Undergraduate 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.

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 (the regional Department of Education) in the Czech Republic, and the deciding authority makes the official decision. When the applicant is ordered to take an exam, the exam takes place at a high school appointed by the deciding authority. 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:

➢ Undergraduate nostrification administrative fee payable to a regional Department of Education: 1000 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 will have to be officially translated to Czech (by a Czech courtcertified translator or with help and verification of a Czech Embassy); the price is set by the provider of the translation and differs.

➢ Costs connected with interpreters’ fees (if the applicant needs to take an exam and does not speak Czech). A Czech court-certified interpreter can charge anything between 1000 – 3000 CZK per one exam. However, this fee is not considered as fixed because it is never known in advance how many exams, and if any the applicant will be asked to take, so you may not need to pay this at all.

➢ Travel costs – you may have to travel for your exams outside of Prague if you apply at a regional office.

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

Reimbursement: As part of our continuous efforts to support students undertaking nostrification, AAU offers a partial reimbursement of costs directly connected to that process for those students who successfully complete it. Some costs (such as the administrative fee payable to the authorities) can be reimbursed in full, while other costs (namely, those for translation, exam interpreting, and other selected items) can be reimbursed partially.  Details can be accessed on AAUNet, once you have your login credentials, or will be shared on an individual basis.

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. If you are asked to take an exam, it must be taken by you in person and no one can take it on your behalf. It also 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.

Every school has information on the instructional hours of their students, even if they calculate in credits. The reluctance to prepare the required document for you is often caused by time constraints or unwillingness, not by lack of information. In this case, you can forward your school contact to the AAU Nostrification Specialist and she can get in touch with your high school on your behalf to help prepare the documents for you.

The Czech law says that only education from state-recognized schools is eligible for nostrification. This means that you need to prove that the institution that issued your high school 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. Sometimes, this is referred to as the school being accredited. However, accreditation, especially in the US, is often private and is given to schools based on some specific criteria or achievement, it does not prove what the Czech authorities are looking for. The Czech authorities are not

looking for accreditation, but for the fact that the high school is part of the educational system of the state. That is why in most cases you need a confirmation directly from the Ministry or State Department of Education to prove that the school is integrated in the country’s educational system. Only if the diploma is issued directly by the Education Office (Ministry of Education for example) or signed by a representative of the Education Office, then you don’t need to prove this. You can see examples here.

No. Nostrification is recognition of the previous level of education than the one you are going to study at AAU. When you apply for recognition of your high school education, only classes taken at and/or counted towards your high school education will be considered. College or previous university classes can be transferred to AAU under certain conditions, but they are not supposed to be counted toward nostrification. Similarly, no classes you take at AAU can be used towards recognition of your previous education (nostrification is recognition of previous level of education so your major is irrelevant). High school in the Czech Republic comprises grade 10 to grade 13, and lower grades are still considered elementary school. It is likely only classes and study hours from these grades that will be considered for nostrification. Always consult the nostrification specialist when in doubt.

For nostrification of high school education, all documents must be in Czech or translated to Czech by a certified translator. This is because nostrification is an official process taking place at an official state institution, and Czech is the only official language of the Czech Republic. Certified translation of documents (by a Czech court-certified translator, or with a Czech Embassy’s verification) is necessary for all official processes (a visa process, for example).

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, take and pass an exam if necessary, 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, take and pass an exam if necessary, 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.

This depends on the authorities and how similar your education is to the Czech high school education. Don’t forget that nostrification is about comparison of education and finding a match, so your education can be considered equivalent to Czech. If the authorities decide that your education does not differ much from the compulsory school curriculum of the Czech student and profile of a Czech high school graduate, and they recognize your studies as equal to Czech right away, then you do not need to take any exam. If your education is lacking a subject that is compulsory for a Czech student, or you do not have a comparable number of hours in a subject, then you need to prove you have the knowledge by taking an exam. This may sometimes mean that you will be asked to prove your high school knowledge of a subject you studied very little or not at all. The minimum is one subject, the maximum is five. There is no grade to achieve, the exam is taken on a pass/fail basis. In most cases, it is impossible to predict in advance if an exam will be ordered. They are common, so count on the possibility of the exam. If you do not have to do one in the end, you will be pleasantly surprised.

The authorities are not only looking at the fact you took the subject, but also how many hours you studied it for. If the number of hours is too small in comparison with the Czech high school curriculum, then you will still be asked to prove your knowledge by taking an exam in that subject.

AAU does not provide tutoring for nostrification exams, however, we are working on providing study materials. Currently provided study materials are to be found on AAUNet.

You will be provided with a list of questions in English that you can be asked about for each subject, so you will know roughly what you need to prepare for, what kind of knowledge you will need to demonstrate. These lists of topics for each subject are published by high schools which are assigned to conduct the exam. AAU can help you find a tutor; the arrangement of the lessons, payment and any details are then up to you to set up with the tutor.

Yes, it is completely in Czech. The nostrification exam is a part of an official process and Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic. That’s why you have to hire a court-certified interpreter to assist you during the exam (the interpreter must be licensed by the Czech court, you cannot take a friend). If you are pursuing nostrification via AAU’s Nostrification Specialist and you confirm your exam date, we will book an interpreter for you unless you inform us in advance that you do not require us to. The price is usually 2 000-3000 CZK depending on the location and language, to be paid in advance or on site to the interpreter. You can usually opt for English or Russian speaking interpreters with ease, other languages

are less common.

Unfortunately, you must pass the exam in all subjects to successfully complete the nostrification process. The exam consists of all the subjects ordered. If you fail in one subject, it means that you did not pass the exam (and all subjects not yet taken are cancelled), and the nostrification application will be rejected. You cannot retake the failed subject separately. The only way to retake the exam is to submit the application again as a new application.

Almost! When you successfully pass the nostrification exam in all subjects, it usually means that you do not have to do anything else other than receive the nostrification certificate yourself or via your power of attorney representative. The nostrification certificate is issued a few weeks after the exam takes place. Depending on your nostrification deadline, the Nostrification Specialist may ask you to fill in and sign some paperwork to confirm that you passed the exam and are only waiting for the result to be processed by the authorities and for the certificate.

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.