Foreign and French-Canadian Transcripts

Overview

This topic pertains to applicants who attended foreign and French-Canadian schools. These instructions do not apply to applicants who attended a foreign school as part of a study abroad program. See Study Abroad and Overseas US Transcripts for more information on reporting your study abroad experience.

Canadian Schools

English-Canadian Transcripts

Canadian schools that provide English transcripts are not considered foreign. Transcripts from these schools must be sent to OTCAS. We accept but do not require foreign evaluations from Canadian schools that provide transcripts in English. Please see the US and English-Canadian Transcripts section for information on reporting that coursework.

French-Canadian Transcripts

Canadian schools that issue transcripts in French are considered foreign and must be reported like any other foreign school. We cannot accept original Canadian transcripts which are written in French. However, foreign evaluations for these schools should be sent to OTCAS.

Caribbean Medical Schools

All Caribbean medical schools are considered foreign institutions and are not US accredited, even if they have offices in the US or allow US licensing. This includes Ross University School of Medicine. Do not send transcripts from these schools to OTCAS, as they will be discarded. Determine whether your programs require foreign evaluations (which may be sent to OTCAS), or if they will accept original Caribbean transcripts mailed directly to the program.

Documenting Foreign Coursework

If you attended a foreign school or earned your degree outside of the United States, most OTCAS programs require you to submit your foreign coursework to a US-based evaluation service for a course-by-course US equivalency report. This report should then be sent directly to OTCAS from the evaluation service.

Contact a foreign transcript evaluation service as early as possible. See below for more information about vendors and accepted formats. Services can take several weeks to process your transcript(s) once received.

Do not send foreign transcripts to OTCAS, including those printed in English or translated into English; they will be discarded.

Foreign Evaluation Vendors

OTCAS only accepts electronic foreign evaluations from World Education Services (WES), Inc.

Ordering WES Electronic Evaluations

You must order WES electronic evaluations directly through the OTCAS application. If you do not order through the application, your evaluation will not be accepted.

  1. Enter your schools in the Colleges Attended section.
  2. Click Order after listing your foreign institution in the Colleges Attended section. If you don’t see the Order button, it means you didn’t enter your institution as a foreign institution – return to the Colleges Attended section to fix this.

    CAS - Ordering Foreign Evals – Order Button.png
     
  3. Click Visit WES Now.
  4. OTCAS is pre-selected for you (if not, select from the drop-down). Follow the prompts to order your transcript evaluation.

    CAS - Ordering Foreign Evals - WES.png
  5. Once you’ve requested the evaluation, return to the application and click I Ordered My Evaluation to let us know. When WES completes your evaluation, they'll send it to us electronically.