Academic Transcript Translation Service
Course-by-course records rendered into the language an admissions office or evaluator reads, with the credit column, the grading key and the degree conferral line intact.
Upload or drop document to translate
Max. file size 1 GB
What the receiving institution is actually trying to work out
Nobody reads an academic record for pleasure. An admissions committee, an evaluation service or a licensing board is answering three specific questions from it: how much study the applicant completed, at what level, and with what result. Everything on the page exists to answer one of those, and a translation is judged on whether the answers survive.
The document itself is a ledger. Each row usually carries a course code, a course title, a credit or hour value, a mark, and the term in which it was taken. Around the ledger sit the student's name and date of birth, the programme and field of study, the dates of enrolment, a running or final average, the degree or diploma awarded with its conferral date, and the registrar's signature and institutional seal. On the reverse there is normally a key: an explanation of the marking scale, the credit unit, and any letters used for withdrawals, transfers or incompletes. That key is part of the document and needs translating with the rest of it.
Institutions in the European Higher Education Area often also issue a Diploma Supplement, a standard-format annex describing the qualification, the system it sits in and the grading distribution. Where one exists it is frequently already published in English, and sending it alongside saves the receiving office a great deal of guesswork.
The credit column means something different in every system
A number in the credit column is only interpretable once you know which unit it is counted in. The units are not interchangeable, and two of them are in use inside the United States alone.
| Unit | A full academic year | What one unit stands for |
|---|---|---|
| US semester hour | About 30 | Roughly one hour of class a week across a fifteen-week semester, plus study time |
| US quarter hour | About 45 | Two thirds of a semester hour, used by universities on a quarter calendar |
| ECTS credit | 60 | Between 25 and 30 hours of total student workload, class and private study together |
| UK credit | 120 at undergraduate level | About ten notional learning hours; two UK credits answer to one ECTS credit |
| Japanese credit | Around 31 | 124 credits is the national minimum for a four-year bachelor's degree |
The consequence for translation is narrow and important: the figure in the credit column is copied, never recalculated. A record showing 180 ECTS credits stays at 180. Working it back to an American figure is the evaluator's job, and doing it inside the translation destroys the number they were going to start from.
Marks stay as awarded, and the evaluator converts them
Higher education marking scales are as varied as the credit units, and several of them run in the opposite direction to a four-point average.
- Italian universities mark individual examinations out of thirty with eighteen as the pass, then award the final degree out of one hundred and ten, with 110 e lode as the top result.
- German higher education uses decimal marks from 1.0 down to 5.0, where 1.0 is the best result and anything worse than 4.0 has failed, and the closing Gesamtnote is a weighted average of the whole programme.
- British degrees are classified rather than averaged: First, Upper Second, Lower Second and Third describe bands, and the underlying percentages behave nothing like American ones, since a mark in the seventies is an excellent result.
- Dutch marks run from 1 to 10 with 5.5 as the pass line, and the top two marks are given rarely enough that a 8 is a strong performance.
- Spanish records use 0 to 10 with 5 as the pass, frequently accompanied by a written descriptor such as notable or sobresaliente.
What an evaluation service expects
Evaluation agencies that belong to the recognised US association of credential evaluators generally want three separate things: the official record supplied by the issuing institution, a complete word-for-word translation of it, and their own report. They convert the marks and the credits themselves using country tables they maintain. A translation that arrives already converted, summarised or reformatted into an American layout is the one thing they consistently send back.
Markers with no equivalent
Rows carrying a withdrawal, an incomplete, a pass-fail entry, a repeated attempt or credit transferred in from another institution all mean something specific in the system that wrote them, and the meaning is defined in the key on the reverse of the sheet. Those letters are kept as printed and the key is translated, rather than each letter being mapped onto the nearest American symbol.
Where the file ends up
Graduate and professional admissions
Departments read course titles closely to check prerequisites, so a title translated vaguely can cost a place even when the marks are strong.
Credential evaluation
Course-by-course reports used for admission, licensing and employment start from a literal translation and a record sent by the institution itself.
Professional licensing boards
Nursing, engineering, accountancy and teaching boards check specific coursework and contact hours against a statutory list, hour by hour.
Employment-based immigration
Petitions resting on a degree requirement need the record in English with a certification of accuracy. See USCIS translation services.
Machine output is the right tool for reading a record, checking that nothing is missing before you pay an evaluator, and preparing a draft. When the file is going into an application, pair it with a signed certification: how to get an official translation sets out what that involves. Related paperwork usually travels with it, most often a diploma and a passport.
What an academic record costs
Choose Your Plan
Start with a 7-day trial for $2, then $14.99/month, or save more with annual billing
7-Day Trial
MOST POPULARthen $14.99/month after trial ends
- 7-day full access trial
- Trial limit: 10 pages or 3,000 words
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Email support
Monthly
POPULARRegular price $29.99, now 50% off
- 100 pages or 30,000 words per month
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- Unlimited file storage
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Priority email support
Annual
SAVE 25%~$11.25/month, save 25% vs monthly
- 100 pages or 30,000 words per month
- $0.005/word AI translation
- 120+ languages
- Unlimited file storage
- PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, IDML, TXT, JPG, PNG, CSV, JSON
- Team access & custom glossaries
- Priority email support
Four steps, and one of them is a check
Academic records are dense and the mistakes are quiet ones, so the last step is not optional.
Request the official copy first
Evaluators and admissions offices usually want the record sent by the issuing institution, not a photocopy you supply. Order that early, because it can take weeks, and translate the copy you already hold in the meantime.
Include the reverse side
The grading key, the credit definition and the legend for withdrawal and transfer markers are almost always printed on the back. Without them the ledger cannot be interpreted, whichever language it is in.
Upload and select the language pair
PDF exports from a student portal give the cleanest result. Scans and photographs of a sealed paper record are accepted and pass through character recognition first.
Read the ledger back row by row
Confirm that every course row still has its code, its credit value and its mark, that the totals match, and that the conferral date and degree name came through. Then submit the translation with a copy of the original.
Prefer to watch the process before uploading anything? This runs through it end to end.
Questions about academic records
Will my grade point average be recalculated on a four-point scale?
No, and it should not be. The marks and the credit values are reproduced exactly as the institution awarded them. Converting them is credential evaluation, which the receiving university or an evaluation service performs using its own country tables. A record that arrives pre-converted has lost the figures the evaluator needs, and is usually returned.
Do I have to translate the grading key on the back?
Yes, and it is the part most often left out. The key explains the marking scale, the credit unit, and any letters used for withdrawals, repeats, transfers and pass-fail entries. Without it, a reader has a table of numbers with no way to interpret them. Scan every side of every sheet, including anything printed in small type in a margin.
Is an AI translation accepted by a credential evaluation service?
Generally not on its own. Evaluators normally require a complete, literal translation accompanied by a certification, and the official record has to come from the issuing institution. Machine output is well suited to reading the record yourself, confirming it is complete, and preparing a draft before you commit to the certified version.
How are course titles handled when there is no equivalent course here?
The title is translated as literally as it can be while still reading as a subject name, and the original is worth keeping alongside it. Admissions committees check prerequisites against these titles, so an overly free rendering can turn a qualifying course into one that appears not to count. A course code, where the record has one, is left exactly as printed.
What about the seal, the registrar signature and the security printing?
Stamps, seals and signature blocks are reproduced in position and their text is translated, since a receiving office looks for them as evidence the document is genuine. Watermarks, microtext and other security features on the paper cannot be carried into a translated file, which is one reason the original is submitted alongside it.
My university already issues a Diploma Supplement in English. Do I still need this?
Often you need both. The supplement describes the qualification and the system it belongs to, but it does not usually list every course with its mark and credit value. Admissions offices and licensing boards that work course by course still want the itemised record, translated in full.
Can I upload a record from a student portal rather than a scan?
That is the better option. A PDF exported from a portal already carries a text layer, so the tables and the credit column come through cleanly. Photographs and scans are supported too and run through character recognition, but a sealed paper copy photographed at an angle will always give a weaker result.
What does it cost, and how many pages is a typical record?
Most undergraduate records run two to six pages including the key. The $2 seven-day trial covers 10 pages or 3,000 words, which is enough for one degree. The Monthly plan is $14.99 for 100 pages or 30,000 words, the Annual plan is $135 a year at about $11.25 a month, and further volume is $0.005 per word.
Read your record in the language the committee reads
Upload the record and the grading key together, check the ledger row by row, and go into the application knowing exactly what the evaluator will see.
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