Posted by Bel/Ca on 7/11/13 2:59am
Msg #476300

high school diploma evaluation

Do we notarize foreign high school diploma evaluations?
Just received pm from someone who needs one done from Chkna.

Reply by Ilene C. Seidel on 7/11/13 5:28am
Msg #476301

NO, When they order it from the Board of Education it comes certified in a sealed envelope which they are not to open. Same goes with undergraduate diploma's.

Reply by BobbiCT on 7/11/13 6:40am
Msg #476307

Certified Copy of high school diploma evaluation

As of last year, a Connecticut notary can make a certified copy of this. The CT SOTS introduced and pushed for this law so that students would not need to get certified copies from their schools or colleges.

Downside: I am relutant to do this as I don't have enough experience and knowledge to know if the "original" presented to me is actually an original issued by the school of origin.

Reply by VT_Syrup on 7/11/13 7:42am
Msg #476310

The other responses seem to be about copying high school diplomas. This is different. An "evaluation" is prepared by some qualified person or service in the United States, saying that a foreign high school diploma is equivalent to having graduated from a high school. So that leaves us with two possible scenarios:

1. You'll meet with the person who did the evaluation, and that person will either acknowledge his signature on the evaluation, or swear the evaluation is correct. This would be standard notary stuff.

2. The evaluation was finished and the foreign high school graduate has the finished evaluation in hand. The graduate wants a notarized copy to send to someone. Since CA notaries can't certify copies except copies of their journals and POAs, all you could do is a certification by the document custodian. I think I saw in other threads that your state website has a form for this purpose.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 7/12/13 1:56am
Msg #476517

It might help to keep in mind that we don't notarize documents, we just notarize signatures. So if someone presents you with a document they are going to sign (or have signed if it's an acknowledgment), you can notarize their signature on that document.

But there were some good points made about certifying copies. For some things, like vital records, certified copies should be requested from the document issuers.