Free Round Trip Home

Swarthmore College provides one free round trip home for students with F-1 visas who receive financial aid.

Steps to take for your trip:

1. Plan your trip and get a price. Try to be frugal and plan early. Tickets must be purchased/approved within one week of the exam schedule being published.

2. See Jennifer to approve your itinerary.

3. Complete the Free Round Trip request in the ISC Portal after you purchase tickets for your approved itinerary.

Students are advised to be mindful of the following guidelines when applying.

Eligibility Guidelines:

  • The trip is available after the third semester. Please use this benefit to purchase a round-trip ticket from the Swarthmore area to your home country and back.
  • The request in the portal must ONLY be completed after the costs of your travel have been approved by the Assistant Dean and Director of International Student Programs. Once your itinerary has been reviewed and approved, you can go ahead and book your tickets. 
  • The student is responsible for paying for additional land transportation and/or any extra service fees imposed by the airline, such as seat selection, checked baggage and more.

Travel Arrangement Guidelines & Restrictions: 

  • Avenue Two Travel should make the travel arrangements. They can be reached at (610) 243-1100 or lisa.santiago@avenuetwocorporate.com Please ask for Lisa Santiago. 
  • Please try to get a few prices online to make sure you are getting a competitive rate. 
  • Ticket purchases may not be used retroactively. 
  • Students are responsible responsible for paying for additional land transportation and/or any extra service fees imposed by the airline, such as seat selection, checked baggage and more.
  • You may not change or re-ticket your flight.  It is not permissible. Any change made to your original flight may result in the college canceling the students' free trip home permanently. If you have an emergency situation, please contact Dean Jennifer Marks-Gold or Public Safety. 

Double check your final exam schedule. Additionally, please make sure that you book your flight on a date before the residence halls close for the semester, you may not stay in the residence halls after the resident hall are closed.

Transit Visas/ Direct Airside Transit visa (DATV)

You may need a Direct Airside Transit visa (DATV) if you’ll be changing flights without going through immigration control. If you are planning to transit through certain countries, make sure to check if you are required to obtain an "airport transit visa" in advance based on your country of citizenship.  It is crucial to check the relevant web site of the embassy for each country that you are traveling through before you depart the United States.

This is your responsibility to research this concern in advance. This type of visa requires a processing fee and may take weeks to process. Travel agencies and Swarthmore College are not responsible for transit visas.