Frequently Asked Questions

Use the self-service tool to determine what official documents are required and where to send them.

If your degree will be conferred by July 15, please wait until after your degree is conferred before placing an order for your official transcript.

If your degree will be conferred later than July 15, please arrange for your undergraduate university to send your official in-progress transcript to us (or to WES, if international) as soon as possible, as this will enable us to initiate your matriculation into Stanford. Once your degree has been conferred, please place an order for your final official transcript to be sent to our office (or WES, if international).

Yes, you are eligible to enroll as long as you have completed the required coursework for your undergraduate degree before the first day of classes. Please arrange for your undergraduate university to send your official in-progress transcript to us (or to WES, if international) as soon as possible, as this will enable us to initiate your matriculation into Stanford. We will place an enrollment hold on your account effective winter quarter (or your second quarter of graduate study), which will be released after we receive your official documents with proof of degree conferral.

Yes, please order your official in-progress graduate transcript as soon as possible, as this will enable us to initiate your matriculation into Stanford. You are not required to send a final official transcript for your graduate program unless you received a TOEFL waiver conditional upon successful completion of your graduate program taught in English.

The expected processing time upon receipt of the document is up to 1 week for electronic documents and up to 2 weeks for physical documents. If your Matriculation Checklist still has not been updated after this point, please submit a ticket to Graduate Admissions.

Your official transcripts and/or degree conferral documents become the property of Stanford University once we receive them. We are unable to accommodate student requests to access physical or electronic official transcripts received by our office.

Please submit a ticket to Graduate Admissions to discuss potential options for your situation.

This test is a required condition of admission for applicants who scored below 109 on the TOEFL. Please see the English Placement Test website for details about the exam, which typically takes place in late August. If you have been required to take the exam, you will receive a notice from the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program with information on how to sign up for a specific time. The notice will be sent to all students required to take the placement test.

Please have your official scores sent to Stanford using institution code 4704 (department code not required).

Please submit a ticket to Graduate Admissions with the following information:

• Test date
• Name and Date of Birth listed on your score report
• Date your official scores were sent to Stanford, if different from the test date
• File Upload: Upload a PDF of your score report

As noted on your application status page, we require the submission of official transcripts from your prior institution(s) to initiate your matriculation into Stanford. While incomplete documents (e.g., undergraduate transcripts without degree conferral, foreign language transcripts without translation, non-U.S. transcripts without an accompanying degree certificate) are sufficient for the initial review process, we will notify you of any missing components by placing To Do items in Axess. Going forward, you will be alerted of any required documents or actions via Axess, not your application status page.

Please allow up to 5 business days for the processing of your official documents and the removal of your To Do item(s). If your To Do item has not been removed a week after the document’s arrival at our office, please submit a ticket to Graduate Admissions.

This may be a cache issue. Please try the following:

• Clear your browser cache completely (including cookies), close the browser, and restart Axess.
• If that does not work, reattempt using a different browser. (Chrome is particularly susceptible to this cache problem—try Firefox or Edge.)
• If you still cannot view your To Do item, please submit a ticket to Graduate Admissions, attach a screenshot of your error message, and let us know what platform you are using (Mac/PC) and which browsers you have tried.

A WES evaluation is required for all institutions outside the United States, excluding China. Any official transcripts sent directly by international institutions will be rejected. Please refer to our Official Transcripts and Degree Conferral Documents page for more information.

As noted on our Official Transcripts and Degree Conferral Documents page, you are required to order a Verification Report of China Higher Education Qualification Certificate and a Verification Report of China Higher Education Degree Certificate verified by the China Credentials Verification agency (CSSD).

No, you do not need to arrange for your official Stanford transcript to be sent to us, as we have access to verify your Stanford enrollment and degree conferral internally. Any Stanford transcripts on your Matriculation Checklist will be marked as Waived within one week after accepting the offer of admission.

If you are a current graduate student at Stanford, you do not need to arrange for any official documents to be sent to us, as we would have received these documents when you first enrolled at Stanford. If you are a former graduate student at Stanford, you also do not need to arrange for official documents to be sent to us, unless you enrolled in a degree program at another institution for at least one academic year since your most recent enrollment at Stanford.