At the first stage, the documents are translated and certified or notarized. The certification is usually done by the translation agency that has the right to affix its own stamp on the translated documents that verify the correctness of translation as well as its adherence to the legislation.
At the second stage, the original documents and its certified translations are sent to the corresponding governmental institution (for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affair, the Ministry of Education or the Secretary of State) for authentication.
The actual authentication implies placing a verification stamp on the certified copy of the document. Once the authentication is complete, the documents are sent back to the applicant.