Residency requirements for international students

International students must live on, or within commuting distance of, the NJIT campus during the academic year. 

F-1 International Students

During the academic year, all international students are required to live within commuting distance to campus, at the local address that they have reported to NJIT. Exceptions to the rule are:

  1. A student is on a trip when the school is not in session (e.g. spring or summer breaks).
  2. A student is away for academic reasons and with the permission of the student’s advisor.
  3. A student has received NJIT’s official approval for out-of-state CPT and is registered in the CPT course.

Graduate students: NJIT considers dissertation and thesis credit classes to be face to face. When graduate students are taking only dissertation/thesis credit with full time certification, they must report to their advisors regularly.

If international students must travel for an extended period of time or live outside of commuting distance to NJIT in order to conduct research or gather data, the students' advisors (dissertation or thesis advisor in the case of doctoral and Master’s students) must be able to, upon request from the Office of Global Initiatives, describe the academic reasons for the students' distance. Writing drafts of dissertation/thesis are not considered academic reasons. If international students must travel internationally to conduct research or gather data, they must report this to the OGI since this can affect their F-1 status. 

International students who do not have regular face to face meetings with their advisors can be in violation of their F-1 status and therefore are at risk of having their SEVIS records terminated.