Documentation Requirements

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. Because official academic documents are issued in a sealed and stamped envelope for academic purposes, they become the property of ECE and will not be returned.

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

No, 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.

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

ECE will retain original documents that we receive in an institutional envelope that is sealed by the issuing body (school, university, examination board, etc.). This includes documents that are received in envelopes sent directly to ECE by the issuing institution and documents received in unopened institutional envelopes forwarded to ECE by the applicant. ECE will return original documents that were handled by the applicant and submitted to ECE without an envelope sealed by the issuing body.

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, 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: Submit your original degree or diploma or official degree confirmation issued in a sealed envelope.
• My school or country has recently been affected by a natural disaster: Please contact Customer Service.

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.

Please refer to the England country information.

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

Please refer to the Switzerland country information.

Yes, we require English translations for all documents issued in a language other than English.

Please do not submit original/certified translations since they will not be returned to you. Please submit complete, legible copies. You may prepare the translations yourself as long as they are complete, literal, word-for-word, and in the same format as the original document.

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.