About courses and registration

We've collected the commonly sought bits of information about courses and registration here. If you still need more information, our contact details are in the bottom of the page.

1. Course catalog for exchange students
These graduate-level courses are offered to all graduate-level exchange students. Graduate-level exchange students may apply for courses on graduate-level and undergraduate-level (cbs.dk/undergrad). CEMS and double degree students should follow any special CEMS or double degree requirements or restrictions as instructed in their respective course catalogs.

Note that CBS' MBA courses are not available to exchange students. This is due to the lock-step structure of the MBA programs at CBS. If you're an MBA student coming to CBS on exchange, you have access to graduate-level courses.

2. Course registration for exchange students
All course registrations for exchange students must go through the CBS International Office. Unless in case of additional application steps -- which will be stated in the course description -- do not contact any program secretariat, professor, or the Electives Secretariat directly. Please instead contact grad.intoff@cbs.dk for any inquiries relating to course registration.

3. 30 ECTS requirement
Your student visa and/or residence permit is granted upon your status as a full-time student. At CBS, the work load for a full-time student is 30 ECTS. Thus, you are required to register for 30 ECTS. If you do not intent to meet this requirement, you should reconsider your participation in the exchange program at CBS.

4. (Pre-approval of) credit transfer
Apply for pre-approval of credit transfer for more courses than you need. Courses might be oversubscribed due to too many applicants or not be established due to too few applicants. Furthermore, course schedules might overlap or you might simply find that a course is not as relevant to your academic focus as you thought. In any case, having to obtain pre-approval for a new course choice could seriously delay your course application process. Therefore, you should apply for pre-approval for at least all your primary and all alternative course choices. Contact your home university for information on how to apply for pre-approval.

5. Primary and alternative course choices
In the online registration system, if your first primary choice for some reason is unavailable, we will attempt to register you in your first alternative choice. Thus, your choices work as follows:

• Primary course 1 -> Alternative course 1
• Primary course 2 -> Alternative course 2
• Primary course 3 -> Alternative course 3
• Primary course 4 -> Alternative course 4

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6. Overloading
If your home university requires it, you may apply to courses worth a total of 37.5 ECTS. In order to do so, you must request a letter from your home university stating the necessity of overloading. You must then upload this letter to the online registration system.

7. Letter of priority
If you’re required to take a specific course to fulfill a requirement at your home university, or if a course is very important to your academic focus, ask your home university to write or sign a letter of priority. Students who upload such a letter to the online registration system will be prioritized for courses which might otherwise be oversubscribed. The letter must state the full code and title of the course(s) in question and why it is vital to you. Note that a letter of priority only carries weight when uploaded to the registration system during initial registration to CBS. After initial registration, seats are predistributed and letters of priority can no longer be accommodated.

8. English language proficiency
Unless exempted, you must upload documentation for your English language proficiency. Please read our English proficiency FAQ to find out if you're exempt or what documents are valid.

9. Courses with special application
A small number of courses have a special application procedure. This procedure is explained under “Prerequisites” in the course description. You must follow this procedure even when you're an exchange student. If you apply for any such course, you must also apply for it in the online registration system.

10. Course registration rounds
There will be more than one chance to register/change courses. We will give you specific information before each of the three registration rounds (see more in "Dates and deadlines").

11. Course schedules
Course schedules are unavailable at the time of the first course application round. The various study programs need to know the number of applicants to decide whether a course can or cannot be established. Once decided, the established courses are then scheduled. This process is repeated after the second course registration round (see "Dates and deadline"). Course schedules are usually published in late June (Fall semester) and in mid-to-late December (Spring semester). When published, you'll be able to see them in calendar.cbs.dk.

12. Undergraduate-level exchange students
In principle, as undergraduate students have not yet obtained their bachelor’s degree, you do not automatically fulfill that prerequisite for a graduate-level course. However, we understand that sometimes you cannot fulfill your course requirements to your home university with only the courses we offer on undergraduate-level. In this case, we do allow undergraduate students to enroll in one graduate-level elective course (i.e. not a core program course). In order to apply for a graduate-level elective, you need to:

• E-mail us at grad.intoff@cbs.dk no later than registration deadline (see "Dates and deadlines").
• To the e-mail, attach a letter from your home university that certifies that you cannot fulfill your course requirements at your home university with only the courses we offer on undergraduate-level.
• The above letter must state the full course code and title of the course that match the required course at your home university. The courses must match course-for-course. We do not accept blanket requests.
• You should also attach your most updated transcript. An unofficial one is acceptable as this will most likely include your current courses which will help us assess your eligibility.
• Finally, you should apply for courses in the online registration flow as instructed because we cannot guarantee a positive reply to your application for a graduate-level elective course.

You will be allowed to take maximum one graduate-level elective course. Of course, you’re welcome to apply for several if you send us a prioritized list. If your first choice is not available, we’ll assess your eligibility against your second choice, etc. We will get back to you with a decision as soon as possible after registration deadline.

13. Exam plans
Exam plans are announced September 1 for fall semester and February 1 for spring semester. In general, semester courses will have exams that take place in December (fall semester) or May (spring semester). Q2 courses and Q4 courses will have exams that take place in January (Q2) or June (Q4). Therefore, if the exam format is anything other than "Home assignment - written product", you should expect to stay in or return to Denmark for any exam you might have in January or June.

Dates and deadlines

Current course catalogs

Old catalogs

Previous semester course catalogs

If you're a past exchange student at CBS and need to find course descriptions from previous years or if you're a prospective exchange student and would like to see which courses will likely be offered again, please see below. Prospective students for the fall semester should refer to the fall course catalog and prospective students for the spring semester should refer to the spring course catalog.

• Graduate courses for all exchange students -- fall 2018 (pdf)
• Graduate courses for all exchange students -- spring 2018 (pdf)