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Verification of official educational documents

Educational documents, general instructions

Have you completed your degree used for the eligibility in a Finnish university or Finnish university of applied sciences?

YES: You do not have to submit the documents for verification. UEF will contact you in case we need further information of your documents.

NO: Please, see the instructions below. 

Follow these instructions to find the correct way to submit your official educational documents. Your admission is conditional until the verification of official educational documents is completed. Conditionally granted study right will be cancelled if the verification in the required manner is not done by the deadline.

If your educational document is not issued in English, Finnish or Swedish, you must submit the official translation following these same instructions.

Please note an exception: Educational documents from China must be submitted in a specific way. Please see the country-specific instruction for China.

Required documents after you been accepted

If your home institution uses an electronic credential service or there is a national register of educational documents that allows you to share your official educational documents, please use that service to share your educational documents directly from the service to the University of Eastern Finland.

Select the University of Eastern Finland from the service's list of registered recipients or, if the service requires a contact email address for sharing, use admissions@uef.fi, as the contact address.

The document must arrive to the University of Eastern Finland directly from the service, do not download the document to your own computer first.

Please refer to your institution’s own instructions for more details on how to access the service that your institution uses. University of Eastern Finland is unable to assist you in using your home institution’s services.

Below is a list of some common electronic document services that are accepted by the University of Eastern Finland:

Electronically signed educational documents

We accept documents that have been electronically signed with a valid digital signature (so called Adobe blue ribbon) by the awarding institution. A valid digital signature appears as a blue ribbon when the document is opened in Adobe Reader. The signature must be issued by the awarding institution, and the signature must be valid when the document is opened.

The University of Eastern Finland reserves the right to evaluate each digitally signed document case by case and reject documents that do not meet the requirements.

Send the digitally signed documents as a PDF file to the admissions@uef.fi email address.

Electronically verified educational documents

We accept electronic educational documents that contain a verification code that we can use to verify the document and its contents using an electronic verification service used by the degree awarding institution.

The following requirements must be met for the verification to be accepted:

  • the verification service is located on the degree awarding institution's website OR, in case of third party services, the institution provides a link to the service on their website
  • the entire document can be verified using the service, i.e. the verification service must show the exact same content as the document you submitted

Please note the following restrictions:

  • Institutional verification services that require downloading specific software or paying for the verification are not accepted.
  • Verification services that rely on the recipient to send an email to the verification service or the issuing institution are not accepted.
  • We cannot guarantee that we can accept verification services in languages other than English, Finnish or Swedish. If the service is available only in other languages, we will try our best to use the service. However, if we are unable to use the service due to it being in another language, you must submit your documents via some other accepted method.
  • If the electronic document verified by the service is not available in English, Finnish or Swedish, you must submit an official translation of the original document as well.
  • Regular PDF scans of educational documents are not accepted if the document cannot be verified using an electronic verification service on the institutions’ website.

The University of Eastern Finland reserves the right to evaluate each electronic document and verification service case by case. If we cannot verify the required information, you must submit the document via some other accepted method.

Do I need to send physical documents?

You only need to submit physical copies of your educational documents if none of the electronic delivery methods mentioned above are not available to you. That is, your home institution does not use any digital credential service to share document and your home institution does not issue official electronic documents.

If that is the case, you must submit your official educational documents or officially certified copies of your educational documents as physical documents to the Admission Office (see addresses below):

Postal address to Joensuu Campus:
University of Eastern Finland
Admissions Office, Joensuu Campus
(include the programme name or the application number)
P.O. Box 111
FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland

Postal address to Kuopio Campus:
University of Eastern Finland
Admissions Office, Kuopio Campus
(include the programme name or the application number)
P.O. Box 1627
FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland

Please note that you should not send any unique documents that you cannot have easily replaced, as the sent documents will not be returned to the applicants after the application round. If your document is unique and you need to retain it, send an officially certified copy.

When sending physical documents, there are country-specific requirements for certain countries. Please check if the country where your institution is based in has a country-specific requirement and follow that requirement first and foremost. If there are no country-specific requirements for that country, follow the general instructions on this page.

Country-specific requirements

Physical educational documents awarded in certain countries must be certified and/or submitted following country-specific requirements. These requirements must be followed first and foremost, whenever applicable, if you are required to send physical documents. Please find the requirements here:

If your degree has not been completed in a country that has country-specific requirements, then you are asked to send officially certified copies, see instructions below.

Officially certified copies and legalisation of documents

The authenticity of an official copy of a document can be attested in the following ways:

  • The awarding educational institution (or organization, such as the Finnish Matriculation Examination Board or the IB organization) certifies the copy (see below for further information)
  • The copy of the document is legalized
  • A Finnish notary public certifies the copy.

Other copies will not be recognized as officially certified copies. For example, a regular photocopy or a copy certified by two persons are not sufficient to constitute certification. Also note that copies certified by a notary public in another country will not be accepted, unless the copies have been legalised. An officially certified copy must be submitted to Admissions Office in paperform, if not specifically otherwise instructed.

An officially certified copy must always be made directly from the original document. The stamps and signatures in the original document must in all cases be original and the copy must include all the pages belonging to the original document.

If the copy contains several pages, each page must be stamped and signed by the certifying institution or individual, unless the pages are bound together in such a way (e.g. by a seal) that individual pages cannot be detached from each other. If the pages of the copy are loose or can be detached from each other (i.e., are stapled together using a regular stapler), each page must be stamped and signed by the certifying institution or individual.

For a copy of a document issued by an educational institution to be recognized as officially certified, the copy must be stamped with the official stamp of the institution. The official stamps of educational institutions usually display the institution name and emblem. In addition, the copy must contain the signature of a representative of the institution, their name in capital letters as well as their title. A stamp which only contains the phrase “jäljennöksen oikeaksi todistaa” or “certified copy” is not an official stamp of an educational institution. Also, please note that an educational institution cannot officially certify a degree diploma awarded by another organization (such as the Finnish Matriculation Examination Board or the IB organization) or institution.  

If your copy does not fulfil the above requirements for officially certified copies, contact the certifying institution or individual and ask for a new copy which complies with the requirements.

If you cannot obtain officially certified copies of your academic documents from the awarding institution, you may submit legalised copies of your academic documents.

Legalisation can take place by two different routes depending on whether the country of the awarding institution is a signatory to the Hague Convention of 1961 or not. Documents supplied by countries that have ratified the Hague Convention are legalised by the issuance of an Apostille Certificate (stamp or paper certificate). Documents issued by other countries are legalised in two steps: first by the foreign ministry of the issuing country, then by a competent Finnish Embassy or Finnish Consulate of that country.

Apos­tille

The Apostille Certificate (stamp or paper certificate) is necessary if the document has been issued by the authorities of a country that has ratified the Hague Convention of 1961. Information on the Hague Convention as well as an English language list of its member states can be found here:

It also provides information about the authorities issuing Apostille Certificates in the various countries.

Please make sure that the Apostille certificate is firmly and clearly attached to all the documents it is certifying as being official.

Leg­al­isa­tion

If the country issuing a document is not a signatory of the Hague Convention, a document is legalised by the foreign ministry of the issuing country, after which a competent Finnish Embassy or Finnish Consulate of that country legalises the document, certifying the competence of that foreign ministry official to issue such legalisation.