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 OptomCAS. 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 OptomCAS.

Caribbean Medical Schools

Documenting Foreign Coursework

If you attended a foreign school or earned your degree outside of the United States, most OptomCAS 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 OptomCAS 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 OptomCAS, including those printed in English or translated into English; they will be discarded.

Foreign Evaluation Vendors

OptomCAS requires applicants to request foreign evaluations from World Education Services (WES), Inc. or Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE), Inc. only. You can request electronic WES ICAP course-by-course evaluations directly through the application.

Ordering WES Electronic Evaluations

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

Enter your schools in the Colleges Attended section.
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.
Click Visit WES Now.
OptomCAS is pre-selected for you (if not, select from the drop-down). Follow the prompts to order your transcript evaluation.
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.

Sending WES or ECE Paper Evaluations via Mail

You can order and send mailed paper evaluations from the vendors listed above. To send foreign evaluations by mail, use the following address:

OptomCAS Transcript Processing Center
PO Box 9119
Watertown, MA 02471

International applicants can also send foreign evaluations to the following street address:

OptomCAS Transcript Processing Center
c/o Liaison International
311 Arsenal Street
STE 5600
Watertown MA 02472

We are not responsible for any materials lost in the mail. Express or certified mail does not guarantee faster processing or receipt.