Getting Taiwanese Transcripts and Degrees Evaluated for US Admission

How Taiwan's school system compares to the US system

Taiwan runs 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of junior high, and 3 years of senior high, for 12 years total before university, the same total years as the US K-12 system. A senior high diploma (高中畢業證書) from an academic or vocational track is read by US admissions offices as equivalent to a US high school diploma.

Taiwan's undergraduate degree (學士學位) usually takes 4 years, matching a US bachelor's degree. Some fields run longer: medicine, dentistry, and Chinese medicine typically take 6 years, and law follows its own structure. A graduate degree, 碩士 for master's and 博士 for doctorate, follows the same pattern as a US graduate degree, usually 1 to 2 years for a master's and longer for a doctorate.

Why you need a credential evaluation

US admissions officers, and later US employers checking a diploma for work authorization, are often not trained to read Taiwan's grading scale on sight. A credential evaluation from a NACES member evaluator puts your Taiwan record into a standard format: a stated US degree equivalency, and often a converted GPA on the familiar 4.0 scale. Many US graduate schools require this evaluation before they review your application at all, while some undergraduate programs read Taiwan transcripts directly. Confirm which your target schools want before you pay for anything.

Grade conversion basics

Taiwanese universities most often grade on a 100-point scale, sometimes alongside a letter grade. There is no single official conversion to the US 4.0 GPA scale, and different evaluators use slightly different formulas, which is one reason schools trust a NACES member's report over a self-calculated GPA. Do not convert your own GPA and submit it as official. Let the evaluator's report do that conversion, and if a school asks for your own estimate, label it clearly as unofficial.

Special case: 五專 and other non-standard paths

Taiwan also runs five-year junior colleges (五年制專科學校, 五專), which take students directly after junior high and combine senior-high-level and early college-level study into one five-year program. This does not map cleanly onto the standard 12-plus-4 structure, so a NACES evaluator needs to see the full transcript and program description to decide where your credits sit against US high school and college credit. The same applies if you switched between academic and vocational senior high tracks, or attended a technical college (技術學院) before transferring to a university. Give the evaluator your complete academic history, not only your final school, so the report reflects your full record.

If you already completed part of a degree in Taiwan and want transfer credit toward a US bachelor's degree, ask your target school's transfer credit office directly, since transfer credit decisions sit with the university's own faculty review, not with the NACES evaluator alone. The evaluator's report supports that review, but does not replace it.

Step by step: getting your documents evaluated

1. Request an official transcript from your senior high or university registrar. Ask for a sealed copy in the original Chinese, since most evaluators want the source document, not only a translation.

2. Get a certified English translation if your evaluator or target school requires one. Some evaluators offer in-house translation, others expect you to arrange it separately.

3. Choose a NACES member evaluator your target school accepts. Check the school's international admissions page first, since some schools name a specific evaluator or accept only a course-by-course report rather than a simpler document-by-document one.

4. Submit your documents to the evaluator, by mail or through their upload portal, along with the evaluation fee.

5. Have the evaluator send the report directly to your target schools, or request a copy for yourself if you are applying to several schools with different report requirements.

What it costs

Evaluators set their own fees, and faster turnaround costs more. Separate translation charges apply if you do not use the evaluator's in-house translation service. Check each NACES member's own fee page before choosing, since prices and services differ across the approved organizations.

Timing

Start this process as soon as you have final or near-final grades. Taiwan school registrars can take one to several weeks to issue transcripts, especially close to exam periods in January and June, and evaluation turnaround adds more weeks on top. Build this into your application timeline months before your earliest deadline, not the week before.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Ordering the wrong report type: a document-by-document report only confirms your credential is genuine, while a course-by-course report also converts individual course grades, and schools often specify which they need.

• Waiting until after admission to start the evaluation, when many schools require it during the application itself.

• Using a translation service the evaluator does not accept, which forces you to redo the translation and pay twice.

• Sending only your final year of grades instead of your full transcript, which slows the evaluator down and can lead to a report that understates your record.

• Assuming graduate credentials work exactly like undergraduate ones. A 碩士 or 博士 evaluation looks at thesis or dissertation research too, so contact the evaluator ahead of time if your program included a major research component with limited coursework.

Questions to ask before you pay

• Does my target school name a specific evaluator, or will any NACES member's report work.

• Do I need a document-by-document or a course-by-course report for this school.

• Does the evaluator handle Chinese-language documents in house, or do I need a separate certified translator first.

• How will the report reach the school: sent directly by the evaluator, or uploaded by me through the application portal.