Recognition of your diploma: where to check before you apply

What you need to do

The most expensive mistake in admission is to learn about recognition at the end. A university does not look at your diploma on its own, but through the decision of a recognition authority, which establishes what your document corresponds to in the local system. If that correspondence is not the one you assumed, what changes is not a line in your application but the whole list of programmes you are entitled to apply for.

So the order is: first find out how your document is assessed in the country you chose, and only then choose a programme. It is a single check, and it is done before you collect a folder of papers.

The second thing worth understanding early: recognition is a procedure of the state, not of the university, and a passport does not remove it. A qualification issued outside the union goes through recognition regardless of its holder's citizenship.

The order of actions

1. Find the recognition authority of your chosen country. There are four kinds: a public database that grades institutions, a national recognition centre, a state admission portal, and a procedure run by the university itself. Which one is yours depends on the country alone, not on the programme.
2. Search it for your institution, not for your country. Assessment goes by institution and document type; an entry for a country as a whole usually says nothing specific.
3. Read the marking literally. In the German database the markings mean different things: direct access, conditional access, and "the institution is not considered equal to a university". Those are three different admission scenarios, not three shades of one.
4. Find out whether a separate document is needed to apply. In some countries the recognition authority issues a certificate, in others the university requires a preliminary assessment, in others still you need a translation accompanied by a statement of equivalence. These are not the same document.
5. Order it early. Such a document takes time to produce, sometimes has a validity period, and sometimes is valid for one named university only.
6. Check the Moldovan side too. In Moldova the decision on recognising foreign education is issued by the ministry of education, and the outcome is a separate certificate — you need it if you studied abroad and are returning or applying onwards.

What goes wrong

People search for the country instead of the institution. A recognition database is organised by institution and document type, not by year and not by state. A match on the name of the school or university matters more than a match on the country.

The marking is read backwards. "Conditional access" means an additional stage is required before admission, not that you will be admitted with a caveat. "The institution is not recognised as equal" means a document from that institution does not lead to admission at all — better learned before you pay application fees.

The condition about a year of study goes unnoticed. For some documents the marking requires proof of one successfully completed year of study at home. For a school leaver that means applying not straight away.

A preliminary assessment is assumed to be universal. In Germany it is issued for one named university and has a validity period: one document for five applications does not work, and an expired one works nowhere.

Recognition is confused with translation. A translation of a document and a statement of its equivalence to the local system are different papers, and a sworn translation on its own says nothing about equivalence.

People assume recognition costs the same everywhere. The spread is enormous: in one country the authority's statement is free, in another the procedure carries a token fee, in a third the price is set by the university itself within a legal maximum. Budgeting from someone else's experience does not work here.

An old document is submitted as an ordinary one. Soviet-era qualifications and school documents from a shorter length of schooling are covered by separate rules: some are recognised directly, others need a duplicate or a procedure of their own.

Where this is stated officially

• Anabin — the German database assessing foreign school and university qualifications: which document issued in your country corresponds to which German level.
• CNRED — the Romanian national centre for the recognition and equivalence of diplomas.
• Universitaly — the Italian state portal through which preliminary recognition is requested.

How to check the requirement is still current

If your case is not in the database, that is not a refusal but a reason to write to the recognition authority and ask. A missing entry means "not described", not "not recognised".

Fees, deadlines and the meaning of the markings are collected below, each with a link to its primary source and a verification date. The authority's opening hours are worth checking in advance too: the window can be narrow, and the journey is planned around it rather than the other way round.