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Smolny Associate Degree Online Program

The Smolny Associate Degree is a two-year online program that represents the first stage of higher education. Upon successful completion, graduates are awarded the Associate of Arts degree from Bard College.

Who Can Apply

The program is intended for Russian-speaking displaced students from the Eurasian region affected by the war in Ukraine or by authoritarian regimes in the former CIS states. It offers an opportunity for students who are not yet able to attend an international university — due to financial, logistical, or other challenges — to begin or continue their undergraduate education.

Admission Requirements

To apply, you will need to upload the following documents via the online application form:
– Up to 2-minutes motivation video
– Sample of your academic writing in English (waived if you’ve completed a Smolny BB course with grade B+ or higher)
– High school Diploma / transcript
– CV/resume
– Proof of English proficiency (B2 level; Duolingo test scores are accepted)
– Contact information for two references who can attest to your academic preparedness (waived if you’ve completed a Smolny BB course with grade B+ or higher)

Shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview.

Please note: We cannot accept students who are currently located in the Russian Federation, Republic of Belarus, or North America.

Questions? Write to us at [email protected]

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Liberal Arts Approach

The educational program builds on Bard College’s expertise in the liberal arts—an approach to learning that centers on the individual, primarily through small group seminars designed to foster thoughtful, critical discourse in an inclusive environment. The program aims to prepare students to be engaged citizens and to promote rigorous, open inquiry, intellectual ambition, and creativity.

Why Choose the Smolny Associate Degree Online Program

This program provides exiled students with a valuable pathway toward higher education abroad. Graduates of the program may continue their studies at Bard Network institutions (starting from the third year and pending admission to these institutions) or transfer their credits to other universities.

Tuition and Financial Aid

Before financial  aid, tuition expenses total $5,000 per year. We encourage all interested and eligible students to apply, regardless of their financial status. Thanks to generous financial support for the Smolny Associate Degree Online Program, discounts of up to 90% are available. Under special circumstances, additional financial support, including full tuition discounts, may be available.

Program Curriculum

Over the course of two years, students will develop their learning skills through core liberal arts courses, including Language and Thinking, two semesters of the First-Year Seminar, and Citizen Science, and explore different disciplines in Arts; Languages and Literature; Science, Mathematics, and Computing; and Social Studies. The Program also includes an intensive English-language course. Students will have the opportunity to study in virtual, seminar-style classrooms alongside students from across Bard’s global network, learning with and from each other.

To graduate, students must complete a total of 64 academic credits. The standard course load is 16 credits per semester. In addition to the required courses, each student must complete at least one four-credit course in each of the four disciplines and one advanced-level course. Students may transfer up to 12 credits.

Required Courses 2025 - 2026

Citizen Science

Spring 2026 | Evgeniya Polyakova & Michael Allakhverdov​

Elective Courses (2025 - 2026)

All full-semester elective courses (4 US / 8 ECTS credits) in the program fulfill one of four distribution requirements: Arts; Languages and Literature; Science, Mathematics, and Computing; Social Studies. Students must complete at least one course in each of these four distribution areas. In their second year, students are also required to take at least one advanced (300-level) elective course carrying four credits.

These courses are not only electives within the Associate Degree Program curriculum, but are also available as standalone courses. Applicants who are not enrolled in the full degree program are welcome to apply for individual elective courses and participate on a non-degree basis.

Course applications for the fall semester will open very soon, and applications for spring semester courses will open in December 2025.

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About

A group of former Smolny College faculty with the support of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and Bard College Berlin (BCB) established Smolny Beyond Borders (SBB) in November 2022, a liberal arts initiative that continues and builds upon the legacy of Smolny College  (formerly a joint program of St. Petersburg State University and Bard College), the longest-running dual degree program between any Russian and American institution.

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For nearly a quarter of a century, Smolny College was unprecedented in its support of the liberal arts community in Russia. With Putin’s authoritarian regime targeting progressive educational institutions, many Russian intellectuals, including former Smolny faculty members and students, have been forced to leave Russia.

Smolny Beyond Borders aims to recreate Smolny institutionally, but independently of St.Petersburg State, and establish not only a structure of support for the faculty who left Russia, but provide opportunities to attract, teach, and recruit new students and to sustain the successful practices formerly recognized at Smonly College to build the Russia of the future. The program will provide multi-level educational and research opportunities to equip the next generation of students and faculty with the tools to rebuild and promote a different trajectory for Russia that holds the country responsible as part of the global community.

About Smolny College
Smolny College was a long-term collaboration between St. Petersburg State University and Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. After its founding in 1997, it became both the largest liberal arts program in Russia and the most robust Russian-American partnership in the higher education sphere. In the summer of 2021, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation declared that Bard College is an undesirable organization, the first college or university to be so named. This began the dismantling of Smolny, which has since undergone the loss of faculty and curricular changes that have rejected the very idea of liberal arts and sciences education.

The Gagarin Center for the Study of Civil Society and Human Rights (Gagarin Center at Bard College) allows Russian scholars forced to leave Russia as a result of the war on Ukraine, and risks of political persecution, continue to pursue research and educational activities focused on contemporary social, economic, and human rights issues in Russia. Previously, the Gagarin Center, supported by the Gagarin Trust, was a core component of Smolny College. The Center and its fellows offered courses, prepared research on vital issues, offered public programming, and served as a venue for the critical exchange of ideas.