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Credential Evaluation

2017 EB2 Education Trends You Need to Know About

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


When looking at whether or not EB2 educational requirements are met, carefully read what CIS accepts as equivalencies. Different visas have different parameters around what education and experience combinations are permitted to meet visa requirements. This, alongside CIS approval trends, paves the way to an RFE or worse in a hurry if you rush forward unaware.

The Degree must EXACTLY fit the job title on the PERM

One common mistake in EB2 filing occurs when a candidate’s education does not exactly match the job title on the PERM. In the past, CIS has allowed candidates with degrees in fields related to their job to have their visas approved, but educational standards have tightened. This means if you have, or if your employee or client has a degree in a field that doesn’t exactly fit the field of employ, you cannot simply file as is. EB2 occupations are highly specialized, and you need to clearly show CIS that you have, or your employee or client has the precise skills and knowledge necessary to excel at the job. This means having education specialized to the profession. If this is you situation, or your employee or client’s situation, have a credential evaluator with experience working with EB2 petitions review the education and work experience. With the proper conversions, documentation, and citations, you may be able to get the evaluation needed to account for the proper degree specialization.

The Bachelor’s Degree must be a SINGLE SOURCE

If the bachelor’s or master’s degree is not an exact match for the job title on the PERM, or if you or your employee or client has a three-year bachelor’s degree, or anything other than a straightforward US education that fits the field of employ, DO NOT file without a credential evaluation. The purpose of this is to explain that the candidate holds the educational value equivalency of the education required by CIS to meet EB2 eligibility requirements. However, this leads into another common problem EB2 candidates face: the bachelor’s degree must be a SINGLE SOURCE. Unlike other visas, you cannot combine work experience and college credit to make the bachelor’s degree or master’s degree equivalency in the correct specialization. However, CIS does accept a work experience conversion of ONLY years of work experience in the field into enough years of college credit to meet CIS requirements for bachelor’s degree equivalency. Talk to a credential evaluator with the authority to convert years of work experience into college credit to see if you have, or your employee or client has the background necessary for this solution.

EB2 processing time is years shorter than the time it takes to process EB3 petitions. For this reason, candidates are tempted to try to meet EB2 requirements even if they do not. DO NOT BE TEMPTED BY THIS. It is a waste of time. However, if the EB2 educational requirements can be met, definitely take advantage of this. Before you file, have a credential evaluator with extensive experience working with EB2 cases and EB2 RFEs review your case, or your employee or client’s case and see if you can clearly meet the requirements for this visa. If the education and work experiences fit, congratulations! Go for it.

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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2017 H1B Education Trends You Need to Know Before Your File

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


Before you file in 2017, be aware of CIS approval trends and common mistakes candidates make when filing.

Three-Year Bachelor’s Degrees

CIS has not been approving candidates with three-year bachelor’s degrees, PARTICULARLY the Indian three-year bachelor’s degree. International education experts understand that in most cases the academic content is the same if not greater than a US four-year bachelor’s degree just condensed into three years. CIS still requires the missing fourth year be accounted for, and that’s what really matters in this situation.

If you or your employee or client has a three-year bachelor’s degree, DO NOT make the mistake of submitting an H1B petition without making sure the missing fourth year is CLEARLY accounted for. This requires a detailed credential evaluation written by an evaluator with the authority to convert years of work experience into college credit. CIS allows for three years of work experience in the field in which the candidate took on progressively more roles, duties, and responsibilities of increasing complexity to be evaluated as the equivalent of one year of college credit. Talk to a credential evaluator with experience working with H1B cases involving three-year bachelor’s degrees.

Degree Specialization does not match the Job Offer

In the not-too-distant past, CIS would approve candidates with degrees in fields related to their industry. However, the past six or seven years has shown that CIS will ONLY approve petitions in which the degree specialization exactly matches the job offer, and we don’t predict that this trend will change any time soon.

If you or your employee or client has a degree in a major that is different from his or her field of employ, or has a generalized degree, or has an job that doesn’t have many exact majors like Computer Systems Analysis, DO NOT make the mistake of filing with the transcripts alone. The H1B visa is for workers in highly specialized occupations and a highly specialized skill set. If your education or if your employee or client’s education alone does not show that he or she possesses the specialized skills and knowledge necessary for the field of employ, the H1B requirements are not CLEARLY met. This doesn’t mean that the candidate isn’t qualified, especially since the employer clearly seems to think so. What you need to do in this case is send your or your employee or client’s transcripts and work history to a credential evaluator who can write a detailed evaluation that explains the equivalency of your experience, or your employee or client’s experience to a Bachelor’s degree in the right specialization. This means looking at the course content, as well as years of progressive work experience in the field, and writing a thorough evaluation backed by evidence, precedent decisions, and documentation.

Degree that Doesn’t Call itself a “Degree”

Some certifications from countries outside of the US are the functional equivalent of US bachelor’s degrees. This means that while these degrees don’t call themselves “degrees,” the steps required to earn these certifications are the equivalent of the US academic value of a bachelor’s degree. One such certification is the Indian Chartered Accountancy. While the Canadian Chartered Accountancy and the US CPA are do not contain the steps required for a bachelor’s degree equivalency, the Indian Chartered Accountancy does.

If you or your employee or client has a degree that doesn’t call itself a degree like the Indian Chartered Accountancy, DO NOT make the mistake of filing without a credential evaluation that explains the functional equivalency of your education or your employee or client’s education. This is a very detailed process that requires a lot of CIS hand-holding, taking them through the steps of education of the degree step by step.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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Your Most Common H1B RFE for 2017

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


This occupation receives the very most H1B RFEs every year because CIS education trends have required candidates to hold a degree in the exact field of their specialty occupation. Computer Systems Analysis is an EXTREMELY rare degree. In fact, the only schools in the United States in which a student can earn a bachelor’s degree in Computer Systems Analysis allow for self-designed majors. In India, there is a BCA in Computer Systems Analysis, but this degree will not work for H1B eligibility on its own because it is a three-year bachelor’s degree. CIS requires the fourth year included in a US bachelor’s degree to be accounted for. The only degree we have not seen trigger an RFE in this case is a US Master’s degree for Computer Analysis.

If you hold, or if your employee or client holds one of the few US bachelor’s degrees in Computer Systems Analysis, or a US Master’s in Computer Analysis, you probably don’t have to worry about an education RFE. However, if this isn’t the case, it’s always easier to prevent an RFE in the first place than to have to answer one.

If you have, or if your employee or client has an Indian BCA in Computer Systems Analysis, you need to account for the missing fourth year of education to meet the US equivalency requirements. To do this, talk to a credential evaluator with the authority to convert years of progressive work experience into college credit. Three years working in the field of Computer Systems Analysis in which it can be shown that you or your employee or client took on more responsibility and complexity in their work can be converted into the missing year of college credit towards the degree specialization of Computer Systems Analysis. If you or your employee or client does not have this degree, the same progressive work experience conversion along with a detailed evaluation that includes college coursework in the field of Computer Systems Analysis can be employed to write an equivalency to a US Bachelor’s or Master’s of Computer Systems Analysis.

Before you file, talk to a credential evaluator who can review your case, or your employee or client’s case and see that the college credit and work experience necessary to write the evaluation you or your employee or client needs is there. When there is high risk of RFE, it is necessary to consult with someone experienced in working with H1B RFEs.

From all of us at TheDegreePeople.com, Happy New Year!

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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Expert Tips for You To Successfully Answer an H1B RFE

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


At TheDegreePeople, we specialize in helping our clients overturn their RFEs and get their H1B visas approved. RFEs are tricky business, so here are five tips that we have seen bring our clients success year after year.

  1. Don’t expect your RFE to tell you how to answer it.

A big mistake candidates and their lawyers make every year is expecting the RFE to be helpful. When you read the RFE, remember that it is a tool CIS uses to weed out petitions. It’s a red flag. There are far too many petitions for the annual H1B visa cap every year and your RFE or your employee or client’s RFE is most likely a documented excuse for denial rather than a tool to help you. Read the RFE, make note of what it’s asking, but don’t get caught up in its wording and specific demands. Remember, some RFEs are virtually impossible to answer based on the directions they provide. This does not mean they’re impossible to answer. You just need to look for the answers in the right places.

  1. Reference and Understand H1B Requirements.

The initial H1B eligibility requirements are the right place to look for the answers you need to get that RFE overturned. Your RFE, or your employee or client’s RFE was triggered because the evidence provided in the initial petition fell short of clearly proving the initial H1B requirements were met. Find out which requirements CIS is unclear about. When you go over the RFE, first revisit the detailed requirements INCLUDING current CIS educational trends, and then have these requirements on hand while you read through the RFE to discern where evidence was lacking. Then, figure out what documentation you need to fill in the gaps.

  1. Don’t expect to always be able to provide the specific materials the RFE requests.

You will NOT always be able to get the specific documents CIS requests in the time allotted to answer the RFE. RFEs like The Nightmare are not designed to be answered, they are designed to confuse and justify denying the visa. If you follow the directions in an RFE like this one, you will find yourself out of time, out of money, and nowhere closer to getting your visa, or your employee or client’s visa approved. So don’t expect to in the first place and you will save yourself a whole heap of stress.

  1. Discern what it is CIS really wants to know.

So you’ve reviewed the initial H1B requirements, you understand that the answer to your RFE does not lie within the RFE itself, and you know that you won’t necessarily be able to provide the exact documentation CIS requests in the RFE. Now it’s time to discern what CIS really wants to know. Sit down together, read the RFE with the initial H1B requirements, and figure out what CIS really wants to know. Where was clarity lacking in the initial petition? In many cases, the shortcomings have to do with CIS approval trends regarding educational equivalencies, or with proving specialization. When you meet with your team, be sure that your team includes a credential evaluator with experience working with H1B RFEs, understands CIS education regulations and approval trends, and has an in-depth understanding of international education. Education requirements and what is and what is not accepted as valid educational equivalencies for H1B visas have changed in recent years, and meeting these requirements can take a creative approach.

  1. MEET THE DEADLINE.

Don’t miss the deadline. Make sure your RFE answer is filed by the deadline, and includes all of the documentation and evidence you need to strengthen your case, or your employee or client’s case, in order, and easy to read. It is highly unlikely you will get an extension, and missing the deadline will most likely lead to the case getting rejected.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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H1B Case Study: How to Overturn an RFE for Generalized Degree

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


What if you or your employee or client has a US bachelor’s degree in liberal arts? The answer is CIS would issue an RFE because this generalized degree does not show that the candidate has specialized skills and knowledge. For this reason, candidates with generalized degrees often run into trouble come RFE season.

When a client comes to us with this kind of situation, we take a look at the content of his or her education. We look at the course content and identify specific courses taken in the field of their H1B job. We then look at their work experience in the field of their H1B job. Three years of progressive work experience in the field can be equated to one year of college credit towards a US bachelor’s degree in that major. We then write an evaluation taking specific courses and work experience into account and write a very detailed and evidence-fortified evaluation that clearly shows the candidate has the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in the field of the H1B job. Through this extra step, CIS can clearly see that the candidate possesses the specialized skills and understanding required to be successful at the H1B job, and eligible for H1B visa status.

If you or your employee or client has received an RFE for a generalized degree, talk to a credential evaluator with experience working with H1B RFEs. Be sure to get a consultation before you order an evaluation to make sure that the candidate has the coursework and work experience necessary to write the evaluation you need to overturn that RFE.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.

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H1B Case Study: Nightmare RFE OVERTURNED!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


This RFE is also called the Kitchen Sink because absolutely everything is in it, even the kitchen sink. This RFE is virtually impossible to answer, we don’t know exactly what triggers it or if CIS even has the right to issue it, and we know that it is virtually impossible to answer by following its own directions. If you were to try to follow the directions set out in the RFE to answer it, you would have to involve the services of so many individuals and authorities to collect all of the evidence and information requested that it would cost an enormous amount of money and take way more time to complete than you have to respond.

If you or your employee or client received a Nightmare RFE, try not to panic. These RFEs are common, and they are NOT actually impossible to answer so long as you don’t get caught up in the wording. The roadmap to successfully answering the Nightmare RFE is not in the RFE itself, it takes a creative approach and guidance from a credential evaluator with experience working with difficult cases and RFEs. These evaluators understand H1B requirements, international education and commerce agreements, and CIS approval trends.

At TheDegreePeople, we have a very high success rate for getting Nightmare RFEs overturned. It just takes a very detailed, and somewhat creative approach. Instead of following the directions stated in the RFE, we go back to the initial H1B requirements and see where our client’s initial petition was lacking in evidence and clarity. We work from there.

Oftentimes, what is lacking is the right credential evaluation. We have found time and again that candidates will submit a petition without an evaluation, or with an evaluation that doesn’t address the requirements of the H1B petition. An H1B candidate needs to hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or it’s foreign equivalent in the EXACT field of their job offer. If these educational requirements are not clearly met, CIS issues an RFE, and what starts off as a simple RFE can quickly escalate into a Nightmare. Again, these kinds of RFEs have become increasingly common in the past few years and this trend is unlikely to change.

It’s always better to avoid a Nightmare RFE in the first place than to find yourself faced with one, but even if you are staring at one right now, you can still get it overturned.

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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EB2 Case Study: RFE for Indian Chartered Accountancy Certificate OVERTURNED!

Case Studies, Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


The EB2 visa requires a candidate to hold a US Master’s degree or its foreign equivalent or higher, OR a US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent FOLLOWED BY at least five years of work experience in their current field of employ. The RFE in this case arises when a candidate has an Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate and submits the petition without an accompanying credential evaluation that clearly spells out the steps of education required to earn this degree, and backs this up with international commerce and education decisions.

The AAO states in their 2007 decision:

“Passage of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) final examination and obtaining an associate membership in the ICAI is the foreign equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree in Accounting.”

In order to be eligible to even take this examination, a candidate must first pass the PE-II Intermediate examination. The prerequisite to this examination is to have either completed an Indian bachelor’s degree or passed the PE-I. Therefore, by following the steps of education required to be eligible to take, and to pass the ICAI final examination and earn the Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate, the candidate must have completed the functional equivalent of an Indian bachelor’s degree, and THEN taken and passed the ICAI final examination.

Yours or your employee or client client’s credential evaluation must clearly show these steps of education.

Another reason this particular degree is so complicated is because both the Canadian Chartered Accountancy certification and the US CPA are NOT the functional equivalents of a US bachelor’s degree in accounting. The Indian Chartered Accountancy certification carries the same name, but very different in terms of academic content.

If you or your employee or client has an Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate, do NOT submit the EB2 petition without a credential evaluation clearly explaining and justifying this degree’s functional equivalency to a US bachelor’s degree in Accounting. If you or your employee or client received an RFE for his or her Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate, talk to a credential evaluation agency with experience working with EB2 RFEs and difficult degrees.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.

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How to Answer and H-1B RFE with NO DEGREE

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


Sometimes an H-1B candidate will have SOME college or university education but no degree completed. Sometimes there will be no college education at all. CIS does have a solution for this, but you or your employee or client will need a very specific kind of work experience for this to work, and a VERY specific and detailed credential evaluation accompanying the answer to the RFE.

CIS generally accepts that three years of progressive work experience in the field of your or your employee or client’s H-1B job is the equivalency of one year of college credit towards a bachelor’s degree in that field. PROGRESSIVE work experience means that the job duties expanded in scope and responsibility as employment went on, implying that you or your employee or client learned increasingly specialized skills on the job.

If you or your employee or client has some education – or no education – and enough years of progressive work experience, an evaluator with the authority to convert years of this work experience into college credit can write the evaluation you or your employee or client needs to prove to CIS that there is a legitimate US bachelor’s degree equivalency. Remember, the degree specialization must exactly match the job, so the progressive work experience MUST be in the field of employ.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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Answering an H1B RFE: Beware of Education Traps!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


If you or your employee or client fell into an H1B education trap, you need to understand what happened and how you can fix it when answering the RFE. Below we will look at some common H1B traps and how to climb your way out of them.

Badly Translated Transcripts

When you submit an H1B petition, CIS requires all educational documents be translated into English and evaluated for US academic equivalence. Some degrees simply don’t translate directly into English. At the same time, many degrees do translate directly into English when it comes to the wording, but the degree has an entirely different academic content. This is why degrees must be translated AND evaluated, and these are both highly specialized fields. Sometimes translation agencies overstep their scope of practice and make educational value judgments along with language translation. This is a major H1B education trap that has become more and more treacherous as some translation agencies have begun to market their services as a “one-shop stop” for translation and evaluation. Credential evaluation must be carried out on a case-by-case basis because every pathway through learning is unique, every institution is unique, and every country has a unique structure. An evaluator must be knowledgeable about these differences, as well as federal case law, CIS precedents, degree program admissions requirements, and international trade agreements to write an accurate evaluation of your degree, or your employee or client’s degree. Translation agencies simply do not have this expertise and instead turn to conservative equivalency databases like EDGE, which is not actually a standardized equivalency database as no such database actually exists.

If you or your employee or client received an RFE as the result of a bad translation, talk to a credential evaluation agency that works regularly with H1B RFE cases. A skilled evaluator can spot a bad translation and evaluate accordingly.

The degree is not from a government-accredited institution.

The fact is, there are plenty of institutions around the world that offer rigorous education programs that fully prepare workers for highly specialized occupations that are not actually government accredited. That means that even though you or your employee or client may have a legitimate education from an institution held in high regard by your industry, or your employee or client’s industry, the institution itself may not be government accredited and CIS will not approve the visa.

This is an RFE trap that you may or may not be able to wriggle free of. If you have, or if your employee or client has years of progressive work experience in the field of their specialty occupation, a credential evaluator with the authority to convert years of work experience into college credit to write a US bachelor’s degree equivalency CIS will accept. It’s always best to find whether or not this will work BEFORE you file the petition, but even if you fell into this H1B trap for FY2017 you may still be able to answer the RFE and get the visa approved.

The Bachelor’s Degree is ACTUALLY just a high school diploma.

This happens more often than you may think. Mistaking a high school diploma for a Bachelor’s degree can happen as the result of cross-cultural misunderstandings, bad translations, and acting upon false information. H1B educational criteria require candidates to hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher, or its equivalent. A high school diploma – or the foreign equivalent of a US high school diploma – will not cut it.

If you or your employee or client fell into this H1B education trap, talk to a credential evaluator with experience working with H1B RFEs. If you have, or if your employee or client has any post-secondary education from an accredited institution, this can be counted towards a bachelor’s degree equivalency, along with any years of progressive work experience you have, or your employee or client has in the field of employ. This is a tough mistake to recover from, and you may even find out that you or your employee or client has been pursuing the wrong visa all along. However, there is still a chance that you can claw your way out of this H1B education trap.

About the Author 

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.

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The Answer to Your EB2 RFE is NOT in the RFE!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


RFEs can be complex and murky in their wording. The reality is, the pathway to successfully answer an RFE is NOT in the wording of the RFE itself. USCIS uses the RFE as a tool to gather more evidence about your client’s case to make a decision, but also as a shortcut to justify weeding out petitions amidst the vast number of petitions they have to process every year.

Instead of looking to the RFE to discern how to answer it correctly, look to the initial I-140 requirements for the visa.

Do you, or does your employee or client meet the educational criteria of the visa?

First and foremost, make sure that the beneficiary’s education meets the educational criteria for the particular visa preference classification. For example, and EB2 visa requires beneficiaries to hold a US Master’s degree or higher or its foreign equivalent, or a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent FOLLOWED BY five years of progressive work experience in the field. If you or your employee or client does not meet these requirements, or cannot meet them with a detailed credential evaluation, you are petitioning for the wrong visa. However, many candidates who do not immediately meet these criteria actually do with the proper credential evaluation. This brings us to the second educational requirement for I-140 visas:

The Bachelor’s Degree must be a single source.

This means, unlike other visas such as the H1B, your client cannot combine work experience with years of college credit to write a bachelor’s degree equivalency. It must be a single source. This can become troublesome if you or your employee or client holds a three-year bachelor’s degree from a country outside of the United States because that missing fourth year is going to be a problem. However, years of progressive work experience in the field can in many cases be evaluated to be the equivalency of a US Master’s degree in the field, accompanied by the proper evidentiary support, documentations, and citations.

The Education and Job Must Meet Visa Criteria

It is tempting for candidates with EB3 qualified education to try for EB2 preference. This is because the wait time for visas being processed is years shorter for EB2 candidates than for those of EB3 education. Do NOT be tempted into petitioning for a visa that is not right for your client. EB2 candidates must hold a US Master’s degree or higher or its foreign equivalent, OR a US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent FOLLOWED BY five years of progressive work experience in the field. These requirements are extremely specific, but also very clearly spelled out. If you are unsure about your client’s education, talk to a credential evaluator who often works with I-140 cases and their RFEs. In the same way, some jobs simply don’t meet the specialization requirements of EB2 or EB1. These visas require highly specialized jobs with advanced degrees and work experience necessary to perform. If you or your client or employee does not hold a job that fits these requirements, you may be chasing the wrong visa.

USCIS defines progressive work experience in the field as “demonstrated by advancing levels of responsibility and knowledge in the specialty.” This means that the candidate must have clearly learned skills and knowledge essential to the industry through this work experience, and instead of passing a test or getting a grade, this progress is evidenced through promotions and increased responsibility. Progressive work experience comes in handy candidates don’t have the number of years necessary in their foreign bachelor’s degree to make a single source US equivalence, and also when they run into the next RFE-triggering problem.

The Degree MUST Match the Job Offer

If your education, or your employee or client’s education doesn’t match the job offer on the PERM, you will receive an RFE. This is because candidates need to have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to perform their job, and a degree in a different field does not assure CIS that they meet minimum requirements to perform their job. Employers will often hire employees with degrees in related fields that are not an exact match because they know there is enough information overlap, but CIS will question their qualifications with an RFE. If your degree, or your employee or client’s degree does not match the job offer, progressive work experience in the field can be converted into the necessary degree specialization. For example, say you or your employee or client has a job in computer sciences but a Master’s degree in engineering. The beneficiary also has five years of progressive work experience in the field of computer sciences. A credential evaluator with the authority to make this conversion can write the equivalent of five years of POST-BACHELOR’S DEGREE work experience in the field of computer sciences to a US Master’s degree in computer sciences.

If you or your employee or client received an RFE, read it over carefully, but don’t get lost in it. Instead, sit down with your team and understand which of the ORIGINAL VISA CRITERIA are in question. Find out what evidence you need to provide to meet the ORIGINAL VISA CRITERIA that are in question and submit that documentation in your answer. The roadmap to answering the RFE is NOT in the RFE, so look to the original visa criteria and make sure that you’re not leaving any open gaps or failing to meet any requirements.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.

 

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