Do You Need Certified Translation for Your WES Evaluation?

If you are starting the process of getting a foreign academic credential evaluated through World Education Services, commonly known as WES, translation is one of the first practical questions that comes up: does your diploma or transcript need to be translated before you submit it, and if so, by whom, and how do you find out for certain rather than guessing. WES does actually publish its own guidance on this, though it is written for people already deep in the evaluation process rather than for someone just starting to figure out what they need. This guide is meant to be the clearer starting point.

What Is a WES Evaluation?

WES is one of the organizations that evaluates foreign academic credentials, comparing a degree or diploma earned outside the United States or Canada against the equivalent credential in those countries. This evaluation is commonly required for graduate school admissions, professional licensing, immigration purposes, and employment applications where a foreign degree needs to be understood and compared against a familiar, local equivalent by an employer or admissions office.

WES is a member of the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services, the umbrella body for organizations performing this kind of evaluation in the United States, which is a useful reference point if you are trying to understand how WES fits into the broader credential evaluation landscape and how it compares to other NACES-member organizations offering similar services.

Does WES Require Certified Translation?

The honest answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no, and it is worth being direct about that nuance rather than repeating the oversimplified version. WES’s own guidance on translation requirements states plainly that in most cases, translation is not necessary for a WES credential evaluation. However, if you have been specifically requested to provide translated documents, whether because your particular evaluation type calls for it or because WES flags your specific documents during processing, that request is not something you can choose to skip.

Where translation is required, and this remains common enough to plan for in advance, the standard is specific: if your academic documents are not issued in English or French, you need an independently translated version, and simply submitting an English- or French-language copy of the original document, if one happens to exist, is not accepted as a substitute for a proper translation prepared by an independent third party.

This is one of the areas where WES’s guidance, while genuinely available, is easy to miss if you are not already deep into their process. Their broader guide to required documents for a credential evaluation covers translation as part of a longer explanation of everything WES needs generally, rather than as a standalone answer to the specific question most people are actually searching for when they start this process.

How to Find Out Whether Your Specific Evaluation Needs Translation

Since the requirement genuinely depends on your specific situation rather than a single universal rule, the most reliable way to know for certain is to check the personalized document checklist inside your own WES account once you have started an application. This checklist reflects the specific evaluation type you have selected and the specific documents and countries involved, which is why it is a more accurate source for your situation than a general article, including this one, can ever be on its own. If translation is required for your specific documents, it will appear as a listed requirement there, and that is the point at which everything covered in the rest of this guide becomes directly relevant to you and worth acting on without delay.

What WES Actually Requires From Translators

WES’s translation requirements are specific, and worth understanding clearly before you order anything, once you have confirmed translation actually applies to your situation. The translation needs to be a complete, word-for-word rendering of the entire original document, not a summary or an abstract version. WES recommends using a professional, independent translator rather than translating the document yourself, since a translation that does not precisely match your official academic records can create delays in the evaluation that are entirely avoidable with the right preparation.

A detail worth knowing if you are applying through WES Canada specifically: Canadian evaluations sometimes carry their own additional requirement that the translator be a member of a recognized Canadian provincial or territorial translators’ association, which is a narrower standard than what WES generally expects for US-based evaluations, and mirrors a similar distinction that comes up across other Canadian credentialing and immigration processes covered elsewhere on our site. It is worth confirming the specific requirement for your evaluation type directly with WES before ordering, since this detail can differ depending on which WES process you are going through and which country your evaluation is ultimately intended for.

Document-by-Document vs. Course-by-Course Evaluations

WES offers a few different evaluation types, and the specific type you choose can affect exactly which documents you need to submit, and therefore which documents might need translation if translation applies to your case at all. A document-by-document evaluation confirms that a credential is authentic and equivalent to a US or Canadian credential, generally requiring less documentation than a more detailed review. A course-by-course evaluation goes further, evaluating individual courses and assigning US or Canadian credit equivalencies, which typically requires submitting a full academic transcript in addition to the degree certificate itself. Since a transcript is a considerably longer document than a diploma, if translation is required for your specific evaluation, a course-by-course request generally means more content to translate than a document-by-document one, which is worth factoring into your planning and budget if you are choosing between the two evaluation types for a purpose that does not strictly require the more detailed option.

What Happens If You Submit an Application Without a Required Translation

If your specific evaluation type or document checklist calls for a translation and you submit your application without one, WES generally will not be able to complete the evaluation until the missing translation is provided, which adds real delay to a process that already takes meaningful processing time on its own even under ideal circumstances. Rather than assuming you can address this after the fact, checking your document checklist thoroughly before submitting, and arranging any required translation in advance, is the more reliable way to avoid an avoidable delay in your overall timeline.

How WES Translation Differs From Immigration Translation

It is worth understanding that a WES-compliant translation and an immigration-compliant translation, while similar in spirit, are not automatically interchangeable, since each serves a different receiving institution with its own specific expectations.

One genuinely useful, practical difference: unlike your original academic documents, which typically need to be sent to WES directly from your institution in a sealed envelope or through a secure electronic delivery method, a translated document can generally be uploaded directly through your own WES account, which is a meaningfully simpler submission process than what is required for the original credentials themselves and does not depend on your former institution’s cooperation or responsiveness, which can sometimes be a genuine obstacle depending on how long ago you graduated or how well the institution handles international requests for official documentation.

How to Order a WES-Compliant Certified Translation

Whether your credential is a general academic degree or a medical qualification, the translation needs to match your official documents precisely, word for word, prepared by an independent professional translator who understands the specific formatting conventions academic institutions use. If your credential is specifically medical rather than general academic, our guide on ECFMG translation requirements covers the parallel process for that specific credentialing body, since medical credentials generally go through ECFMG rather than WES. And if you are still working through the broader distinction between academic and medical diploma translation as categories, our guide on academic vs. medical diploma translation covers that ground directly.

You can order your certified translation for your WES credential evaluation and receive a complete, word-for-word translation ready to upload directly to your WES account once you have confirmed it is genuinely required. You can also place your order directly once you know exactly what you need.