Getting a Foreign University Degree Recognized in the United States

Why you need a credential evaluation

US employers, graduate schools, and licensing boards cannot judge a foreign degree or transcript on sight. A credential evaluation report translates your foreign education into US terms: what degree level it equals, what your grades convert to on a US GPA scale, and how many credit hours or years of study it represents.

Most graduate programs, many employers, and most professional licensing boards require one before they process your application.

Choosing a NACES-member evaluator

Stick to a member of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) . NACES does not perform evaluations itself, but its member organizations do, and most US institutions specifically list a NACES member as their accepted evaluation standard. Current NACES members include World Education Services (WES), Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE), Josef Silny and Associates, Educational Records Evaluation Service, and more than a dozen others.

Check exactly which evaluator, or which standard, your target school, employer, or licensing board accepts before you pay for a report. Some institutions accept any NACES member, others name a specific one, and paying for the wrong evaluation wastes both time and money.

Document review vs course-by-course evaluation

A document, or general, evaluation confirms your degree exists, states its US equivalent level, and gives an overall GPA conversion. A course-by-course evaluation goes further, listing each class you took with its US credit and grade equivalent.

Graduate school applications, professional licensing boards, and detailed employer reviews usually require the course-by-course version, while a general evaluation covers many employment verification needs.

What WES and ECE actually check

Evaluators like WES and ECE verify your degree and transcript directly with your issuing institution when possible, compare your program against recognized accreditation standards in that country, and issue a report with US equivalencies. Processing typically requires official transcripts sent directly from your school, plus your diploma, and can take several weeks depending on the evaluator and how fast your home institution responds to verification requests.

AACRAO EDGE: a different tool for a different audience

AACRAO EDGE is a database maintained by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers that gives university registrars and admissions staff placement recommendations for foreign credentials. It is a subscription tool built for institutions, not something you order individually as an applicant. If a university mentions using AACRAO EDGE to evaluate your transcript internally, that is separate from, and does not replace, a NACES-member evaluation report you may still need for other purposes.

How to order and what to expect

• Confirm which evaluator and which report type, document or course-by-course, your recipient requires

• Request official transcripts sent directly from your foreign institution to the evaluator, not through you

• Submit your diploma and any additional documents the evaluator lists for your country

• Budget several weeks for processing, longer if your home institution is slow to respond to verification requests

• Order extra official copies of the report if multiple schools or employers need one sent directly