Documentation Requirements for Credential Evaluation

Original academic documents are the documents given directly to the student by the institution, usually at the time study is completed or the degree is awarded. Original academic documents are usually printed on the institution’s letterhead, and have a fresh ink stamp, raised seal, and/or official signatures. Original academic documents will be returned with the completed evaluation report.

Official academic documents are documents issued by the institution in an envelope stamped and sealed by the institution.

You must complete and submit your application on our website prior to sending your documents. (Click here to start the application process.) 

Once you have submitted the online application, you will be asked to print the Document Matching Form and follow the instructions provided.

If the documentation requirements for your country of study have 'Photocopy or Scan' for the document type, you may email that document as a PDF attachment to ecemail@ece.org.

If the documentation requirements for your country of study have 'Original' OR 'Official Document issued in a Sealed Envelope', please send them to:   

ECE
101 W. Pleasant Street, Suite 200
Milwaukee, WI 53212-3963

Original documents are important. We must receive complete documentation before beginning the educational credential evaluation process. If you are required to send original documents, do not send copies of the documents as well. It is safe to send original documents to ECE but we suggest that you request a tracking number from the courier service. 

No, we do not review educational credential documents without an application form and complete materials, including payment, for a report order.

All of your educational documents will be returned when the report is complete, unless the issuing institution has specifically stated it cannot be shared with the student.

Depending on your country of study, submit your original degree/diploma or an official degree confirmation issued in a sealed envelope.

Contact our Customer Service if you have any questions.

We carefully research the specific practices in each country, and determine the documentation requirements accordingly. We understand that situations arise where obtaining certain documents might not be possible.  We do our best to be flexible, but in most situations we are unable to prepare an evaluation report.

If one of the following circumstances applies to you, follow the directions listed. If your situation is not listed, or you have any questions, feel free to contact Customer Service, but we may not be able to prepare a report for you.

• My school is closed, and I cannot obtain sealed-envelope documents: Submit your original documents to us and include a written explanation of your circumstances. We will review the situation and prepare a report if possible.
• I cannot obtain a grade report because my master’s or doctoral program did not have coursework: Depending on your country of study, submit your original degree/diploma or an official degree confirmation issued in a sealed envelope.

As more documents are made available online and shareable through secure websites, we research the services and determine if they meet our documentation requirements.

If your school uses one of the following services, you may share your documents with us through the service.

Please do NOT send us any personal login or user information.

We may be able to accept alternatives to our standard documentation requirements. Secure electronic documents should be sent to ECEMail@ece.org directly from a verifiable email address of the institution. Please ask the institution to include your name and ECE reference number when providing us with secure electronic documents. If you have any questions please Contact Us. See also “Do you accept electronic documents?” question above.

If you would like to apply for an evaluation report but have not completed your academic program, you may do so by submitting the required documentation that has been issued to date by your institution. And if you complete your degree/diploma program or complete additional coursework for the same program, you can update the report within five years of ordering the original evaluation report.

Our documentation requirements are different for each country. Please click here: ece.org/ECE/Credential-Evaluations/Documentation-Requirements and choose your country of study to view the requirements. 

Instructions on where to send your documents will be provided to you in the online application.

Please note that ECE reserves the right to request additional information and/or documents to be sent directly to ECE by the issuing institutions and/or to verify your documentation at any time during the evaluation process. If you are not able to submit the required documents, ECE will not be able to complete an evaluation report. No exceptions will be made, and no refunds will be issued.

Finally, please do not send any documents to ECE before completing our online application and be sure to include your reference number. To request an evaluation report, please visit ece.org/ECE/Credential-Evaluations and select “Applying to U.S. institutions” or “Applying to Canadian Institutions” and follow the 3 Steps to Apply.  

Please refer to United Kingdom country information.

For external exams you will need to follow the documentation requirements for United Kingdom, not the requirements for the country where your actual teaching institution was located.

Please refer to the Switzerland country information.

Please follow the requirements for the country where the institution that issued your official educational documents was based, not the requirements for the country where you actually studied.

For example, if you studied in Pakistan but your documents were issued by an institution based in England, follow the requirements for England.

Please note that we do not evaluate educational credentials issued by U.S. institutions.

English translations are required for all documents issued in a language other than English.  
 
Please submit complete, legible copies. You may prepare the translations yourself as long as they are word-for-word, and in the same format as the original document. If you are applying to the NABP, please follow their documentation requirement here.
 
ECE^® Translation Waiver:  For a fee of $50, you do not need to submit English translations. This option is available only for General and GGPA reports.  It is not available for NABP orders.

If the content of the document matches the content of a document in your possession, then you can prepare the translation based on the document in your possession. If you do not know the content of the document in the sealed envelope, then you should request two sets of sealed envelopes from your institution so you can open one set to be translated.

Our trained evaluation staff reviews all educational documents submitted to establish their authenticity.

We reserve the right to contact educational and other institutions to verify the authenticity of any documents received. In the limited cases in which we must contact institutions for verification, the evaluation process may be delayed, sometimes substantially.

Normally, we will wait a maximum of six months for a satisfactory response to our verification requests. During this period we will make two attempts to contact the issuing institution using the best contact information available to us, including email, post, and fax.

Because the verification of documents depends on the responsiveness of third parties in other countries, this process can significantly delay the preparation of our evaluation report and, in some cases, may prevent us from completing a report. We will not issue an evaluation report when substantial concerns about the documents submitted have not been satisfactorily resolved.

Many government-authorized agencies and educational institutions around the world provide services to verify or authenticate educational documents. These services include online databases, internet authentication services, or official institutions or agencies that send authenticated official documents directly to us by mail. Please see the Documentation Requirements for individual countries to determine whether or not a verification or authentication service is required in your case.

Yes.  We encourage the use of verification and authentication services and will determine in each instance whether or not it is acceptable.

You should review the Documentation Requirements by country to determine if original documents are required in addition to a verification or authentication service. In general, it is not necessary to provide original documents for information contained in a verification or authentication response. However, in some cases the verified information does not cover the complete set of documents. For example, if we can verify graduation online through the school but not the content or grades of the subjects studied, then an original grade report would be required along with a photocopy of the degree.