CPT Procedure for IS/ISST Undergraduate Majors that are International Students and Not Doing Co-op

This procedure pertains to international students who are officially affiliated with the IS or ISST major before the internship, will be Cornell undergraduates in the semester after the internship, and are not doing the internship through the Cornell Engineering Co-op program.

If this is not your situation:

  • IS majors who will be M.Eng students in the semester after the internship should contact meng@cs.cornell.edu  instead of following the procedures below. 

  • CPT applications as part of the Engineering Co-op program need to be routed to the Engineering Co-op office.

  • Students who are not officially IS majors at the time they wish to apply for CPT should contact International Services instead of following the procedures below.

  • Students looking for OPT should contact the IS undergraduate advising office at ISAdvising@cornell.edu.  

Before the Internship: 

  1. First, visit https://international.globallearning.cornell.edu/employment-and-taxes/f-1-cpt and fill out the required form.

  2. Where the form asks for "Academic Advisor of Department Representative",

    1. Choose "Other or this CPT is not for a course" for "Please select the course in which you are earning credit by performing this CPT."

    2. Put "Information Science Advising" for "Department Approver Name"

    3. Put "isadvising@cornell.edu" for "Department Approver Email"

    4. Submit your form

  3. After we receive electronic notice from International Services, and then manually verify that you are affiliated with the IS/ISST major and determine your expected graduation date, then we will give electronic approval to International Services.  We believe that when the IS department approves, the request in your CPT Portal will say "Pending Office Approval", but no email notification is sent.

After the Internship:

  1. During the Fall semester following your internship, you will enroll in INFO 4997 under Professor Lawrence Blume for 0.25 credits. If you run into issues with enrolling in INFO 4997, please submit a help ticket to the Bowers CIS Course Enrollment team. 

  2. To obtain credit for INFO 4997, you will need to write a short essay (maximum of one single-spaced page) that describes your work experience and reflects on its connections to the educational objectives of the IS/ISST major. The essay must describe the project(s) that you worked on, comment on your level of preparedness for the internship, and briefly mention some of the new things that you learned. You'll submit that essay on the course management system (CMS) for INFO 4997; instructions will be sent a bit after the end of the add-drop period.

For additional information on the CPT work authorization process, see the International Services office web page, or contact the IS undergrad office at isadvising@cornell.edu.