Educational Credential Assessment is the process of getting your foreign educational degrees, diplomas, certifications validated and evaluated by an agency to assess how it compares with the Canadian level of education.
There are several agencies that are authorized to assess your degrees. In their assessment, they will let you know if, let’s say, your Master’s degree will be considered a Master’s degree in Canada or whether it will only be considered equivalent to Bachelor’s. Whatever the outcome is, you will have to mention that in your Express Entry profile when you create it.
Which degrees should you get assessed
You don’t have to worry about this if you studied in Canada but if you did not, then you will need to get your degrees assessed to find out where they stand in comparison with Canadian degrees.
Since you get points only for your highest degree, in most cases, assessing your highest degree alone will be enough. But we strongly recommend getting all your degrees assessed because you never know if your highest degree, let’s say Master’s, will get assessed as Master’s by Canadian standards or not. If your Master’s gets assessed as a 2 year Diploma, and you did not get your Bachelor’s assessed, you will lose a lot of points because now you can claim points only for a diploma, not for a Bachelor’s + Diploma.
We got our degrees assessed through WES Canada and they charge the same fee whether you get one degree assessed or more. Most other agencies also don’t charge extra for multiple degrees. So why not get all of them assessed!
Agencies for assessing education
There are 5 agencies that can assess degrees for the purpose of immigration to Canada. We got ours assessed from WES because they were the fastest of all.
| Evaluation Agency | Fee | Processing Time |
|---|---|---|
| World Education Services (WES) | $220 | 7 weeks |
| Comparative Education Service (CES) | $210 per degree | 15 to 20 weeks if documents are received electronically. 20 to 25 weeks if documents are received by mail. |
| International Credential Assessment Service of Canada (ICAS) | $200 | 30 weeks |
| International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS) | $200 | 14 weeks for 1 degree. 18 weeks for 2 or more degrees |
| International Credential Evaluation Service (ICES) | $200 per degree | 20 weeks |
All fees are in Canadian Dollars. Service taxes may be extra. Check their websites for most up to date fee and processing times.
You will receive a digital copy of your ECA report through email and you will also get a physical copy through mail. There is also an option to choose between regular mail and express courier service to receive your copy that can cost up to $90. I would recommend going for the cheapest option because you won’t need to use your physical copy. We spent $85 on courier to receive our copy but all we used was the digital report we received through email.
How to get your ECA report from WES
Since we used WES for our ECA, we can share our experience in these simple steps.
1. Create your account
The first thing you’ll need to do is to create an account on their website. Remember to do it on WES Canada’s website and not on WES United States. Choose the option that’s for immigration purposes while creating your account.
Fill in the form with all the relevant details about yourself and the degrees you want to get assessed. We got both our degrees evaluated since we both had Bachelor’s and Master’s and it didn’t cost anything extra to get two degrees evaluated. After you pay your fee, you will receive a WES Reference number which you will need very soon.
2. Get the transcripts
The next step is to approach your university or college and ask for sealed transcripts (marksheets). If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, because most of the universities keep getting requests like this from other students who moved abroad for studies or immigration. So, they would have their own process and they’ll let you know how to apply to receive the sealed transcripts.
It can take a few days to a couple of months to receive your transcripts and it varies from university to university. For my Master’s, I just had to write an email and two days later, my transcripts were ready for pick up at no cost to me. For my Bachelor’s it was totally opposite. I had to run around from counter to counter, pay a $30 fee, produce a lot of documents, and it took them more than a month to complete the request.
Since an ECA report is valid for 5 years, I would strongly recommend starting the process as soon as you can to avoid these delays that are beyond your control.
3. Mail your transcripts
Once you get all your sealed transcripts, put them in an envelope along with a copy of your degrees, write WES’ mailing address on top and most importantly, write your WES Reference number on the envelope.
WES requires the universities to send the transcripts directly to them but your university may refuse to do so and it’s a common problem. In that case, you can mail it yourself but remember to mail it from the post office closest to your university.
I would also recommend using a post or courier service that lets you track your shipment. If you have spent so much time and energy in getting those transcripts, it’s not worth losing them to save a few bucks.
4. Receive your ECA report
It can take 35 business days (7 weeks) to complete the evaluation but it can happen sooner than that. We received ours in 4 weeks. You will receive your digital copy on your email first and depending on the mailing service you chose, you will receive your physical copy in a few days.
CRS scores for Education
Based on the agency’s assessment, you’ll get these CRS points for your degrees:
| Level of education | Points |
|---|---|
| One year degree/diploma | 90 |
| Two years degree/diploma | 98 |
| Bachelor’s degree | 120 |
| Bachelor’s degree and a 1-2 year diploma | 128 |
| Master’s degree | 135 |
| Ph.D. | 150 |
If you have two or more degrees, for example, if you have Bachelor’s and Master’s, then you will get 135 points, not 120+135.