The first type of evaluation that is needed to transfer your credits is referred to as an official course-by-course evaluation report. Foreign countries use grading systems that are unlike the grading used in the United States. The purpose of the Course-by-Course Evaluation is to convert the grading systems used in other countries to the U.S. grading equivalency (E.g. A+, A, A-, B+ etc.). Credit values are also calculated based on the U.S. standards on these types of evaluations. This type of evaluation can only be provided by a third-party Evaluation Agency, such as the following:
Please choose any of the following Evaluation Agencies below:
- Josef Silny & Associates, INC, International Education Consultants www.jsilny.org
- Transcript Research www.transcriptresearch.com
- Evaluation Service, Inc. www.evaluationservice.net
When contacting an Evaluation Agency, please be sure to request a Course-by-Course Evaluation Report that includes the following:
- GPA based on all secondary school course work, all university course work, and any external examination certificates earned.
- Must contain the credit value of each course, using the U.S. standards.
- Certified copies of all documentation used for the evaluation.
- English translations for all documents (if necessary).
Once you are in possession of these documents, please submit an official copy of the evaluation to The Transfer Evaluation Office by e-mailing it to us at tcevaluation@brooklyn.cuny.edu. In the subject line of the e-mail, please write "Course-By-Course Evaluation."
Once the Transfer Evaluation Team has been provided with the Course-by-Course Evaluation Report (see page 1), we can create a Transfer Credit Report that contains credits from international schools. By default, international courses will be applied to the CUNYfirst Transfer Credit Report with our pending evaluation code (9999R) as we assist you in the completion of the Brooklyn College Evaluation.
Please note that before the Brooklyn College Course Evaluation can be completed, all course work must be reviewed by the Academic Department Evaluator (the field of study expert from the academic department associated with the transferred course/courses). Academic Evaluators will not grant an equivalency by viewing the title of a course and the credit value. They require a small explanation of the courses learning outcome. What was the student intended to learn in the course? For this to happen, the student must provide the Transfer Evaluations Office with Course Descriptions of the international courses that they have completed.
A Course Description is a small paragraph that describes what the goal of the course was, indicates what the expected outcome for the student is, and may identify theories, functions, or concepts that are to be taught in the course. It is NOT a transcript, which only contains the course name and allotted hours and grades.
Example Course Description
PHIL 100 Philosophy - Philosophy is an ongoing and open-ended conversation about basic questions of human existence. This course introduces students to the conversation through the works of major philosophers.
Units: 3
Department: Philosophy
Source Catalog: Wells College 2020-2021
To obtain Course Descriptions, some students may need to contact their previous international college to gather the descriptions of the courses that they have completed. Other students may be able to locate the information on the institution’s website, or may have this information on a course syllabus.
Course descriptions can be translated by an outside professional. One such authorized outside evaluation service is Josef Silny & Associates, INC. www.jsilny.org.
Students can also use a translation tool, like Google Translate to translate the course descriptions, although these tools may lack the finesse of a trained translator. Students must submit both the translated course description, with the course description in the original language. We may need to verify the translations. Original language course descriptions should contain the website that they were retrieved from or have an indication that the international college provided the information.
Please submit course descriptions/syllabi to the Transfer Evaluation Office by e-mailing it to us at tcevaluation@brooklyn.cuny.edu. In the subject line of the e-mail, please write "Course Descriptions."
Once the course descriptions have been submitted, The Transfer Evaluation Team can now work with the Academic Departments to have your courses evaluated. Once your course descriptions have been reviewed and evaluated by the appropriate Academic Department Evaluators, The Transfer Evalautions Team will enter their decisions on the Brooklyn College equivalent onto your Transfer Credit Report. You will be able to view the progress on this process by checking your CUNYfirst Transfer Credit Report. However, if the Academic Departments require any additional information on your transferred courses, you will be notified via e-mail.
Once the evaluations are updated on CUNYfirst, Degree Works will automatically update within 2 or 3 days.
