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.

For many of us who attended high school in the United States, it is hard to imagine our diplomas not being recognized. For prospective college students or immigrants from other countries, however, having foreign credentials such as high school diplomas from other countries can be a hardship, and may even delay or jeopardize their immigration visas. For these students, a foreign degree evaluation is required to assess whether their foreign degrees can be demonstrated as a US equivalency to a high school diploma.

For example, some countries distinguish between pre-university diplomas and vocational diplomas. Students with vocational diplomas cannot be shown to have a U.S. equivalency to a high school diploma from an accredited secondary institution in the United States. Because these diplomas are not equal, a foreign credential evaluation cannot offer evidence that a student is eligible to attend university in the U.S. based on their foreign degrees.

Many students, however, do have the international equivalency of a U.S. high school diploma, but have trouble proving this academic equivalency. Foreign credential evaluation agencies can be very helpful if they have a detailed understanding of the level of education experienced by foreign students. Without a complete understanding of these international equivalencies, however, the agency can do more harm than good.

The professionals at CCI work hard to remain up-to-date on the latest information concerning USCIS requirements and international education assessments. We have been able to help a number of prospective university students who otherwise would have been unable to attend college in the United States. Our focus is to help you be the best you can be – just let us help!