DD Form 2496 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2496, International Student Academic Report, February 1996., and it exists to International Student Academic Report. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
That decision has consequences you will notice. Because not stated prescribes the form for the Department as a whole, and not stated maintains it on the Department's behalf, the same blank passes between the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Space Force, the Coast Guard when operating under Defense jurisdiction, the defense agencies and the combatant commands without translation. A clerk in one component reads a record created in another and finds the fields where they expect them.
The edition in force is not stated, carried by the publisher as not stated, and edition discipline is stricter on a Department form than most people expect, precisely because supersession happens everywhere at once. There is no interval during which one service still works from the previous layout while another has moved on.
The form is laid out top to bottom in a sequence that reflects how the record will be read, not merely how it was drawn. Identification comes first because everything below it is understood in relation to a named person, unit or transaction; substantive entries follow; certification closes the document because certification attests to what precedes it. Filling out of order tends to produce internal inconsistencies — an entry that made sense before the header was settled and does not afterward.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
Where a specific field is genuinely unclear, the instructions printed on the form come first and not stated governs where the two do not agree.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 2 pages and about 36 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
What the form asks for
- 1. Forwarding address. Subsequent training, if applicable, or country security assistance organization.
- 2. From. Training installation preparing form.
- 3. Student name (last, first, middle initial).
- 4. Grade or rank.
- 5. Country.
- 6. Foreign military sales case or international military education and training F. Y. and worksheet control number.
- 7. Course title.
- 8. Course identification number.
- 9. Course military articles and services list.
- 10. Duration of course. a. From (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 10. b. To (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 11. Did student complete course? Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second box if no.
- 12. Student was awarded: X first box if diploma/certificate of completion, second box if certificate of attendance, or third box if other.
- 13. English comprehension level, enter test score. a. In country test.
- 13.b. CONUS test score.
- 14. b. Language proficiency (enter ratings). (1) Comprehension.
- 14.b.(2) Speaking.
- 14. b. (3) Reading.
- 14. b. (4) Writing.
- Item 14. c. Performance in class (enter ratings). (1) Attitude and motivation.
- 14. c. (2) Attendance and punctuality.
- 14. c. (3) Ability to grasp instruction.
- 14. c. (4) Performance in practical exercises.
- 14. c. (5) Participation in class activities.
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
When DD Form 2496 cites another form, the citation is self-sufficient. The DD series is a single sequence administered at Department level, so the number resolves to exactly one document without any need to establish which component issued it — a convenience that exists only because the sequence was never allowed to fork.
Where a service form is cited in the same instruction, the two numbering systems should not be read across. DA numbering belongs to the Army and is administered by an Army proponent; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or an equivalent Department office. The systems developed separately and were never harmonized, so identical digits in each identify two documents with nothing in common. The prefix, not the number, tells you which system you are in.
Editions change for reasons that originate above the form itself. The prescribing directive is reissued and the form follows; the information the Department needs to collect changes and the fields change with it; the statutory notice language is amended and every form carrying that notice is republished. None of these events announces itself to the person who downloaded a copy last year, which is why confirming not stated at the moment of download is the only reliable check available to you.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2496?
- DD Form 2496, International Student Academic Report, February 1996.
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?