English by a certified translator; the price is set by the provider of the translation and differs. 

➢ Other possible costs: You may have to pay for notarized copies in order not to lose originals. 

If you haven’t done so before the start of your first semester, you will have to complete admission requirements in the American accreditation. Your admission is only conditional until you submit authenticated hardcopies of your admission documents. You have one semester to do it, failure to do so will mean termination of your studies. You are required to submit authenticated hardcopies of documents (bachelor diploma and transcript/diploma supplement) to AAU. The required type of authentication or legalization is determined by the AAU’s Admission Policy, depending on the country in which the document was issued.

It is also best to email your decision not to pursue nostrification to nostrification@aauni.edu.

If you are admitted to AAU in the American accreditation first, before completing nostrification and being admitted to the Czech accreditation, you are eligible to apply for a long-term visa (if possible, longterm residence permit) for the purpose of “other” (in Czech “účel pobytu studium-ostatní”, ostatní means other). You can only apply for a long-term visa or long-term residence permit for the purpose of STUDY after you complete nostrification and you are officially admitted to a Czech-accredited program.

Most AAU students arrive in the Czech Republic with a visa for the purpose of OTHER. When the visa is about to expire, you will most likely apply for a residence permit (=visa extension) at the Ministry of the Interior. If you are enrolled in a Czech accreditation (after completing nostrification) by then, you apply for a residence permit for the purpose of STUDY. If not, you continue with the purpose of OTHER and apply for a change of purpose of your residence permit to STUDY afterwards, when you complete nostrification and enroll in the Czech accreditation. 

Giving power of attorney is an offer for AAU students having started studies in Spring 2021 or later. The power of attorney enables the AAU representative to act on the behalf of the student only in acts specified in the document. It is meant to make the process easier for students because of the communication in Czech. In general, by giving power of attorney to an AAU representative, you authorise them to do the following in your place: submit your application, receive information about your application in person, in writing, via phone, comment on and provide additional information, submit additional documents, make requests (such as to withdraw the application), receive mail and email communication on your behalf. It does not mean that the AAU representative will collect, legalise and translate required documents for you, although we offer extensive assistance with these tasks.

An apostille is a hardcopy paper certificate attached to a document it is supposed to verify, certifying a signature on the document. It is the required type of document authentication/legalisation for any public documents issued in the USA and many other countries (you can see the full list here), so you can use them in the Czech Republic. If you see the country that issued the document on the link above, you must have your diploma and occasionally transcript authenticated by an apostille, otherwise it is not considered valid for official purposes in the Czech Republic. You can only get the apostille certificate in the country that issued the document, not in the Czech Republic. Your citizenship is irrelevant. In an ideal situation, the apostille office (which are various state institutions , such as Ministries of Foreign Affairs or Justice, or Secretaries of State) issues the apostille for the original document, and the apostille verifies a signature of someone who originally signed the document (the school’s principal, for example, or a school counsellor, if they signed a copy). This is preferred, and, according to Czech authorities, the only proper way of apostille authentication. If you are worried about losing your original document when you submit it for nostrification, a certified copy of the apostilled original can be arranged prior to submitting the application.

➢ In the USA, the apostille authority can appoint a third party to verify the document’s origin, usually a notary public. This usually means that you will be asked to notarize the document first. The notary can sign the original document, or its copy. Then the apostille verifies a notary’s signature on the document.

➢ IMPORTANT: The notary must be the one who certifies that the original document or its copy is true and correct. Czech authorities WILL NOT accept notarised documents where it is in any form stated or even insinuated that anyone else claims the original or its copy as true and correct (such as you, your parent, anyone from the school’s administration who is not a notary). No affidavits or statements on document’s truthfulness by anyone who’s not a notary will be accepted (even if the notary verifies their identity; they are not the notary and they don’t have the authority).

Any translation of a document is to be done after its authentication. An apostille attached to, or verifying a translation, will not be accepted. Please note that while the apostille is the most common type of document legalisation for students at AAU, some documents will not require it, as they will be legalised differently (by a notary only, or by a Czech Embassy in case of so-called superlegalization). It always depends on the country that issued the diploma/transcript, or on the requirements of the deciding university.

The Czech law says that only education from state-recognized schools is eligible for nostrification. In graduate nostrification, sometimes are asked to prove that your undergraduate university is a state-recognized institution, but only in cases where it’s not possible for the deciding authority to verify it themselves. In case it is required, you need to submit a proof that the university that issued your bachelor diploma is part of the educational system of the country under which law it has been issued, that it’s recognized by the country/state. The Czech authorities are not looking for accreditation, but for the fact that the university is part of the educational system of the state, that it is accredited by the Ministry of Education or similar. That is why in most cases you need a confirmation directly from the Ministry or State Department of Education to prove that the university is integrated in the country’s educational system. However, this is requested only in rare cases after application has been submitted. 

No. When you hand in your nostrification documents to the Nostrification Specialist, they can make copies from your verified documents and share them with AAU colleagues, so you can be fully admitted in the American-accredited studies. But in terms of nostrification, there are several more steps to take, namely submit the actual application,

receive a decision about your application made by the authorities, and receive the nostrification certificate. Nostrification is completed only once the nostrification certificate is delivered to you or your representative.

No. There are several more steps to take, namely receive a decision about your application made by the authorities, receive the nostrification certificate. Nostrification is completed only once the nostrification certificate is delivered to you or your representative.

The authorities have officially 30-60 days to make a decision. However, they can take longer to issue a decision, when the case requires special attention, or when they have a large number of applications. It is not in the power of the applicant, their power of attorney representative, or AAU, to influence the decision issuance, although it is possible to enquire about it in the meantime.

No, there are no exams in graduate nostrification.

This is very individual and it depends on several factors. We recommend asking the Nostrification Specialist to find out what specifically your nostrification deadline is. In general, if you are an incoming student first enrolled in the American accreditation only, your nostrification deadline is the end of your second semester. In any other case, please consult the Nostrification Specialist. However, in any case, you must complete nostrification and submit the recognition certificate to AAU before you take the state exams. Once you graduate in the American accreditation, AAU will not accept the recognition certificate retrospectively. 

It depends on what is meant by later. Nostrification must be completed by the end of your deadline, in special approved cases the deadline can be extended. Completed nostrification means you have received the nostrification certificate. To receive enrollment in the Czechaccredited program, your certificate must be submitted to AAU. You can apply for nostrification at any point of your life after you have completed the given level of education you want recognized, that is not limited. However, you cannot submit a nostrification or recognition certificate to AAU after you have graduated from AAU in the program for which you needed nostrification. You cannot be enrolled in the Czech-accredited program retrospectively. You must complete nostrification and submit the certificate to AAU before you graduate at the latest (if not by the original deadline, only in special approved cases, as explained above), in order to be enrolled in the Czech-accredited program and graduate with a dual Czech and American diploma.

Please email nostrification@aauni.edu with any questions that are not answered by this FAQ.