One document that you often tend to forget about is your academic transcript. In fact, you may not even have been given one when you completed a university or college course. The importance of an academic transcript may only become obvious when you are asked to provide one. If most of your academic and other personal documents are in any other language but English, you may be asked for an academic transcript certified translation. Why an academic transcript is important and why a certified translation of it is required will be explained below.
Why academic translations are important
The reason you may not think that an academic transcript is important is because you are quite familiar with the course you followed at university, whether it was an undergraduate course or a postgraduate one. But that doesn’t mean that an employer, another university or an immigration department somewhere else in the world knows exactly what you studied and what the details of the course were. For example, say you obtained a Bachelor of Science in Engineering several years ago. The title and the degree certificate is unlikely to provide any details about the length of the course and what exactly you studied in that time as well as how well you did. That’s what the academic transcript will do.
If you are applying for an engineering position and it is in another country other than your own, it only makes sense that you provide detailed information about what you studied in order to show that your qualifications meet the job description. The academic transcript will enable the employer to directly compare your suitability with any other applicants. If you are accepted provisionally, the immigration department (e.g. the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service in the U.S.), will want to be sure that you are able to meet the standards required of an employee recruited from outside the country.
Why is there a need for an academic transcript certified translation?
You can’t expect a university admissions board or an immigration officer to understand your transcript if it is not in the same language that they are familiar with. Because it is an important document it will need translating. You may think that it is going a bit over the top asking for a certified translation, but how would the official looking at the translated version be sure that what they are looking at is an accurately translated transcript? When you provide an academic transcript certified translation, the translator must certify the translated version of the original and sign it to show that it is a genuine and accurate translation of what they have been given. The actual rules behind certified translations vary from country to country so it is worth finding out what you need to do for the country you are using the transcript for. It is unlikely that the transcript will be the only document you need translating and certifying. There will be others, so it’s important to choose the right translator who is able to provide an accurate academic transcript certified translation.
