Is it a requirement to get an assessment of all post-secondary credentials for ECA? For example, if I have a Ph.D. and M.S. from the US and B.Tech from India, the highest level of education, the Ph.D., would be the basis of points used in the scoring system by CIC.
So is an assessment needed for all three degrees?
While it is very straightforward to get transcripts for the degrees obtained in the US, I am not in a position to get one for the B.Tech degree from India.
Are official transcripts (issued by the university that conferred the degree and in a sealed envelope) required by WES for completing the ECA for a B.Tech from India? It looks like ‘yes’ based on their website.
Has anyone used the Univ. of Toronto’s Comparative Education Services for completing an ECA? From what I see on the website, it appears that copies of mark sheets (which I have on hand) are sufficient. Can someone who has gone through the U. Toronto system confirm this?
They are more expensive - $210 per credential and takes ~17 weeks to process – significantly higher than WES (20 days, as claimed on their website.)
Given that I don’t have the means to get official transcripts for the B. Tech, I may not have an option to go with WES. The best outcome for me would be to have to complete an ECA for just the highest degree. Can someone confirm this?
CIC did not have a straightfoward answer to this when I applied, and long story short, mistakes were made . My answer below is gleaned from going through a lot of forums etc as I did not know this while applying, and I certainly don’t know the exact way to do this on the cic website. Cic FAQ website is (was) unclear about this.
Here’s the gist: If you are counting your degrees towards the points then you need to provide ECA for those degrees. For e.g. if you are counting only your highest degree - PhD - towards your points, then you need to provide ECA for PhD only. But at some point during the application it will ask you for “additional information” and that’s where you have to disclose that you also have a BTech and a MS. This makes sense as you wont get any more points if you add PhD only vs PhD + MS as PhD will give you highest points.
Now I never tried it since I didn’t know at the time so I cannot tell you if it will work now or if they’ve changed anything. I would suggest, when you are creating your EE profile please make a trial profile where you can test this approach. As long as you are not hiding any of your degrees (a.k.a. misrepresentation) I think you should be fine.
When I applied I did not know this and I thought only my PhD and MS ECA will be sufficient but I had also added B.E. towards my points. They “canceled” my application after a couple of months for this reason and I had to go through the entire process again but my B.E. ECA arrived just in time for the second application so I was saved. It did take two-three months for my Indian university to send the transcript the Univ of Toronto and I had to ask my parents to do the legwork
Maybe someone on this forum has already used this approach and can answer this part of you question better.
Official transcripts are to be sent from conferring university (e.g., University of Pune, for me, not the actual college I attended) directly to the ECA agency.
For BCIT and Univ of Toronto (the ones I used), you need the transcripts (from your univ to the agency), degree copy and other documents. I did not have to send the actual marksheets to any agency. Your transcript should cover it. Call Univ of Toronto and ask them they have a good customer support.
Univ of Toronto does take time. When I applied WES was pretty much useless, maybe that has changed now. I did mine through BCIT which had the option of “Rush processing” at the time, which I heard is no longer offered
You should also try calling CIC helpline and see if you can get this answered.
Anshul, thank you for the prompt and detailed response. This is what is stated in the U. Toronto website as the required documents for post-secondary education when India is selected:
All final or provisional Diplomas/Degree certificates (e.g. Bachelor, Master, Ph.d) and Mark sheets for each year of study issued by the university
By any chance, has there been any change to what it is now, from the time that you applied?
I plan on calling them tomorrow as they are not open on Wednesdays
I would think this is the most popular question and the one with the most number of different answers. According to research I’ve done online and speaking with people this is my conclusion.
You have to submit only the highest degree achieved that you are trying to get points for which in you’re case is PHD this is what CIC themselves states. Also your WES statement states the prerequisite for example for an MS its a BS and for a PHD its possibly an MS or a BS.
If you read their answer they only say that if you have to degrees like a BS in Comp. Sci and a BS in Chemical Engineering then you need to certify both for additional points and likewise for double PHD’s or MS.
Finally sorry for the delayed reply I was traveling on a holiday and offline for a bit of a tech detox.
i just received my ECA.
i have a MS from US. and btech from india.
let me tell you that even though my Btech degree was added, ECA was done as soon as my Us transcripts reached them and even before my indian transcripts reached them
they did not evaluate indian degree and my report says masters as canadian equivalency.
my advise to you would be add phd and ms degrees and get them evaluated.
Let me just confirm what i understand from this thread. I hold Masters in CS from US, and BE in CS from India. In my case, I have to get the ECA done for my Masters only. Even if I get ECA done for BE, I won’t get any extra points in express entry profile, so it’s not needed to get ECA for my BE. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Yes your understanding is correct. Points are for highest degree achieved. Often what happens is people send their US degrees to WES and are then working to send their BE degrees but WES does the evaluation and sends the result says “Admission requirements - Bachelor’s degree” this means that you have completed your Bachelors degree.
If you have two Masters degree’s say in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science then you can get points for both. Bot then you would need to get both evaluated.
I understand that each applicant (primary and their spouse) will have to create a separate WES profile. The Express entry profile will then have two WES reference numbers to link against. Is this understanding correct?
Yes the express entry profile will promoted for the ECA details in the education section when you mention “Yes” for ECA Done. When filling the section for your spouse there will be a similar education section for their ECA details.
You need transcriptsent directly by University or sealed envelope if you send it…
Then final degree copy… add the marksheets too if you want… BW copies are fine
I have done semester 1 of my masters in University A and completed the rest in University B and also received the degree from here.
University B’s transcript has the information that I transferred the credits from University A, I didnt explicitly send my transcript over to wes
When I spoke to WES they told me that you can remove the credential since you did not get a degree there - just want to get this validated from community.
@avj I read in a post that you have done masters here, do you know any information on this or have you heard of any such cases.
I am not sure about the case of transferred credits but since you were not actually awarded a degree from University A, it should be alright for you to withdraw that and just mention University B, especially if WES is saying that it is okay. You also mentioned that the University B transcripts list the credits which were transferred so you should be fine.
I think @avj is currently busy for a day or two so you can probably wait until Monday to get a confirmation from him.
. My answer below is gleaned from going through a lot of forums etc as I did not know this while applying, and I certainly don’t know the exact way to do this on the cic website. Cic FAQ website is (was) unclear about this.
