Courses at ETH offer three exam types: semester performances, end-of-semester exams, and session exams. Session exams are taken several months after the end of the semester (in August following spring and in February following fall), which can present challenges MIT students who have since departed Switzerland.
- For end-of-semester exams (Jan/June exams), students may take some as distance exams or make arrangements to take them early before leaving Zurich.
- For semester performances, these exams mostly take the form of integrated performance assessments during the semester or performance assessments which take place outside of the normal semester schedule.
- For session exams (which are in February [fall] and August [spring]), distance exams are preferred so that professors don’t have to create two exams that are fair and equal; thus, there will be a long gap between the end of the semester and the exam. Students will have to plan accordingly to take exams remotely.
The ETH course catalog (here) outlines the exam type for each course under the “performance assessment” tab. Navigate to this section, then choose "type," and see if it’s an end of semester or session exam.
Below you'll find information about how to arrange session distance exams, as told to us by Emily (Course 6, ETH Spring 2019). Please consult the ETH students exchange office and exams office for up-to-date information and procedures.
ETH's general guidelines for written session exams are that you can either take it as a distance exam at the same time as the exam in Zurich (with slight time adjustments allowed if the exam takes place in the middle of the night), or prepone it as an oral exam held at the end of the semester. While they also allow preponing as a written exam, nearly all professors will be unwilling to offer this because they would have to write a separate exam; it's only in very large classes with a large population of exchange students that professors allow this option. Regardless of the exam method, students must separately obtain approval from both the professors and from ETH in order to shift the exam.
Here is more information from ETH about preponing exams.
Process/timeline was as follows:
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Beginning of semester: Ask professors if they allow distance exams. If a professor won't agree to it, there isn't much you can do about it, and you may choose to switch classes. ETH will require written approval from the professors (email is fine) to take a distance exam, so if you can get it earlier you won't need to worry about it later.
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Early March/Early October: Attend ETH "Preponement and Distance Exams event". It gives a lot more detail on how exams work. ETH says that internships must be mandatory in order to consider them to be a valid reason for distance exams. MISTI and your department can provide you a letter stating this, upon your request.
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Early March/Early October: Register for all exams, even if you plan to take them as distance exams.
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Early May/Early December: Once the exam schedule is released (first 2 weeks of May/beginning of December usually), you can initiate the request for distance exams (the process for oral exam preponement happens earlier). The first step is to submit the MIT letter, along with written approval from professors, to the exam office. At this point they'll also ask what time you'd like to take the exam: if the exam is outside regular business hours, they allow you to shift the exam to the first possible time the next working day (i.e. 2am -> 9am), but only if the professor agrees. Emily got verbal approval from her professors before submitting the request (it isn't necessary to have written approval until later). It takes a while to get approved, so it's a good idea to submit the request as soon as possible (i.e. get approval from professors and the MIT letter before the request system opens).
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Mid-end of May/Early December: Once you get approval from the exams office to take the exams as distance exams, you need to set up a proctor for the exam, and get signatures from the proctor and your professors (this is when the professors have to sign to agree to any time shifts). For proctors, they prefer you to take the exam at your home university, but also allow you to take them at third-party test proctoring services, or for someone at your internship to proctor. Emily did have one professor who was very adamant about her taking it at MIT or another university that ETH had a partnership with, but when that proved not to be feasible he allowed her to use a third-party test proctoring service. Since different professors have different preferences on these things, it's good to start the conversation early to make sure you're able to take the exam.
