When Seals Cover the Student Name and Date on a Transcript

What We Received

A client submitted a two-page certification of coursework (Certificación de cursos, Serie "G," Nos. 217255 and 217256) issued by the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC) — a [certified Spanish translation](/languages/spanish) of a university transcript needed for credential evaluation. The document records fifty-three courses completed between 2004 and 2009 in the Electronic Engineering degree program.

On both pages the university's round institutional seal sits squarely over the top-left of the header. The seal covers most of the student's first surname, leaving only the last four characters — "…PINO" — visible to the right of the seal. The second surname and given names are fully legible.

At the foot of each page, a second round "Secretaría Académica" stamp covers the month in the issuance date. The visible portion reads "…IO CINCO DE DOS MIL NUEVE" — only the year (2009) and the day ("CINCO" — five) are unambiguous. The month is obscured, and the visible "-IO" ending fits two Spanish months: julio (July) or junio (June).

How We Handled It

For the first surname, we cropped the header at the maximum usable resolution and read the four characters visible to the right of the seal — "…PINO" — letter by letter rather than pattern-matching the whole word. A common Guatemalan surname matching that ending is "Espino," and the surname's overall stroke count fit a six-letter word. We rendered the name as "ESPINO" in the translation and flagged the reconstruction in a Translator's Note, so any reviewer sees exactly what was visible and exactly what was inferred.

For the issuance date we took the opposite approach. The visible text read "…IO CINCO DE DOS MIL NUEVE" — the year is 2009, the day is five, the month's last two letters are "-IO." Both julio (July) and junio (June) end in "-IO," and nothing else on the page breaks the tie. Guessing one or the other would have introduced a fact the original does not support. The rendered date was "July 5, 2009" with a Translator's Note stating that the month is obscured by a round stamp, that the visible ending is "-IO," and that the original should be verified against the physical document for July versus June.

A third signature-and-seal pairing on each page sat in the left-hand margin alongside the course list — an oval stamp reading "CONTROL ACADÉMICO — Facultad de Ingeniería" with a signature written vertically next to it. This is the Faculty's Academic Records endorsement, separate from the Secretary and Dean blocks at the foot of the page, and it is easy to miss on a first read. We reproduced it as a third signature block in the translated footer, labeled "ACADEMIC RECORDS," with a note indicating its position in the original.

Expert Note

"The student's first surname is partially obscured by the round institutional seal of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala on both pages of the original. The visible portion reads "…PINO"; the surname has been reconstructed as "ESPINO" based on the visible characters. The issuance date in the closing paragraph is also partially obscured by a round stamp on both pages; the visible portion reads "…IO CINCO DE DOS MIL NUEVE." Based on the visible "-IO" ending, which fits either "julio" (July) or "junio" (June), the date has been rendered as "July 5, 2009" — the month should be verified against the original physical document. The "credits approved" figure (232) is faintly printed against the document's security background and was read with some difficulty; it should be verified against the original."

Mateo GarcíaSenior Immigration Translation Specialist

The transcript is printed dot-matrix on pre-printed security stock — a guilloche pattern in green and tan behind every field. Some numeric figures, including the "credits approved" total, sit faintly against the security pattern. We read each faded figure at 4× crop resolution rather than at full-page zoom, and flagged the one figure that was genuinely borderline rather than transcribing it as certain.

The remainder of the layout was reproduced as an English mirror of the original: the four-column course table with all fifty-three rows, the grading scale (0–60 FAILED / 61–100 PASSED), and the three distinct signature blocks per page (Control Académico, Secretary, Dean).

The Outcome

The certified translation was delivered to the client with each obscured field reported exactly for what it is — part visible, part documented in a Translator's Note. A credential evaluator can see at a glance which entries are confirmed from the original and which require verification against the physical document.

We handle a steady stream of USAC and Latin American university transcripts where round institutional seals overlap printed header text. Treating each obscured field as a Translator's Note item — rather than a bare "[illegible]" — has been the consistent pattern across these orders.