Guides
Each guide states the rule, cites the body that published it, and says when we last checked.
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UK & Ireland
UK ENIC and NARIC Ireland are not the same service — and neither one decides whether you can practise
One is a paid, personalised statement from a company managed for the UK government. The other is a free, generic download. Both are routinely mistaken for a licence to work, and neither is one.
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Australia & NZ
ACS does not deduct years from your experience. It sets a date, and your qualification decides where the date lands
The published table of how much relevant experience each qualification level requires, plus the Skill Level Requirement Met Date rule and ACS's own two worked examples — including the case where experience predates the degree.
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Australia & NZ
ACS RPL does not bridge a non-ICT degree. It ignores the degree entirely
The question 'which non-ICT degrees can be bridged by experience' has no answer at ACS, because the RPL pathway states it does not assess tertiary qualifications at all. Here is what it asks for instead.
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Australia & NZ
What ACS counts as an ICT major is a percentage, and the percentage changes with the qualification type
ACS publishes the actual thresholds — 33% for a standard three-year bachelor, one full academic year for a diploma, 50% for a two-year postgraduate award — plus a separate 65% test that has nothing to do with the major.
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Australia & NZ
Non-ICT bachelor plus an ICT master's: ACS assesses the master's on its own thresholds, and asks for the bachelor anyway
The published postgraduate rules — 50% ICT for a two-year award, 67% for an Australian postgraduate degree of only twelve subjects, plus three structural minimums — and what the pair of qualifications does to the experience requirement.
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Australia & NZ
A three-year Indian BCA or B.Sc (IT) under ACS: the three-year length is not the problem people think it is
ACS's published major test is written for a standard three-year bachelor. What ACS does not publish is a country table — the AQF comparability reference it names in its own glossary is a paid subscription that its publisher says is not for individuals.
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UK & Ireland
The ARB Prescribed Examination is still running — but the Part 1 exam ends this October, and the application window has already closed
What ARB has actually published about the Prescribed Examination in 2026: which part is being discontinued, when the last sittings are, what is still only a consultation, and where ARB's own pages contradict each other.
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UK & Ireland
ARB's UK Adaptation Assessment: who is actually eligible, who is not, and why it is not an alternative to Part 3
The UKAA is open only to architects arriving through a registration-level mutual recognition agreement, and eligibility is decided by the partner regulator rather than by ARB. It is also being withdrawn after October 2026.
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UK & Ireland
Overseas architecture degree, no ARB Part 1: the three routes, and what each one actually demands
ARB publishes the rules and stops. This sets out the three published routes onto the UK Architects Register for someone qualified outside the UK, what evidence each needs, and the requirement none of them removes.
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UK & Ireland
ARB says an interior architecture degree is 'unlikely' to qualify you for its exam — here is the test it actually applies, and what does work
The escape clause on ARB's page points to transitional arrangements that only cover courses started before October 2013. This sets out the real eligibility test from ARB's Procedures, and the routes that remain open to interior architecture, interior design and architectural technology graduates.
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UK & Ireland
ARB Prescribed Examination or a UK Part 1 degree: the two routes costed side by side, from the fee pages themselves
A route-cost comparison only — no exam content. What each path charges, how long each takes, what entry each demands, and the item both paths still require that most comparisons leave out.
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UK & Ireland
India, Nigeria and Pakistan lawyers: the SRA's exemption list covers SQE2 only — SQE1 is still required
The SRA's own jurisdiction data shows an SQE2 exemption route for Indian advocates, Nigerian barristers and solicitors, and advocates in six Pakistani jurisdictions. It shows no SQE1 exemption for any of them, and the SRA says only one SQE1 exemption has been granted since 2021.
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Transnational awards
Is a branch campus degree the same as the main campus degree? What is identical, and what was never the same thing
The award can be genuinely identical and still be treated differently, because the bodies that judge it read facts the certificate does not carry. This separates the three questions people ask at once.
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Transnational awards
Branch campus vs main campus, line by line: entry, staff, assessment, testamur, transcript, register
A checkable item-by-item comparison, with the published rule behind each item — including what the standards require a certificate to state, and the one item that is genuinely unresolved.
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Canada & US
Your ECA says "Bachelor's degree (three years)" — what IRCC's own table attaches to that phrase, and what it doesn't
IRCC publishes a 152-row table mapping every possible ECA result to a level of education and a point value. A three-year bachelor's and a four-year bachelor's are separate rows that map to the same level of education, for the same points. Here is what that does, and the four decisions it still does not touch.
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Canada & US
Why two designated ECA agencies can report the same credential differently — the answer is in their own published rules
Canada designates five general organisations plus three professional bodies to assess foreign credentials, and the framework they all follow says in writing that it is 'not prescriptive'. Different results are a documented feature of the system, not a rumour.
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Transnational awards
Does studying at a branch campus count as "studying overseas"? There is no single definition, and the ones that exist do not agree
"Studying overseas" is not a general term with one meaning. Each rule that uses it defines it for itself, and the published definitions test different things — the awarding body, the campus, or where your body was.
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Transnational awards
One award, four rulebooks: why an employer, a regulator, a migration points test and an admissions office do not reach the same answer
The same transnational award is judged four separate times by four bodies asking four different questions. This page sets out what each one actually reads, in its own published words.
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Canada & US
One-year versus two-year credentials in the Express Entry education rules, as IRCC writes them
Two one-year credentials never reach the 'two or more' row — every combination entry in IRCC's own 152-row table begins with a credential of three years or more. And the Canadian bonus splits at one-or-two years versus three, with a separate rule for a one-year master's.
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Canada & US
A degree awarded in one country and taught in another: how Canadian ECA rules actually handle it
No designated agency publishes a general transnational-education policy. What they publish instead are three separate tests — who awarded it, who recognises the awarding body, and who recognises the teaching institution and the programme — and those three can point at different countries.
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UK & Ireland
HCPC's 'supervised practice and/or academic training' is real — and most international applicants are not eligible for it
The sentence about making up a shortfall with supervised practice or study belongs to periods of adaptation, and HCPC restricts those to applicants with European mutual-recognition rights. For everyone else on the international route the outcomes are pass, test of competence, or refusal. There is no 'go away and study' option.
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UK & Ireland
HCPC's one-round assessment, live since 20 November 2025: there is no second chance to send evidence
HCPC now assesses an international application in a single documentary round. If the evidence for a standard is not in the file you submit, you are referred to a test of competence or refused — you are not asked for more. What changed, what did not, and where HCPC's own documents still disagree.
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UK & Ireland
Where UK supervised practice for HCPC applicants comes from — and why nobody, including HCPC, publishes a list of providers
HCPC requires a period of adaptation to be arranged by the applicant, approved in advance, and supervised by a registrant — then states that it does not approve or endorse any placement or course and cannot help you find one. This is what that means in practice, and what you can actually do with the approval form.
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UK & Ireland
Practising law abroad does count as SRA qualifying work experience — but only a solicitor of England and Wales can sign it off
The SRA says QWE 'may be obtained in England or Wales or overseas' and does not need to cover English and Welsh law. The constraint is not the work. It is who is allowed to confirm it, and the SRA's rule on that is narrow and specific.
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UK & Ireland
Scotland and Northern Ireland are separate jurisdictions with separate regulators — and neither of them runs the SQE
What an overseas-qualified lawyer actually faces in the UK's two other legal jurisdictions: Scotland's eleven-exam Qualified Lawyers Assessment with published exemption refusal rates, and Northern Ireland, which publishes no transfer route for foreign lawyers at all.
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Canada & US
Four things the popular "US universities that accept a three-year bachelor's" guides get wrong
The list format itself is the error. A single US university can hold three different rules at once, an MBA answer never governs an MS application, Canada's credential-assessment machinery has no US counterpart, and at least one large US university publishes a flat refusal. All four points are shown here in the universities' own words.
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Canada & US
Does MIT accept a three-year bachelor's degree? MIT's own admissions pages, quoted
MIT's Office of Graduate Education publishes a direct answer to this exact question. This page quotes it, quotes the Institute-wide rule behind it, and then shows why the answer still has to be checked department by department — with the department wordings we could read on 3 September 2026.
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Canada & US
Does Yale accept a three-year bachelor's degree? What Yale's own admissions pages say, school by school
Yale's Graduate School states in writing that a three-year degree meets its application requirement. Yale School of Management states a four-year requirement and then admits three-year international degrees anyway. Yale Law's M.S.L. asks for a doctorate. "Yale" is not one policy, and the Graduate School says so itself.
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UK & Ireland
You do not need a law degree to sit the SQE — you need a degree in any subject, or something the SRA accepts as equivalent
What the SRA counts as 'a degree or equivalent' for admission as a solicitor: the level-6 rule, what happens to an overseas degree, the £160 no-degree equivalence application, and the validation trap that catches applicants with an SQE2 exemption.
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Australia & NZ
A graduate diploma sits inside VETASSESS's definition of "Diploma or higher" and outside its definition of "Bachelor degree or higher"
VETASSESS spells out what each level includes, group by group. The graduate diploma appears in the Certificate II, Certificate IV and Diploma enumerations and is absent from the bachelor one — which decides whether it can carry an application on its own.
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Australia & NZ
VETASSESS occupation groups: the qualification level each one demands — and the sixth group its own FAQ still does not list
Groups A to F set different AQF floors and different numbers of pathways. VETASSESS's FAQ says the groups run A to E; its occupation pages carry a Group F. Both were read on the same day.
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Australia & NZ
The accounting competency areas an overseas degree can miss by construction — and the three bodies' three different names for the same nine
CPA Australia, CA ANZ and IPA publish overlapping competency lists under different names and different counts. Two areas are unmissable for most applicants because they are not required at all; one is impossible to hold from an overseas degree by definition.
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Australia & NZ
The same body, two different competency lists: an accounting skills assessment is not a step towards membership
CA ANZ publishes one set of competency areas for its migration skills assessment and a different set for entry to the CA Program. CPA Australia retired two foundation exams from the membership path and kept them running for skilled migration. The two assessments are separate products.
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Canada & US
Top-up, second bachelor's, or a Canadian master's: what each one actually changes in the published rules
Three routes people take after an ECA result they did not want. Each one lands in a different place in IRCC's rules: a further foreign credential needs its own assessment and only helps through a specific combination row; a Canadian credential is assessed by nobody but must survive five conditions; and a Canadian master's is gated by an admissions decision no immigration rule controls.
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Canada & US
What counts as "Canadian education" for Express Entry points — the five conditions, quoted from the instrument that sets them
The 15 or 30 extra points for post-secondary education in Canada are governed by section 30 of the Ministerial Instructions, not by any college's marketing page. It sets an institution test, an eight-month full-time test, a physical-presence test, and three categories of credential that are excluded outright — including any programme that is more than half distance learning.
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Transnational awards
Branch campus, franchised, validated, twinned, joint: the five modes sorted by who teaches and who awards
Every transnational arrangement answers two questions — who teaches you, and who awards the degree. Five common combinations, each with the regulator's own words, and how to tell which one your offer letter describes.
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Australia & NZ
A Nigerian HND or a three-year bachelor under VETASSESS: what is published, what is behind a paywall, and why the group letter decides more than the degree does
VETASSESS names the reference it uses to place an overseas qualification on the AQF. That reference is a paid subscription whose publisher says it is not for individuals. Here is what you can actually read, and the published rules that survive the gap.
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Canada & US
Bridge programme, second bachelor's, or apply directly: the three US routes compared against the rules that govern each
One of these routes is governed by federal guidance with a guarantee requirement and a ban on practical training, one is an ordinary degree admission, and one costs nothing to try. Most comparisons never mention that the SEVP guidance defining pathway programmes covers only English-proficiency cases — which is why the school's own contract wording decides everything else.
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Australia & NZ
An unaccredited accounting degree is not a barrier to a skills assessment. It is a syllabus obligation — and a different problem for membership
Accreditation does one specific thing at CPA Australia and CA ANZ: it removes the requirement to prove your subject content. Losing that is an evidence burden, not a disqualification. For membership the consequence is different, and CA ANZ names the route.
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Transnational awards
Validated vs franchised: the difference the certificate cannot show you, and the four places it is written down
Both put a foreign university's name on your degree. They differ on who wrote the course, whose student you are, who your fees go to, and who is responsible for you if the other side stops. Each of those four is on a document you can read.
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Transnational awards
"Awarded by" and "taught by": the two names behind your degree, and which one each body follows
Teaching can be delegated; awarding cannot. That single rule decides whose transcript an evaluator will accept, whose register your programme appears in, and which name to put on a form.
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Transnational awards
2+1 and 2+2 twinning: where the year you spent abroad is actually recorded
The certificate is usually not the document that carries it. The transcript is — because transferred study enters your record as imported credit. What the published rules require, and what they leave to the agreement.
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Transnational awards
What "3+0" actually means — and the three things it changes about your degree
No regulator we could find defines "3+0". It describes where you sit, not who owns the course or who awards it. Here is what the label does settle, what it leaves open, and the substitution that gets you a real answer.
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Transnational awards
If your campus closes or the partnership ends mid-course: what the published rules already require
Three different things can end — the teaching organisation, the partnership, or the course — and they trigger different obligations in different countries. What each regulator has published, and the gap between protecting your fees and finishing your degree.
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