Graduate Student Information

Graduate Department

Private Unsupervised Graduate Students

  • Thank you for contacting our office, and congratulations on your graduate school admission! Every student who plans to study privately at a university under the jurisdiction of the Kuwait Cultural Office in Los Angeles and wants to register with our office, will need to get their admission authenticated by our office prior to being able to register with us. Please make sure that you have gained admission to an approved Master’s or Doctoral degree program at an approved university. The list of approved programs and universities can be found Here

    Once you have your unconditional admission letter, please send the following items to the Director of the Graduate Department:


    1.  Copy of Passport
    2.  Copy of Civil ID
    3.  Copy of I-20, if available
    4.  Admission Letter
    5.  Unofficial copies of your past degrees:
      • High School and Bachelor’s Transcripts (for Master’s students)
      • High School, Bachelor’s and Master’s Transcripts (for PhD students)
    6.  Master’s Equivalency Letter, if applicable and if you are registering as a Doctoral student
    7.  Bachelor’s Equivalency Letter, if applicable
    8.  High School Equivalency Letter, if applicable

    Once we have received ALL of the above documents, we will be able to authenticate your admission and send it to the Ministry of Higher Education.

  • Thank you for contacting our office and welcome to the United States! Assuming that you have already sent in all the items needed to get your admission authenticated by our office, there are just a few more items we will need for you to send to the Director of the Graduate Department to ensure that your registration with the Cultural Office is complete. The following remaining items are required to complete the registration process:

    1.  Completed Completed Registration Checklist Form
    2.  Copy of F-1 Visa
    3.  Copy of I-20, if not submitted yet
    4.  Copy of Retrieve I-94
    5.  Verification of Enrollment
    6.  Letter from your university confirming that your program is a full time, day time program that does not require any online courses for degree completion. This letter should be on university letterhead, and preferably from your academic department.
    7.  Dependent Documents: If you will have a spouse and/or children accompanying you to the United States while you pursue your studies, please send us their documents as well so that we may register them as your dependents with the office. We will need the following:
      • Passport (for each family member)
      • I-20 (for each family member)
      • I-94 (for each family member)
      • Marriage Certificate
      • Birth Certificate (for each child)
      • Civil ID (for each family member)
    8.  Statement from the Public Institution for Social Security confirming that you are not receiving salary or any social allowance in Kuwait
    9.  If you are unemployed, privately employed or have an employer in Kuwait that is not associated with the government, meaning private sector, you will need to get an approval letter from the Public Authority of Manpower. If you have an employer in Kuwait that is associated with the government, meaning a government Ministry, then you will need to get a letter from your employer (Civil Service Commission) stating that you have approval for study leave to pursue your degree.

    Once we receive all of the above materials, we will be able to register you with the office. We look forward to working with you and having you join the Graduate Department!

  • Now that we have authenticated your admission, you have sent in all of your remaining materials, and are fully registered with the office, we would like to remind you of the following:

    We will activate your health insurance effective the date of your arrival. Only the Kuwait Embassy Health Office in Washington D.C. may discuss the details of your health insurance. Please contact them directly for any questions or concerns you may have:


    Kuwait Embassy Health Office
    4301 Connecticut Ave., NW #330
    Washington, D.C. 20008
    Tel: 202.686.4304
    Fax: 202.733.1157
    Email: [email protected] (general e-mail) or [email protected] or [email protected]


    Please complete and return the Release of Information Authorization form to your advisor.


    It is also important to note the following basic Private Unsupervised requirements:


    • Waive out of the university health insurance plan. You are already covered by Cigna through the Kuwait Embassy. Please make sure to check the university deadlines to waive out of this, to avoid any unwanted charges on your account. Please fill out the waiver at your university’s health office and let them know that you already have your own health insurance through the Kuwait Cultural Office. If you do not do this, you will have to pay for the school’s health insurance with your own money. Please contact the Kuwait Embassy Health Office if you need assistance with this.
    • Send in your Verification of Enrollment: At the beginning of every term, we need to see you're enrolled in classes in order to keep your health insurance activated.
    • Send in your official transcripts: At the end of every term, please have your school mail us your transcripts either via regular mail or via email, as we are required to update the Ministry with your academic progress.
    • Send in your Verification of Non-Traditional Courses Form This form needs to be completed at the end of every academic year by a university official and sent back directly from the university to your academic advisor.
    • No online coursework: Graduate students are not permitted to take any online courses, per Ministry of Higher Education rules and regulations. If you would like our office to authenticate your transcripts upon completion of the degree you will need to provide a verification of non-traditional courses form. Please note we can only authenticate your degree if no online courses were taken.

    We will authenticate your verification of enrollment each term and upload it to the Ministry of Higher Education's dayrah system (online database). This allows the Ministry to quickly verify if you qualify for the 200KD social allowance. Please note, this is paid directly in Kuwait. To initiate your social allowance you must create an account through the Ministry of Higher Education’s Al- Dayrah system. Please follow this link: Al-Dayrah-Social Allowance. Once you have created your account you will be able to upload the required documents.

  • Congratulations on your graduation! This is such exciting news and quite the accomplishment. We feel extremely privileged to have been a part of your academic journey. Now that you have graduated, our office will need to authenticate your degree.

    If your university and major are approved by NBAQ and our Cultural Office, you will need to create an authentication request through the Ministry of Higher Education’s Dayrah website. Here you will need to upload all required documents into their system and make sure your request is assigned to the LA Office. You or a family member must visit floor M3 of the Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education to sign a release form in order for our office to receive and process your request.

    While you are working on uploading your documents to MOHE’s Dayrah website, please ask your university to send our office the following:


    • Two official sealed transcripts (or electronic transcripts) from all institutions attended which counted towards your degree program. Must be mailed or emailed directly from the school to your advisor.
    • Verification of Non-Traditional Courses Form: This form will need to be completed by the Registrar’s Office or Student Records Office and sent directly to your advisor.

    You will need to work with your advisor on ensuring that all required documents are both uploaded to the Ministry’s Equivalency System as well as sent to your advisor in the KCO-LA Office. Once you have graduated and created an authentication request through the Ministry’s Dayrah system, please be in touch with your advisor to make sure all required documents are submitted in a timely manner so that we can authenticate your degree as soon as your request is sent to our office.

    Please be advised that you will be required to submit the following items as part of your Master’s degree authentication request (in addition to the two official transcripts and the verification of non-traditional course form mentioned above):


    • Authenticated copy of admission letter, if previously completed by our office
    • Unofficial copy of transcript from your Bachelor’s degree
    • Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education Equivalency Letter for the Bachelor's degree
    • High School Transcripts
    • High School Equivalency Letter from the Kuwait Ministry of Education
    • Passport
    • Civil ID
    • In addition to the above materials, if you studied privately during your Master’s studies and were not on scholarship, you will need to submit the following materials as well:

      • Statement from the Public Institution for Social Security.
      • If you are unemployed, privately employed or if you have an employer in Kuwait that is not associated with the government, meaning private sector, you will need to get an approval letter from the Public Authority of Manpower.
      • If you have an employer in Kuwait that is associated with the government, meaning a government Ministry, then you will need to get a letter from your employer (Civil Service Commission) stating that you had approval for study leave to pursue your degree.
    • Please be advised that you will be required to submit the following items as part of your Doctoral degree authentication request (in addition to the two official transcripts and the verification of non-traditional course form mentioned above):

      • Authenticated copy of admission letter, if previously completed by our office
      • Unofficial copy of transcript from your Master’s degree
      • Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education Equivalency Letter for the Master’s degree
      • Unofficial copy of transcript from your Bachelor’s degree
      • Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education Equivalency Letter for the Bachelor's degree
      • High School Transcripts
      • High School Equivalency Letter from the Kuwait Ministry of Education
      • Passport
      • Civil ID
    • In addition to the above materials, if you studied privately during your Master’s studies and were not on scholarship, you will need to submit the following materials as well:

      • Statement from the Public Institution for Social Security.
      • If you are unemployed, privately employed or if you have an employer in Kuwait that is not associated with the government, meaning private sector, you will need to get an approval letter from the Public Authority of Manpower.
      • If you have an employer in Kuwait that is associated with the government, meaning a government Ministry, then you will need to get a letter from your employer (Civil Service Commission) stating that you had approval for study leave to pursue your degree.