Admissions
Summer 2025
March 10, 2025: Summer enrollment begins
April 15, 2025: Final application deadline
(all application materials must be submitted)
May 12, 2025: Program start date
Fall 2025
March 31, 2025: Fall enrollment begins
July 25, 2025: Final application deadline
(all application materials must be submitted)
August 21, 2025: Program start date
A complete application includes:
- Complete the online application:
- A one-page statement of purpose (reviewed by the School of Education for advising purposes)
- Your personal statement should tell us why you want to pursue this degree in addition to elaborating on:
- What interests you, excites you, and makes you curious about this degree possibility and/or any of the particular certifications
- Your background in the field of education and where you teach
- Your goals for utilizing the leadership skills you will gain from these certificates
- How you would like to create change within your school or community
- Your personal statement should tell us why you want to pursue this degree in addition to elaborating on:
- A copy of your transcript providing evidence of completion of a regionally accredited U.S. bachelor's degree or its international equivalent.
- Please submit an unofficial copy of your transcript with the application. You will be asked to submit an official transcript once you get admitted and enroll in the program.
- All international transcripts should be submitted in the native language and include each course completed and the grade/mark earned. Credentials written in languages other than English must also be accompanied by a certified English translation.
- International students may also need to submit official scores from a test of English proficiency. Applicants should have at a minimum:
- a TOEFL score of 75 (internet-based),
- an IELTS score of 6.0 or
- a Duolingo score of at least 120.
- After your application is submitted, request that the TOEFL testing agency report your official score directly to the University of Colorado Division of Continuing Education. The institution code for CU Continuing Education is B880. To report your official Duolingo scores, click "Send Results" from inside the application, then choose University of Colorado Boulder - Continuing Education. IELTS scores should be reported in the application. In addition, you must provide the following information to your IELTS test center when requesting that your scores be sent to CU Boulder (IELTS does not use school codes):
CE Records - Graduate Programs
Division of Continuing Education
University of Colorado Boulder
178 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0178
- Test scores are not required for all international students. You are not required to submit test scores if your native language is English or if, within two years from your desired admission term at CU Boulder, you have completed at least one year of full-time study at either a U.S. college/university or at a non-U.S. college/university where English is the native language of instruction.
- This program is fully online. Please note that international students are not eligible for U.S. student visas if taking fully online programs. International students who do not require a visa are welcome and encouraged to enroll in the program.
Once you have been admitted, you will receive a separate email with your student ID number and instructions for activating university accounts, as well as how to enroll in courses.
Students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 across courses previously taken as a certificate student in this program, if applicable.
Transfer Credit
In order to receive a Teacher Leadership master's degree or a certificate, you must complete only program-designated classes. No transfer credit will be accepted.
How to Enroll
Once you are admitted to the program, you will receive instructions in a welcome letter on how to enroll in one or more courses.
Each certificate consists of four online courses. The first three courses are 2-credit asynchronous courses and the culminating course in all the certificates is the 4-credit online synchronous capstone course held in the summers.
We strongly encourage you to take the courses in sequential order as they were designed to build on each other. Enroll in the first course of the certificate you are interested in completing. If you believe you are able to complete two or more certificates concurrently, enroll in the first course of each certificate. You may enroll in as many classes across certificates as you can handle. Please remember that a certificate will ideally be completed over the course of one academic year. Certificate conferral will occur once the required four courses are completed with a minimum grade of C in each course and a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
Admissions Help
Contact us at tl-admissions@colorado.edu for questions about your application.
Explore the certificates in which you are interested:
- Teacher and Social and Emotional Learning
- Teaching Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students
- Leading for Change in Science Assessment Practice
- Cultivating Compassion and Dignity in Ourselves and Our Schools
- Inclusive and Special Education
- Designing for Learning: Inquiry-Based Pedagogy for K-12 Educators
- Teachers Leading Change
Participant Requirements
We require that students in this program are practicing educators with a previously established educational site. If you are a teacher and are currently not teaching, but feel you have substantial experience to draw on, this program may also serve you. You can make this program work with a range of field sites, from active classroom settings to after school program field sites. You need to have quality time “in the field” or material you can draw on related to teaching experience because the coursework in this program depends on practical application.