Each year, the USCIS receives tens of thousands of applications for temporary and permanent visas. Sometimes, qualified workers are turned away or questioned because they don’t have academic credentials evaluations that show their foreign degrees to be the educational equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree.

When this happens, the professional must find a foreign credential evaluation that specializes in difficult or challenging cases. Once a person has received an RFE or denial, though, the application process is often an uphill battle.

CCI recently received a foreign credentials evaluation request from a client who had received a Bachelor of Laws degree from a foreign university, and then obtained a Master of Laws degree at an accredited U.S. university. USCIS issued an RFE, indicating a concern that the law degree was not the U.S. equivalency of a Juris Doctor, which is the degree required to practice law in the United States.

Using an expert opinion and a course by course evaluation, CCI was able to offer enough evidence that the degrees were indeed the U.S. equivalent of a Juris Doctor. The client’s application for an I-140 visa was subsequently approved bu the USCIS.

The professionals at CCI enjoy hearing their client’s success stories. Has your foreign credential evaluation helped you earn a job or receive visa approval? Contact us today and share your story. We’ll keep your name and personal details confidential. Let other people benefit from your successes today!

Every month, Career Consulting International offers free foreign credential evaluations to the first 50 members of the US Armed Forces who apply. So far this year, though, the US military has yet to meet this monthly challenge.

Many people seek careers in the military, hoping for opportunities to advance their careers and earn a good living. Many of these people are immigrants, or the sons and daughters of immigrants. They have earned foreign degrees or high school diplomas in the countries of their birth, before emigrating to the U.S.

Most of the time, employers or educators want to confirm that these academic credentials are the U.S. equivalent of the degree or diploma these individuals earned in their previous country. To determine this, foreign credential evaluation agencies such as Career Consulting International complete educational evaluations to establish equivalency.

Sometimes these foreign education evaluations can be very expensive. The cost ranges from $70 to over $1,000. Most of the time, however, employment education evaluations can be completed with a simple document evaluation.

CCI’s Executive Director, Sheila Danzig, and her staff, have great respect for those who choose to serve their country by enlisting or applying to join the U.S. Military. To help make this possible, Ms. Danzig offers free foreign credential evaluations to the first 50 military persons who apply each month.

These evaluations are accepted by all major branches of the U.S. Military, including the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Each month, we receive a variety of requests from recruiters and soldiers across the country enlisting our assistance, and we are proud to be able to help.

So far this month, we have had requests from three military servicepersons for educational evaluations. We have room for 47 more, so call today to find out how to reserve your slot and get your free foreign credential evaluation!

When Career Consulting International began doing foreign credential evaluations for the Chartered Accountancy certification from India, experts Sheila Danzig and John Kersey had their research cut out for them. Few evaluators were even attempting this equivalency, and success rates were quite low.

Thanks to their hard work, however, Ms. Danzig and Professor Kersey have joined forces to offer clients who have passed the CA exams the U.S. equivalency of a Bachelor, or even a Master Degree, in Accounting. In fact, CCI’s success rate with this certification is 100 percent for immigration purposes.

In fact, foreign degree evaluations that show the Chartered Accountancy Fellowship equal to a Master’s Degree are not easy, and few evaluators even believe this is possible. We have been very fortunate to work with excellent attorneys and clients who work closely with the evaluators to provide the necessary information to accomplish this goal.

Thanks to our clients, who work so hard to help us help them. Thanks to the excellent attorneys who, through their outstanding teamwork and collaboration, help their clients so effectively. Showing educational equivalencies for foreign degrees and certifications isn’t always easy, but helping our clients succeed is more than worth the effort involved!

Last July, Career Consulting Agency’s executive director, Ms. Sheila Danzig, issued a press release announcing her policy of free foreign degree evaluations for military personnel. She offered up to 50 free foreign credential evaluations each year. Although we haven’t yet reached that benchmark, we have had between two and ten foriegn degree evaluations for the military each month. As of January 15, we had 4 for this month, so there are 46 more free ones out there!

We regularly receive calls from recruiting sergeants, as well as inquiries from service professionals themselves about whether a person’s foreign education credentials can be evaluated for employment or enlistment purposes. We are always happy to help people get their foreign degrees evaluated. CCI offers free document evaluations, and a discount on other evaluation reports to military professionals.

One thing our consulting agency does not do, however, is translate documents with foreign degrees into English, or work with untranslated documents. We do recommend Accurate Translator Services for translating these educational evaluations, but we do not do the translations directly through our agency.

Military persons who need foreign degree evaluations can call the toll-free number, or email a request to thedegreepeople to have their degrees evaluated. Our goal is to complete these evaluation reports as quickly as possible. It is one way that we can thank the brave people who have chosen to serve our country, and we are glad to be able to do so!

It’s true! For a number of years, Career Consulting International (CCI) has been offering free document evaluations for military professionals. Every month, we have a few recruiters or service personnel email or call to inquire about evaluation reports. January has so far brought only two persons from the military with foreign degrees that required educational evaluations.

Document evaluations, for example, are very helpful for students who need to show that their foreign high school diploma is the U.S. equivalency of high school graduation, or that they have a Bachelor degree from another country. These evaluations help people prove that they are eligible to enlist or to gain a promotion. Sometimes, recruiters contact the agency to request an evaluation report for someone who is about to enlist. Often, however, the service people have read or heard about the agency’s policy and contact us seeking to have their degrees evaluated. Either way, we are happy to serve!

Some persons require course by course evaluations or expert opinions, and we cannot offer these free because of the expense involved. We are able, however, to deduct the cost of the free document evaluation from the fee and offer that reduced rate to the military person. If you are in the military and have a foreign degree, or if you know someone who does, their career may benefit from one of these free foreign degree evaluations!

If you’ve ever visited a foreign country, you know that finding your way around is challenging at first, even if you know the language. Imagine, however, that you leave your country with a solid education and job experience, and emigrate to a new country hoping to find freedom, opportunity, or peace. You don’t know the language, and you know only a few people there.

Many people who enter the United States from other countries have completed high school diplomas or foreign degrees. Not all educational systems are the same, however, and determining the U.S. equivalency of these foreign degrees often requires a foreign degree evaluation. This is sometimes true even for high school graduates.

Often, employers require the assistance of professional foreign credential evaluation agencies to determine whether an applicant’s foreign credentials are indeed equivalent. Many students with 3-year degrees, such as those who graduated from universities in India and some European countries, have had more classroom hours and more intensive education than students from the U.S.

Despite this, however, many educators and immigration experts continue to focus on the “time served” rather than the intensity of the education during the time in which it was obtained. Hence, establishing equivalency for these degrees can sometimes be difficult, although not impossible. Career Consulting International has been fortunate to have an unparalleled level of success in evaluating these 3-year degrees as equivalent to a U.S. Bachelor Degree.

Helping people obtain foreign degree evaluations is often a crucial step to getting a job or advancing their education so that they can succeed and take advantage of the opportunities available in this country. If you know someone who graduated from a university or high school in another country, direct them toward a foreign credentials evaluation agency that can help make this dream come true. Let CCI help!

Even through the holiday season, the professionals at Career Consulting International have been rushing to complete last minute orders for foreign credential evaluations from client. Despite the rush, we always try to take time to make sure that we are able to help people with special details on their evaluations. Some of these special details including mailing instructions, sending along shipping and tracking notices, and even multiple attempts to reach clients whose documents have not yet been received.

Now and then, clients respond with kind words of thanks or encouragement. Recently, one of our clients wrote “I am extremely happy that I found your website on the Internet. I will always be grateful for your honest and professional advice. My evaluation cannot be better. . . I will recommend your service very highly. You are outstanding!”

Notes like these from our clients make completing the sometimes difficult evaluation reports very rewarding, and we are very honored to receive comments like these from our clients. Sometimes, finding a U.S. equivalency for the foreign degrees issued to persons who completed their education in another country can be challenging. Some degrees are not directly comparable to a U.S. degree.

Occasionally, we encounter degrees or diplomas obtained by persons in another country do not have an educational equivalency in the United States, or are not equal to accredited education in the United States. This isn’t something that our clients like to hear, but we strive to remain completely objective and to strictly follow the UNESCO rules for international equivalencies for degrees and diplomas.

Our goal is to issue educational evaluations that maintain our reputation and credibility with our clients, U.S. universities, and of course, the USCIS. While we cannot make every client as happy as the one who wrote us, we strive always to do our best to remain as helpful and objective as possible, and to issue the highest quality evaluations possible.

If confirmed, Janet Napolitano’s nomination as Director of Homeland Security is likely to have a significant impact on the H1B visa process and  possibly even be a significant factor in increasing the cap on these employment visas. Of course, in order to get confirmed, she will have to face committee chairman Joseph Lieberman, her sometime ally. Although she could not singlehandledly raise the visa cap, she is likely to be very influential in making some major changes to the H1B program.

One challenge that Napolitano will inherit if she is confirmed is the current problems inherit in the system. A recent examination of a small percentage of approved applications revealed that aspects of more than 20 percent of H1B visa applications were in violation of federal laws and regulations. Examples of these included fraudulent foreign degree evaluations (some applicants submitted degrees from fake universities), signature forgeries, and applications from nonexistent companies.

Ms. Napolitano has been a strong advocate of increasing the H1B Visa cap. Her stance on welcoming the technological skills of persons with foreign degrees offers great potential benefit for U.S. companies and businesses. It remains to be seen, however, what kind of approach she intends to take to minimize fraudulent or erroneous foreign credential evaluations.

This could be done by making the foreign credential evaluation agencies responsible by penalizing them for evaluation reports that offer U.S. equivalencies for fake degrees. Agencies like Career Consulting International and Wes maintain high standards for corroborating degree equivalencies, and should have nothing to fear from this type of approach. Financially penalizing agencies that, knowingly or unknowingly, engage in this behavior should help to significantly reduce the incidence of failing to verify that a foreign country’s university education is indeed equivalent to that of an accredited U.S. university.

President-Elect Barack Obama’s governmental appointments will most likely have a major impact on immigration visas and foreign workers in the United States. The degree to which things will change remains to be seen. Hopefully, some of these abuses will be corrected, and the cap will be increased, so that America can regain her place as technological leader and innovator within world markets. The current U.S. economy sure could use that boost!

Two days ago, I had the pleasure of receiving a short note of thanks from a client whose educational evaluation we had completed. He expressed his approval of our evaluation report, stating:

“Thanks a lot for sending my evaluation report. I am grateful for the timely response to my request and cooperation that will help me find a reasonable job. Next week my son will be sending his foreign academic credentials for evaluation, which he requires for educatoin and employment.

Again I appreciate you and your colleagues’ efforts. Thank you and warm regards for a Merry Christmas and New Year.”

It’s always good to hear that a client has been successful or received the promotion or immigration visa for which they were applying, but we all appreciated hearing the kind and encouraging words from this client. We were pleased to be able to help him establish solid U.S. equivalencies for his extensive education.

Establishing equivalencies for foreign degrees isn’t always an easy or an exact process, because of the differing number of years of education required between countries, as well as the different majors awarded by the universities of these nations. We continue to do our best, though, to help each client gain the educational recognition and credentials they deserve.

We send out hundreds of foreign credential evaluations to our clients each month, and most of them thank us or send their approval responses, and we send their evaluations for mailing. Occasionally, though, a client writes back, telling us just how the evaluation report has helped him or her. We hear from customers who have obtained job promotions or received admission into a college or university.

Occasionally, we also receive notes from clients telling us just how they feel about our services, and we are glad to print those as well. This following excerpt is from a client who was pleased with our services:

“I just got my four originals of the evaluation and I feel very proud of you. You are

very professional and  you really help people to success. I wish for you and your

company Happy Holidays. Thank you very much for your great help.”

We are glad to receive notes like this from people whose foreign degrees we have evaluated. The only way we know we have been successful in helping is when clients write to us and tell us that we have made a difference.

So if CCI has been able to offer a U.S. equivalency for your foreign education, we’d love to hear from you and know how the educational evaluation has made a difference – personally, professionally, or educationally.

Please share your story with us!