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How to Properly Address H1B Education Requirements

Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Does the candidate have a US bachelor’s degree or higher?
  • Does the candidate’s degree match their specialty occupation?
    • Many H1-B candidates do not have US bachelor’s degrees because their degree is from outside of the United States. Some candidates have not completed their degrees or received specialized training through other means. If this is your client’s situation, you need to prove that they have the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree or higher for their visa to be approved, and this must be documented with a credential evaluation. Candidates with three-year degrees, four-year degrees from countries other than the US, or incomplete or missing education can have their work experience evaluated for equivalency to years of college credit in their industry. This work experience must show that the candidate learned new, and progressively difficult, specialized skills through this work experience, and took on more and more responsibility. Three years of progressive work experience is the equivalent of one year of college with a major in that field. Credential evaluators with the authority to convert years of progressive work experience into college credit can help you and your client fill in the educational gaps between the US educational system and the educational system of the country your client’s degree is from. To prove that your client’s degree matches their job title, you need to provide evidence that the education and training required for your candidate’s degree prepare your client for the duties required in his or her H1-B job. To do this, you can submit a detailed overview of the specific duties of your client’s job, your client’s employer, and how the complexities of your client’s job relate to his or her degree. Meeting the evidence standards for this requirement may also require an expert opinion letter, documentation that similar companies require employees to hold your client’s degree for similar occupations, and even printouts of degree fields typically associated with your client’s job. In recent years, CIS has required that H1-B candidates’ degrees be an exact match for their job title. While employers will hire candidates with degrees in related fields, CIS will not approve their visas if the degree is not an exact match. This is a new CIS trend that must be taken into account when filing an H1-B petition to avoid an RFE. If your candidate holds a generalized degree or a degree in a mismatched field, get in touch with a credential evaluator. With the progressive work experience conversion, an evaluator can fill in the gap between your client’s degree specialization, and your client’s job title with years of progressive work experience in your client’s job title. When you look for the right credential evaluator for your client’s case, make sure you choose one that follows CIS trends and has a deep understanding of the nuances of education internationally. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    Aren’t All Foreign Credential Evaluators the Same?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Inexpensive. When it comes to credential evaluation agencies, you DON’T get what you pay for. In fact, some of the very best evaluation agencies are the cheapest. This is because reliable agencies don’t have to make the most financial mileage out of each customer to stay in business.
    • Easy to communicate with. This means they answer your calls, texts, and emails promptly, and when you communicate with them you feel comfortable and satisfied that all of your questions have been answered. When a company answers when you call, and responds promptly when you call or text, that means they value customer service and respect your time. When you feel comfortable talking with them and they answer any questions you may have, that indicates they are confident and knowledgeable about the work they do. This is the evaluation agency you want on your team.
    • Experience in H1B Visa evaluations, RFE’s and difficult degrees. If you call a credential evaluator about an evaluation for an H1B visa and they don’t ask about your client’s job offer, look elsewhere. An evaluation agency experienced in writing evaluations for visas know that your client’s degree specialization must match their field of employ. If they don’t ask this question, they don’t know enough about visa requirements or CIS trends to write the evaluation your client needs for his or her H1B visa. Also, evaluation agencies that write evaluations responding to RFE’s are very familiar with common education RFE’s, why they are triggered, and how to respond effectively.
    Not all credential evaluators are the same. Many agencies will write an evaluation based on the most conservative equivalencies pulled from a standard database. The problem is, there are no set standard equivalencies when it comes to evaluating a foreign degree because every situation is different. Federal case law, international trade agreements, and international education expert opinions and case studies show that the value of each candidate’s education is unique. To really understand the value of your candidate’s education, an evaluator must understand the academic context of the country the degree came from, stages of education required to earn that degree, the academic value of that degree in his or her home country and the jobs and professions that degree qualifies them for, as well as your client’s self-study, work experience, and miscellaneous educational background. International trade and labor organizations understand that the nature international education is too nuanced for standard, conservative equivalency evaluations, and this sentiment is reflected in federal case law, UNESCO conventions, and international labor and trade agreements. An evaluation agency that simply pulls equivalencies out of a database is not writing an accurate evaluation of your client’s academic value. Responding to an RFE – or even better, writing an evaluation that does not trigger one – requires an evaluator with an understanding of the nature of international education across borders and cultures. This evaluator understands CIS trends and requirements, federal case law, and international trade and labor agreements and conventions that take the full reality of a candidate’s education into account when evaluating its academic worth. Sometimes responding to an RFE takes a creative solution that an evaluator who understands not only what CIS is asking for, but WHY they are asking for the specific evidence they need knows how to answer the right question even if the exact documentation asked for is not available. Choose an affordable evaluation agency that feels good to talk to, and has experience with H1B visas, RFEs, and difficult cases. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    H1-B Annual Caps: Your Client’s Degree, Job, and Visa Status

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    st. However, your client may not be subject to the 65,000 annual visa cap. There are also an additional 20,000 H1-B visas available for candidates with Master’s Degrees. Some employers are not even subject to any annual cap at all. Some candidates aren’t either. So what category does your client fall into? To start, let’s take a look at how many H1-B visas are available, and then let’s look at how candidates are selected for these limited number of visas. Finally, we will see which candidates and employers are cap-exempt. There are 65,000 H1-B visas available annually for candidates with a US Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, or higher levels of education. There are also an additional 20,000 H1-B visas available for candidates with US Master’s degrees or its equivalent or higher. After all of the petitions are in, CIS will hold a lottery to determine which candidates with Master’s degrees will get the additional 20,000 H1-B visas. This lottery is conducted via random computer selection. After these petitions have been selected, any candidates with Master’s degrees or higher who were not selected for these 20,000 will roll over into the regular lottery for the annual 65,000 visas for candidates with Bachelor’s degrees of higher. The same random computer selection process will determine who will be selected for these visa slots from the pool of petitions. However, there are many circumstances in which your candidate may not be subject to the annual H1-B visa cap at all. This has to do with your client’s current visa status, and your client’s employer. If your client is already working under H1-B visa status, he or she is probably cap exempt. Candidates filing for H1-B extensions and H1-B transfers are not subject to the annual cap. H1-B visa holders can also take on another concurrent H1-B job without being subject to the annual cap when they file for an H1-B visa to work this job as well. New jobs and concurrent jobs must also meet H1-B specialization requirements, and your client must also meet H1-B educational requirements, but their petition will not end up in a lottery. Candidates who must file a new petition because the terms of their H1-B job has changed are also cap-exempt. The new terms must still, however, meet H1-B requirements as must their education. Some employers are cap-exempt, and if your client is employed by one of them, their petition will not be subject to the H1-B lottery. Non-profit organizations and non-profit research institutes are cap-exempt. Institutions of higher education and governmental research organizations are also cap-exempt, as are hospitals. Even if this is your client’s first time petitioning for an H1-B visa, if their job is for one of these kinds of employers, their petition will not be subject to the annual cap. Before you and your client file their H1-B petition, here are three key elements you need to determine:

    1. What is your client’s degree?
    2. Is your client’s employer exempt from the annual H1-B cap?
    3. Is this your client’s first H1-B petition, or is it a transfer, extension, or additional H1-B job?
    Answer these three questions, and you will find out what caps – if any – your client’s petition will be subject to. If your client is cap exempt, this is NOT an excuse to file a shoddy petition. Just because a petition does not go through the lottery does not mean it can’t be rejected. RFE’s are on the rise for petitions subject to the annual cap AND cap-exempt petitions. To qualify for an H1-B visa, your client must have a US Bachelor’s degree or higher, or its foreign equivalent. Whether or not your client’s job is cap exempt, RFE’s are on the rise. As you prepare to file, it’s important to keep in mind that your client’s foreign education will raise issues with CIS if it is submitted without a detailed credential evaluation in accordance with CIS education combination requirements and precedents. Talk to an evaluator with extensive experience in H1B cases, RFEs, and difficult cases. They know what works and what does not work to get your client’s visa approved. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    H1B Educational Requirements Your Client Needs to Know About to Avoid an RFE

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    Candidate’s Degree Must be a US Bachelor’s Degree or Its Equivalent This requirement is not as straightforward as it sounds. If your client has a four-year Bachelor’s degree from a US college or university, go ahead and file. All other degrees need to be reviewed by a credential evaluator. Foreign degrees need a credential evaluation because educational systems vary from country to country, and the academic value of a bachelor’s degree from one place does not necessarily equate because it’s called a bachelor’s degree. In the same way, a foreign certification or licensure may actually be the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree even though it doesn’t call itself a degree. For example, one situation that triggers a lot of RFE’s is when a candidate has an Indian Chartered Accountancy certification. This is actually the equivalent of a US Bachelor’s degree in accounting, but the same certification in Canada is not. The Canadian Chartered Accountancy certification is a professional license, but not post-secondary education. See how this gets confusing? A credential evaluator can make the necessary equivalency determinations about your client’s education, explain how the equivalency works, and back up with equivalency with evidence. Four Years of Post-Secondary Education Matter If your client has a three-year bachelor’s degree – ESPECIALLY if it’s an Indian three-year degree – their education is likely to trigger an RFE if it is not handled correctly. CIS trends require focus on longevity rather than academic content when it comes to years of college or university, so it is you and your client’s responsibility to show that academic content and progressive work experience comprise a fourth year of college credit. How can you do this? There are two options that we have seen work almost every time when it comes to the H1B visa. An evaluator can convert years of progressive work experience into college credit. Progressive experience means that your client’s job required them to expand their knowledgebase and skillset, and take on increasing amounts of work and responsibility. Three years of this nature of work can be converted into one year of college credit. Never submit an H1B petition without an evaluation that accounts for the missing fourth year. Degree Must Be Specialized and Exactly Matching Candidate’s Job This is a relatively new requirement that takes many H1B candidates, their employers, and their lawyers by surprise. While it’s common for an employer to hire a candidate with a degree in a field related to the job, CIS will not approve their visa. In the past six or seven years, CIS trends have changed regarding this requirement. In the past, a candidate with a degree in a related field would have the petition approved, now instead they receive an RFE. Your client’s degree major must be an exact match for their field of employ. At the same time, because H1B requirements indicate the job must require specialized knowledge and skills to carry out its duties, candidates with generalized degrees are also running into this problem. If your client is in a mismatched degree situation, your client needs to prove that she does possess the specialized skills and knowledge required to be successful at her job even if it is not directly reflected in her college major. The way to do this is to prove equivalence to a US bachelor’s degree in her field of employ with a credential evaluation. The way this works is an evaluator can convert years of progressive work experience in her field of employ into college credit hours in that major track with the three years of work to one year of college credit conversion. The evaluation must show that your client has the equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree with the bulk to the equated credit hours in their field. This requires a detailed evaluation with a credential evaluator familiar with CIS educational requirements, as well as precedents of what they will accept and what they will not accept. If your client as anything but a straightforward US four-year bachelor’s degree, have their education reviewed by a credential evaluator to see what you need to do to avoid an RFE. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    H1-B Checklist to Avoid an RFE in 2016

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Is your client’s job a specialty occupation?
    • What does this mean? To CIS, a specialty occupation is a job that requires your client to hold a US bachelor’s degree in the field or higher, or its equivalent to carry out the duties of said job. Their job must require specialized skills and knowledge to perform. How can you prove this? A copy of the ad for your client’s job that includes minimum requirements can be used as evidence, as well as similar postings for similar jobs working for similar companies. If your client’s job requires a bachelor’s degree or higher but similar positions do not, you need to supply more evidence. This means expert opinion letters, which can be useful anyway, as well as evidence that shows the skills needed for this particular job are more advanced due to the unique nature of your client’s particular job.
    1. Does your client’s education meet the requirements for their job?
    Once you’ve established that your client’s job is H1-B qualified, it’s time to make sure you’ve proven your client is qualified for his or her H1-B job. This means they have a bachelor’s degree or higher in the required field, as well as the necessary training and work experience the job requires.
    1. Is the value of your client’s education clear to CIS?
    If your client’s degree is from a country outside of the United States, it will need to be evaluated for US equivalence. Anything besides a very straightforward US bachelor’s degree needs a credential evaluation. Never submit an H1-B petition with a foreign degree without a detailed credential evaluation. This is an increasingly common RFE trigger. The Indian and other three-year Bachelor’s degrees commonly trigger RFE’s because of the missing fourth year. A credential evaluator can convert years of progressive work experience in your client’s field of employ into college credit to account for the missing year. Progressive means that the candidate’s work required them to take on more responsibilities and develop their knowledge base and skill set to meet the increasing demands of the work. Three years of progressive experience in the field can be equated to one year of college credit. All that is needed is a well-documented evaluation to prove it. Another common problem that trigger RFE’s for even the most qualified candidate’s petition is that they have a degree that doesn’t call itself a degree. Many countries have degrees that require postsecondary education and the necessary stages of education to meet Bachelor’s degree requirements, but don’t actually have the word “degree” in the title. These certifications also require a credential evaluation because while in some countries these are degree equivalencies, in other countries they are not. Because this is not clear and straightforward, without a credential evaluation CIS will not have enough evidence to approve your client’s petition.
    1. Do your client and his or her employee have an employer-employee relationship?
    What is an employer-employee relationship? To establish that your client and his or her employer have this kind of relationship, the employer must be able to hire, fire, promote, pay, and otherwise control the work that the employee does. To prove that this is the case, submit a copy of the employment contract, and other documentation that clearly displays the nature of your client’s work.
    1. Does your client’s degree match his or her field of employ?
    Just six or seven years ago, H1-B candidates were able to get their visas approved with a degree in a field related to their job. Now, CIS requires an exact match. Employers hire employees for specialized positions with bachelor’s degrees in related fields all the time. CIS, however, does not approve their visas. Instead, they get RFEs. If your client’s bachelor’s degree is generalized or in a field related to but not an exact match for his or her job, have a credential evaluator review their educational documents. Oftentimes, a detailed evaluation that takes work experience into account to draw an equivalency to a degree in the matching field.  Years of progressive work experience in the field can be counted towards this matching degree specialization with the three years of experience to one year of college credit conversion. This can both work to account for the missing fourth year in three-year Bachelor’s degrees, AND to write an equivalency for a specialized degree in your client’s exact field of employ. Before you file, sit down with your client, your client’s employer, and your credential evaluator and go through these questions. Ask, is this true? Then ask, have we provided the evidence necessary to clearly prove to CIS that this is true? Don’t ever file without doing everything you can to make sure you and your client got the petition right the first time. There’s no need to wait for an RFE. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    Chartered Accountancy/CPA Around the Globe – Which ones are equivalent to a Degree?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/? or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    Building Your Immigration Practice: Should You Write a Book?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Do I REALLY want to put myself and my ideas out there for all to see? This means taking a public stand and being held accountable to the words you write. You will never be able to please everyone, and you won’t be able to sit down with everyone who reads your book and explain yourself. However, if you invite your readers to get in touch with you with any questions they may have regarding what you’ve written, you’ve taken a massive step towards building your business.
    1. Do I have a book concept that REALLY inspires me? Ask yourself, is there anything you know enough about that will drive you to set aside time to work on your book even when you’re busy? Is this concept so compelling to you that you are willing to make it a central focus of your law practice for the next few years? Are you inspired by the topic to the extent that you are willing to pass up short-term opportunities to focus on the long-term goal of getting your book out there? Writing a book is a process, and if you’re not inspired by the concept you won’t have the energy to complete this process.
    1. Do you REALLY want to be a writer? When you commit to writing a book, you commit to being an author. This means doing things that authors do like giving talks and webinars, maintaining a blog, publishing articles, and, of course, actually writing your book. However, you don’t technically have to be a writer to be an author. If you have all of the expertise and information but writing isn’t really your passion or practice, you can hire a ghostwriter to help you.
    If you are committed to putting your ideas out there, have a topic you are passionate and inspired by, and you want to be a writer (or at least hire one to help you), then the answer is YES! You should absolutely write a book. Being a published author will build your business and launch your career to new levels of success. Now that you’ve decided to write a book, the next step is to write, right? Wrong. The next step is the step that will give you that initial bump in business growth, and here’s why. When you approach a publisher with your non-fiction book concept, your publisher already knows that in today’s market a non-fiction book on average sells less than 250 copies each year, and less than 2,000 copies in its lifetime. One thing you cannot count on your publishing company to do is to help you market your book. This is something that now falls mostly on the author. That means even if your content is amazing, it’s very unlikely the publishing company will profit much from it. That’s why when you pitch your story, you need to show two things:
    1. You have an audience ready to buy your book.
    2. You have a marketing plan to promote your book when it comes out.
    Even if you decide to self-publish, these are the first two things you need to be thinking about. Fortunately, these are also the first two things you need to be thinking about to build your business. Even if you don’t end up writing a book, preparing to write a book will build your business in ways you would have otherwise missed out on. To build your audience, you need to show that your ideas are compelling, unique, and helpful to the people affected by your law practice and your book concept. Write articles on the topic of your book. Maintain a blog with many of your postings focusing on the concept of your book. Blog about your writing process and include excerpts of what you’ve written. Give talks and host webinars on the topic of your book and your law practice. You can even attend conferences regarding your book topic, including writer’s conferences where you can glean ideas about how to best get your book out there. These are great opportunities to network with journals and other publications to get your articles published in. If you are not already taking these steps to build your business, you should be doing them anyway. Writing a book has short-term and long-term benefits for business growth. Making a commitment to your concept and your book gives your business marketing strategy focus and momentum. Then, getting your book published and out there opens up even more doors for you and your law practice. You can learn exactly what to do to build your audience base, devise an effective marketing strategy for your book, and write the non-fiction book that will skyrocket your practice to new levels of success in my book Invisible Marketing for Attorneys. You can download this book for free at www.ccifree.com from the link on the left side of the page. This is also the website to visit for a free review of any H1B, E3, TN, or I-140 case. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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    Why H1B RFEs Continue to Rise Every Year

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Three-Year Bachelor’s Degrees
    • Candidates with three-year bachelor’s degrees from other countries are consistently running into trouble with H1B visa approval. Since the H1B visa status requires that the job be a specialty occupation requiring a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher, CIS see the missing fourth year and assumes that this directly translates into missing academic content. If this is a situation you and your client are facing, the solution is to submit a detailed credential evaluation along with your client’s transcripts. The evaluation you need will examine the number of classroom contact hours in your client’s degree and use the Carnegie Unit conversion to translate 15 classroom contact hours into 1 college credit hour. Since a minimum of 120 college credit hours are required to earn a US four-year bachelor’s degree, all this evaluation must do is show that your client’s education consisted of a minimum of 120 college credit hours. This credential evaluation must be written by an evaluator with the authority to convert classroom contact hours and years of work experience into college credit. An authorized credential evaluator can convert three years of progressive work experience into one year of college credit.
    1. Mismatched Degree
    This is a relatively new CIS trend that has been causing RFEs in just the past six or seven years. Oftentimes, employers will hire employees with degrees in fields related to their job but not exactly matching because there is enough overlap in the knowledge base and skill set, or because the candidate also has work experience in the field. In previous years, a degree in a related field would not trigger an RFE. Now it does. If your client’s degree is in a field that does not match their field of employ, he or she is at high risk of receiving an RFE. You need to prove that although your client has a mismatched degree, he or she clearly has the correct knowledge base and skill set. Here’s how: submit a credential evaluation that converts years of work experience into college credit to fill in the gaps between your client’s degree and your client’s job. Three years of progressive work experience in his or her field of employ can be equated to one year of college credit towards a degree with a major in the required field with the right evaluation. Your evaluator can also take a close look at the academic content of your client’s degree and count courses in their field of employ towards a major.
    1. Generalized Degree
    For a job to be H1B qualified, the candidate must possess a specialized knowledge base and skill set in order to perform the duties of this job. For this reason, candidates with generalized degrees run into trouble. If your client’s degree is not specialized even though he or she does have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary for the job, he or she is at high risk for an education RFE. The solution is to submit a detailed credential evaluation with the petition that takes a detailed look at the course content of your client’s degree and counts courses taken in his or her field towards a specialized degree in the field of the job. This evaluation should also take years of work experience in his or her field of employ into account using the 3-1 progressive work experience conversion to show the equivalency of a US bachelor’s degree in his or her field of employ. After going through all of the time, money, and effort to file your client’s H1B petition, finding out CIS wants even more evidence and documentation can quickly become a nightmare, especially if you receive a complicated RFE. It has become the norm for CIS to request a response to an RFE in 30 days, which compounds the stress of an RFE because acquiring the evidence requested can take more time than you have to acquire it. Some H1B RFEs are so complex in what they request that they are almost impossible – and the Nightmare RFE is ACTUALLY impossible – to respond to in the way CIS requests. These situations require a creative approach. You need to think about why CIS is requesting the documentation they are asking for, and what issue these documents and evidence are meant to address. Oftentimes, you can answer their questions clearly within your realistic means. To do this, an in depth understanding of CIS trends is required. At TheDegreePeople, we follow CIS trends closely and understand what they will and will not accept as evidence, and we know how to clearly explain to CIS why the evidence and documentation presented answers the questions they are really asking. About the Author  Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

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    Who is to Blame for Your H1B RFE?

    Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

    When is it the attorney’s fault? Very rarely, an attorney will file an application incorrectly.  Generally, however, the attorney error occurs when the candidate’s education is not reviewed by an education specialist before the application is filed.  In this case, the candidate’s account of their education and experience is incorrect or does not meet the CIS requirements for the H1-B.  Unless this is the case, don’t fire your attorney over an RFE. When is it the evaluator’s fault, and how can it be the fault of the evaluation but NOT the person who wrote the evaluation? There are situations when the RFE is clearly the evaluator’s fault because the evaluation was done incorrectly.  For example, when a non-accredited PGD is listed as accredited, CIS jumps on that inaccuracy to issue an RFE.   This rarely happens, because most evaluators are highly trained in spotting unaccredited education. However, every evaluation is different, and evaluations for different Visas must be written very differently.  When an evaluator writes an evaluation for any particular visa, he or she needs to know both the Visa regulations AND current CIS trends.  Not every evaluation agency is aware of the Visa regulations. The evaluator may have provided the evaluation ordered by the client, only to find that the equivalence does not work for the particular Visa.  For example, if you have a four-year degree in electrical engineering, you can receive an evaluation written correctly showing an equivalency to a US bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, but then receive an RFE anyway because your job is in the field of computer software analysis.  This sort of mismatch triggered an onslaught of RFEs this year.  The evaluator did a good job, but the evaluation was not correct for the purposes of the Visa.  In this case, you may have likely found the right evaluator, but he or she provided you with the wrong evaluation even though they acted in good faith.  To avoid this, make sure you order your evaluation from an agency that knows education regulations for each Visa.  If you advise an evaluation agency that you need an evaluation for an H1-B visa and they don’t ask about the job offer, find a new agency.  The degree must precisely fit the field of employment for this Visa and the evaluator needs to know this information so they can evaluate an equivalency to the proper degree.  If you are not asked about the job offer, the agency does not look at the Visa regulations and is not right for this job. If you have already paid an evaluator and a mistake was made, I suggest you go back to that evaluator to try to address your RFE.  However, if the evaluation agency did not make sure that the evaluation was written for the particular Visa it was ordered for, that may just be how they operate. There is nothing wrong with that unless they lead you to believe that they evaluate for immigration and meet Visa requirements as part of their service.  They may just be writing standard evaluations and not be authorized to make the conversions from work experience to education, which is necessary to prove equivalency between fields or across educational system structures.  You cannot expect an agency to do something they don’t claim to do.  So the evaluation agency you want and need is one that will look at the education, as well as the visa requirements and current CIS trends. When is it CIS’s fault? Government bureaucracies make mistakes and some RFEs are simply factually incorrect.  Everything in a petition could be done correctly and you can still receive an RFE.  Often when CIS is at fault, the RFE will state that an accredited university is not accredited, or that a qualified evaluator is not qualified.  While these RFEs are frustrating, they are usually also easy fixes.  With the help of your evaluator, you can easily provide]]>

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