What is WES and why it is needed-
The full name of WES is World Education Services, which is abbreviated as WES. The function of WES is to conduct International Credential Evaluation. Only two countries require WES, the US and Canada. For higher education in America and for immigration* to Canada. The work of WES is to do a Credential Evaluation of students who apply for higher education in the USA from foreign universities and to convert non-American transcripts to American standards. Generally, some middle and lower-ranked universities in America require WES.

How long does WES take?
If you prepare all the papers properly and send them to WES on time without any delay then it will take a maximum of 13 days to complete the evaluation. Moreover, the report paper will take 2-3 weeks to reach your home.

What documents are required and where to get them?
Two documents are required for WES.
1) Photocopy of Bachelor Certificate (Final or Provisional).
2) Photocopy of the transcript.
If someone has a master's degree and wants to do a master's evaluation with bachelor then s/he has to send his/her masters certificate and transcript as well.

The official transcript for WES can be obtained from the office of the Registrar or Exam Controller of the University. You have to pay a certain amount of fee to get this transcript and the fee varies depending on the university. A photocopy of the original transcript will also work if your university does not wish to issue or provide a second copy of the transcript. Never send your original copy of the certificate. Because the original copy of the certificate is issued by the university only once. Each of these documents must be attested and sealed by the Register or Exam Controller.

Get started with WES
STEP-1: First go to WES website and open an account in your name. Open the account with all the information very carefully and slowly. Make sure you insert your name and address carefully before making the payment. You cannot change your name and address once you make the payment. In that case, you need to contact WES to correct the name and address. However, after giving all the information, you have to pay $212 USD via credit card online. For WES for American universities select WES Evaluation Type: Course-by-Course Evaluation (ICAP). Once the payment is complete, a confirmation email will be sent to your email immediately from WES and a reference number will be given to your account. This reference number is very important. This reference number will be needed for all subsequent work. WES will recognize you by this reference number. After that download and print the "Academic Records Request Form" pdf from WES website and fill the first part by the student (you) and keep the lower part for the university to fill. Remember you have to enter your reference number at the beginning of this form.

This pdf is available on their website as International_Transcript_Request.pdf. Download Link

STEP-2: Now, it is time to prepare the document. Collect your Transcript (photocopy or official) and Certificate (photocopy only) from your university and then submit these three documents (Certificate + Transcript + Academic Records Request Form) to the office of the University Registrar or Exam Controller. Then get each certificate and transcript attested by the Registrar or Controller of Examination and take the signature on the Academic Records Request Form as well.

STEP-3: Now these three documents (Certificate + Transcript + Academic Records Request Form) must be sealed together in the official envelope of the University. After that, the registrar or exam controller must sign the sealed space of the envelope (shown in the picture below). Now write your reference number in big clear ink (black marker) on the envelope. If you want, you can type the reference number and the address of WES on a small piece of paper and stick it on the envelope as well.

STEP-4: Then send this envelope through DHL. DHL has a student package, which will cost around Taka 3500 per package. It takes 3 to 4 days to arrive. Note that these documents are supposed to be sent to WES by your university. Since most Bangladeshi universities do not care about these rules, you have to send those documents by yourself at your own cost. Therefore, the sender of the parcel would be your university address and the recipient's address would be the WES address.

STEP-5: Now wait until WES receives the parcel. Now, your WES account will show "DOCUMENT RECEIVED" status after 2 days of receiving the package. Now WES will start their reviewing process. It will take approximately 2-3 days to review. WES will email you once their review is complete and that email will state that they have sent an email to your university for document verification. A "PENDING" and "RECEIVED DOCUMENT AWAITING VERIFICATION" status will be shown on your account as well. Below I have shared the screenshot of my email and WES Account respectively.

STEP-6: Now your job is to call your Registrar or Controller of Examination of the University and tell them that they have received an email from WES for verification. So that they declare it "Verified". This “Verified" declaration must be done by email reply only. Once your university declares your documents as "Verified", WES will show "ACCEPTED" status in your account after 1 or 2 days. Below I have shared the screenshot of my WES Account.

Now your work is done and it is your turn to wait. WES will begin your Credential Evaluation. It took approx. 3-4 days to finish the evaluation. Once the Evaluation is completed, WES will notify you by email and also send a hard copy to your home address free of cost. It takes 2-3 weeks to arrive the hard copy at your home. You can send a free evaluation copy to your first university without any cost. After that, WES will charge USD $37 to send a report to each university.

Statutory Warnings
Sometimes WES makes fatal mistakes. After confirming the evaluation by email, WES will upload an UNOFFICIAL report copy to your WES account. You cannot download or use that copy anywhere because it is just for your record. Carefully check all your grades subject by subject. Because when I did my WES, I wanted to do it for both my bachelor's and master's degrees separately in a single evaluation process. Nevertheless, WES evaluated my bachelor's and master's (140.5+57) credits together as 197.5 credits and showed 197.5 credits as bachelor's CGPA only. Which was wrong. WES supposed to perform two separate evaluations, one for a bachelor's and another for a master's degree. Therefore, I emailed them to correct this mistake. Moreover, it takes 2-3 weeks to contact them because email is the only way to contact them.

Thank you.

Declaration: The above-mentioned entire procedure (STEP: 1-6) was based on my own experience. Depending on the universities and their policy, your WES timeline and experience may vary.