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Immigration

H1B RFE Season: How to Get Through Approved!

Immigration, Visa Approvals


If you receive an RFE, respond to it as soon as possible. Once you respond and CIS receives the answer, you may have to wait to find out whether or not your H1B petition was approved. You don’t have to be one of those people left in limbo. Respond ASAP and get the clock ticking.

RFEs have been on the rise for many years now, with around 25% of all H1B petitions receiving one. CIS education trends have grown much more strict, and if your bachelor’s degree is from the United States, or is in a field that is not an exact match for your H1B job, you must submit your transcripts with a credential evaluation. For degrees outside of the United States, this evaluation clearly spells out the value of your education in terms of US academic standards to write an equivalency to the degree you need for your H1B visa. This particular visa requires those who qualify to hold a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher. If your degree is in the wrong field – even if it is in a field related to your job – CIS is now issuing RFEs. In the past, you could skate on through with an approval with a degree in a related field, but since there are so many visas to sort through CIS has tightened its requirements. Now you must have a degree specialization that is an exact match for your job. If this is not the case, you need to have your degree evaluated for the academic value equivalency of the specialization you need. In both of these cases, progressive work experience – that shows you learned new specialized skills and knowledge through your work experience – can be combined to account for the missing academic content in the field required.

If you fall into one of these two academic categories and you did not submit a credential evaluation with your petition, you are likely staring down an education RFE. Don’t panic, it’s not too late. You made it into the lottery and your petition is still under consideration. Don’t waste time. Talk to a credential evaluation agency that specializes in RFEs and difficult cases. Get the credential evaluation and supporting documentation you need to answer your RFE and get your H1B visa approved.

What to look for in the right credential evaluation agency for your case:

  1. Easy to communicate with. They should answer when you call, respond to your texts and emails, and answer your questions with confidence.
  1. Follows CIS approval trends. The person you want writing your evaluation knows what CIS is looking for. CIS trends change, and an evaluation that worked last year may not work again this year. As in any job, the best professionals are the ones who keep on learning and changing with the industry.
  1. Works with RFEs and Difficult Cases regularly. You got an RFE. You want to work with someone who works with people in your situation and consistently achieves the outcome for others that you want for yourself.

Don’t let RFE season get you down. You are not alone in this, and there are plenty of helpful professionals who are happy to consult with you on your case. Good luck!!

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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Case Study: EB2 RFE for Mismatched Education – APPROVED

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


For an H-1B candidate, we could have written a credential evaluation that combined work experience in the field with their education and written the equivalency of a US bachelor’s degree in computer sciences that would meet CIS requirements for the visa. For EB2 candidates like our client, it’s not so straightforward.

EB2 educational requirements demand the bachelor’s degree be a single source. That means no combining work experience with college credit, and no combining education from two different colleges. However, the EB2 visa classification requires the candidate to hold a US Master’s degree or its equivalent or higher, so instead of going after the bachelor’s degree equivalency, we focused on our client’s Master’s degree equivalency to answer this RFE.

According to federal precedent and case law, five years of progressive work experience in the field is the equivalent of a Master’s degree in that field. Our client certainly had those five years. We wrote a credential evaluation that converted his five years of work experience in the field of computer sciences into the Master’s degree in computer sciences he needed to fit CIS requirements for his job and his visa. We backed up this equivalency by extensively citing and documenting the precedent decisions and federal case law regarding this work experience conversion for this particular visa.

CIS accepted this equivalency and his EB2 visa was approved.

If you, or your employee or client has a tricky education situation and his or her straightforward credentials do not match PERM requirements, don’t take chances. Talk to a credential evaluator that specializes in difficult cases, RFEs, and Denials, because they know what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to what CIS will and will not accept. Make sure your evaluator is well versed in CIS trends, CIS precedents, federal case law, international trade agreements, and international education.

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.]]>

Case Study: EB2 RFE for Mismatched Education – APPROVED Read More »

Case Study: Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree Denial Successfully Answered

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


CIS is notoriously finicky about accepting a three-year bachelor’s degree as the equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree, particularly Indian three-year bachelor’s degrees. Because CIS did not recognize the three-year bachelor’s degree as the equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree, and because that degree was a prerequisite to the master’s program, CIS deemed that the master’s degree was not, in fact, equivalent to a US master’s degree.

When our client filed, he received a Denial. That’s when he came to us. In this situation, the evaluator has two options to show that the three-year bachelor’s degree – and thus the two-year master’s degree – meets its US equivalent.

First, we could break down the classroom contact hours in a three-year bachelor’s degree and apply the Carnegie Unit conversion in which fifteen classroom contact hours is the equivalent of one college credit hour. The standard US four-year bachelor’s degree has 120 college credit hours. Since the vast majority of Indian three-year degrees are comprised of at least 1800 classroom contact hours, the conversion shows that there are more than enough college credit hours in a three-year degree to be the equivalency of a US four-year degree.

In addition to this detailed breakdown of the academic content of the three-year degree, we would also cite binding UNESCO instruments, as well as numerous three-year bachelor’s degrees that can be earned in the United States. In addition, we would provide a list of US master’s degree programs – including programs at Harvard, Columbia, and Wharton – that accept an Indian three-year bachelor’s degree as an adequate prerequisite to these master’s degree programs to prove the functional equivalency of the client’s bachelor’s degree as a step in obtaining a master’s degree. Along with all of this documentation, we would provide 400 more pages of documentation we have gathered showing how a three-year degree is the equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree, and also discuss the Matter of Shah – a case that CIS depends on to invalidate three-year bachelor’s degrees. The Matter of Shah is not an accurate instrument to determine the value of a three-year degree for many reasons.

Our second option has a higher success rate than the first option, and is in most cases the method of approach we will take. Using the method about to be explained, we have seen a 95% approval rate with three-year degrees for EB2 visas.

In this second method is a two-step process. First, we would write an evaluation to show how three years of undergraduate education with and additional two years of graduate school are equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree. We can do this without it being considered combining education. PERM requirements clearly state that the bachelor’s degree must be a single source, and we can meet these requirements with this method by citing appropriate memos. The next step is to show how five years of progressive work experience in our client’s field of employ is equivalent to a US master’s degree. We can do this by citing federal case law.

If the second option works so much better, why would we ever use the first option? The first option is well accepted for EB3 visas, but tends to only work half of the time for EB2. However, if a client does not have a master’s degree, or the client’s attorney specifically requests we go that route, that is the route we will take. Every case is different, and every client and their education is different.

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.]]>

Case Study: Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree Denial Successfully Answered Read More »

H-1B Lottery Brought Under the Freedom of Information Act

Immigration, In the News, Visa Approvals


This year, the American Immigration Council and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd. brought the H-1B under the Freedom of Information Act. The intention is to audit the system to see how it works, and to make sure the lottery is as fair and impartial as CIS claims it to be.

The specific questions under investigation are:

  1. How does the electronic selection process work?
  2. How does the process for rejecting or accepting a petition function?
  3. How does CIS determine how many petitions to select for the lottery, and how does CIS determine when they have reached the limit for petition approval?
  4. How does CIS track visa numbers?
  5. Does CIS actually allocate all of the visa numbers available?

Unless major immigration reform happens to significantly increase the number of H-1B visas available annually, the lottery is here to stay. That means it needs to be made public record how it works. Candidates and their employers and lawyers have no control over whether or not any given petition is selected, but checking the process to ensure that it is up to statutory standards, and as impartial as it claims to be is necessary for accountability.

If your petition, or your employee or client’s petition is selected, it must be impeccable. CIS selects more petitions than there are H-1B visas available in the lottery process, then reviews the petitions they receive. That means they are looking for red flags, and many petitions must be rejected as part of the process. It is imperative that you get it right the first time. While RFEs can be answered, it is always best to prevent getting one in the first place.

If your education, or your employee or client’s education is from outside of the United States, never file without a thorough credential evaluation that clearly spells out the US equivalent of your client’s degree, with a specialization that matches their job offer. We see so many RFEs every year that could have been prevented simply by taking this step before CIS has to ask you, or your employee or client to do so.

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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Common Foreign Degrees that Get Lost in Translation

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

While translators need to know the nuances of language – which words translate directly, which words have changed over time, and which words do not have direct English translations – evaluators possess the same kind of specialized knowledge about international education.

One common example of this is the mistranslation of Baccalaurate, which is often translated into Bachelor’s degree even though there are not the same. The words diploma and postgraduate diploma do not have clear meanings, and a postgraduate diploma is not necessarily the equivalency of postgraduate education. Some are, some are not. For this reason, translators will often translate a postgraduate diploma into a Master’s degree. This is an insertion of a value judgment through making a translation that is not direct and holds academic weight. This error would trigger an RFE or worse on an EB2 petition. Many degrees simply do not have a US equivalent and must be evaluated using detailed tactics, drawing from international trade agreements, CIS precedents, federal case law, and US graduate program admissions norms. Without this knowledge, translators often make value judgments when translating educational documents without realizing the damage it causes.

Another example is the Russian specialist degree – the kandidat naouk – which is generally considered to be the equivalent of a US doctorate degree. However, it cannot be TRANSLATED as such; the degree must be evaluated in terms of academic content and functional equivalency. In the same way, the Indian Chartered Accountancy Certificate, which is the equivalent of a US Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, is NOT a US CPA, a certificate that does not equate to postsecondary education. However, the Canadian Chartered Accountancy Certificate DOES fit the equivalency of a US CPA, and for this reason candidates with Indian Chartered Accountancy certificates often have their degrees mistranslated in such a way that it looses academic value.

How can you prevent mistranslations from putting a costly damper on your EB2 filing process? First, have the documents translated. The translator should make direct translations without inserting value judgment, sticking to the literal translation of the words in the document. Second, take these translated documents to a credential evaluator who can review the language translation for academic accuracy, and then write the detailed evaluation necessary to show the academic value of your client’s education. Do not trust agencies that offer a one-stop shop for translation and evaluation. If your educational documents, or your employee or client’s educational documents must be translated, make sure that translation and evaluation remains a two-step process, working with professionals in both separate fields.

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

Common Foreign Degrees that Get Lost in Translation Read More »

Five Questions to Ask to Find the Right Credential Evaluator

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Are they easy to work with?
    • What does this look like? When you call, she answers. When you text or email, she responds promptly. When you have a question, it gets answered to your satisfaction the first time. You feel comfortable talking to him and asking any question you may have without fear of judgment. Being easy to work with also means the evaluator is affordable and offers rush delivery options to meet your needs and the needs of your employee or client. An evaluator who makes it easy for you to work with them wants to work with you and prioritizes customer service.
    1. Did they offer a free review of your case, or your employee or client’s case?
    Only work with evaluators who will review your client’s education and consult with you on how to best proceed before asking for payment. An evaluator cannot know what services to provide without first reviewing your case, or your employee or client’s cases. Particularly when it comes to EB2 visa eligibility, an evaluator needs to take a close look at your education and work experience, or your employee or client’s education and work experience to determine if the strict PERM educational requirements for this visa can actually be met.
    1. Do they work with RFEs, Denials, and NOIDs often?
    Evaluators who work with difficult cases on a regular basis understand what works and what does not work in getting these difficult cases approved. They have insight into what triggers an RFE, Denial, or NOID, and they understand what tends to work when addressing them, even when the pathway to approval is not clear. Evaluators who work with these kinds of cases on a regular basis can understand what questions CIS is looking to have answered in the documentation they ask you or your employee or client to provide. They also have deeper insight into CIS approval trends, which change with every year.
    1. Did they ask about your visa, or your employee or client’s visa?
    Educational requirements vary from visa to visa, and what kinds of educational equivalencies and combinations of education and work experience CIS will accept vary from visa to visa. For example, with an H1B visa, candidates can combine work experience with college credit to form a US four-year bachelor’s degree equivalency. This is not the case for EB2, where the bachelor’s degree equivalency must be a single source. If the evaluator did not ask about your client’s visa, he does not know this vital element in writing the evaluation you and your client need.
    1. Did they ask about your job offer or your employee or client’s job offer?
    The evaluation that will get your client’s visa approved lends itself to your job, or your employee or client’s job. PERM educational requirements insist that your degree, or your employee or client’s degree be an exact match for the job offer. This means that if the degree is in a related or completely different field from the job, the evaluation must compensate for this and show that you, or your employee or client has the academic equivalency of a degree in the field of employ. This is a common problem because employers commonly hire people with degrees in related fields with work experience in the field because employers know these workers have the specialized skills and knowledge needed to perform job duties. CIS needs an exact match. A credential evaluator cannot write the evaluation that you, or your employee or client needs without knowing the job offer. 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.]]>

    Five Questions to Ask to Find the Right Credential Evaluator Read More »

    American Immigration Council and AILA File Suit against USCIS over H-1B Lottery

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


    The H-1B lottery has always been shrouded in mystery. Despite claims of commitment to transparency, CIS has not been forthcoming with information about the mechanisms of this lottery. There is no way to hold CIS accountable for this process and possible flaws or unfairness resulting from it. There is no way to tell whether this process even holds up to statutory standards without the ability to see and review it. For this reason, a lawsuit has been brought against CIS and the US Department of Homeland Security by the American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association with the purpose to seek information about the inner workings of the H-1B lottery process.

    H-1B visas are dual-purpose, non-immigrant visas that allow highly skilled foreign nationals with a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher to live and work in the United States for increments of three years to fill specialized job positions. Demand for highly skilled workers with highly specialized skills and knowledge in the rapidly expanding US IT industry has been a driving force for the number of H-1B petitions filed growing every year. CIS must continue to accept H-1B petitions for at least one business week before closing its doors. The past two years, the cap has been exceeded within five days of when CIS begins accepting petitions.

    While the lawsuit is a good step in the right direction to bring some insight and accountability to the mysterious H-1B lottery process, there is little that can currently be done by H-1B candidates and their employers and lawyers to affect whether or not the petition makes the lottery. Besides filing on April First, of course.

    “The internal workings of the H-1B lottery system are out of all of our control or understanding for now,” International education expert and executive director of prominent foreign credential evaluation agency TheDegreePeople, Sheila Danzig explains. “What you can influence is what happens when your petition makes the lottery, and you can influence this by understanding CIS trends for what gets approved and what does not.”

    H-1B visa requirements are largely based on the nature of the candidate’s job and education. For this reason CIS trends surrounding requirements pertaining to these facets are important to understand and anticipate. This is the difference between your visa or your employee or client’s visa getting approved or receiving an RFE or worse. These trends also change, and have changed over the past five or six years and the number of H-1B petitions flooding in has increased.

    Danzig recommends consulting with a credential evaluator who consistently works with H-1B cases and RFEs before filing a petition or responding to an RFE. Evaluators who do the difficult work gain a complex understanding of international education norms, CIS trends, and what works and what does not work.

    “Forget about the lottery and focus on what you can do,” advises Danzig.

    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.]]>

    American Immigration Council and AILA File Suit against USCIS over H-1B Lottery Read More »

    Don’t File Your EB2 Petition with Incorrect Education

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


    Sometimes, your education, or your employee or client’s education simply will not work for EB2. Sometimes it will. In many cases, the education will work when submitted with a detailed credential evaluation citing federal case law, CIS precedent decisions, and international trade agreements.

    One common problem EB2 beneficiaries run into is that the education must be an exact match for their job title. 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, or your employee or client has a degree in a related field, you need to take their education and work experience to a credential evaluator to fill in the missing gaps between your client’s education and job.

    However, this leads into another common problem EB2 candidates face: the bachelor’s degree must be a SINGLE SOURCE. EB2 candidates must hold a US Master’s degree or its equivalent or higher to meet educational standards on the PERM. If your client has a degree from outside of the United States – particularly if you, or your employee or client holds a three-year bachelor’s degree – the bachelor’s degree equivalency cannot be met for this particular visa by combining education from different institutions, or from combining education plus work experience. 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.

    Two more common problems EB2 beneficiaries face when it comes to having the wrong education is due to the complex nature of translation and credential evaluation across educational system structure that vary between countries.

    PERM requirements for EB2 visas are very specific, and because EB2 petitions take years less time to process than EB3 visas, candidates are tempted to try to make their credentials fit into EB2 status even if they do not fit. It’s not uncommon for a beneficiary to claim that their high school diploma is a college degree, either on purpose or by mistake. False translations are common amongst beneficiaries with degrees and certificates from countries outside of the United States because when words are translated into English, the educational value does not translate over along with it. Translating your client’s educational documents into English is not enough, even if a translation agency offers credential evaluation services. Credential evaluation is a highly specialized service requiring advanced knowledge of international education, federal case law, international trade agreements, and CIS trends.

    Many degrees exist in other countries that do not exist in the United States, and many degrees that do not call themselves degrees actually have post-secondary educational value while others do not. For example, the Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate is the functional equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in accounting, but the Canadian Chartered Accountancy Certificate is not. The way that this is evidenced is by functional equivalency – by documenting what either degree allows the candidate to do. Taking exams or being accepted for admission into Master’s degree or Ph.D. programs that require postsecondary education that is equivalent to a bachelor’s degree is a function of a degree that can get your client’s visa approved if you can clearly show that this is the case.

    Don’t make the mistake of filing your client’s EB2 petition before you are both absolutely sure his or her education will work for this visa. Take your client’s educational documents to a credential evaluator with extensive experience working with EB2 cases, RFEs, Denials, NOIDs, and difficult cases because this kind of evaluator understands what will work, what will not work, and what will require a detailed evaluation that cites very specific evidence, sources, and documentation to work.

    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.]]>

    Don’t File Your EB2 Petition with Incorrect Education Read More »

    Two Common Reasons and Solutions for Educational RFEs for EB2 Petitions

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

    While RFEs are common and can be addressed, the best course of action is always to avoid them altogether. While an RFE can be utilized as an opportunity to strengthen your case, or your employee or client’s case on your end, it is also an opportunity to CIS to take a shortcut. An RFE is a red flag, which triggers a close scrutiny of your client’s case, in which inconsistencies and missing details that would have otherwise gone unnoticed can come to light and hurt your case, or your employee or client’s case. Little inconsistencies and missing details are not what trigger RFEs in the first place, although you always want to double-check all documents for accuracy and consistency before filing. If your education or your employee or client’s education is from a country outside of the United States, their foreign credentials must be evaluated to show the US academic value equivalency. This is where many candidates run into trouble because PERM requirements for EB2 visa education are different than requirements for other visas when it comes to equivalencies. At the same time, CIS trends when it comes to academic qualifications for work visas in general have tightened in the past few years, compounding problems candidates face.

    There are two main educational requirements that many petitions miss, and are common triggers for an RFE:

    1. The education equivalency must match the education requirements on the PERM.
    2. The bachelor’s degree equivalency must be a single-source degree.

    The first problem EB2 candidates run into regularly that triggers and education RFE is that their education does not match the education requirements on the PERM. The PERM requires your education, or your employee or client’s education to be an exact match for their job title. This leads right into the second problem.

    CIS requires an EB2 candidate’s education to have a single-source bachelor’s degree. This means that you, your employee, or your client’s education sources, or education and work experience cannot be combined to write an equivalency.

    The 2006 Annual Conference of the American Immigration Lawyers Association concluded, “For employment-based immigration visa purposes, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will not equate a three-year diploma plus a post-baccalaureate diploma as being the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree for either EB2 classification.”

    This means if you, your employee, or your client has a two or three-year degree, the credential evaluator you work with needs to be able to write an evaluation to show equivalence to a US four-year degree without combining work experience to fill in the missing fourth year. While this method of evaluation works for the H1B visa, it will not for EB2.

    What is the solution? Find a credential evaluation agency that often works with difficult cases, RFEs, and Denials because they understand what triggers them, and they understand how to address them. A knowledgeable evaluator knows the concerns and questions CIS has underlying this kind of RFE and can answer them by citing CIS decisions, memos, precedents, and other evidence that show functional equivalence, and how international trade organizations view the equivalence of your client’s degree. At TheDegreePeople, we are able to write evaluations that get our clients’ three and two-year degrees accepted regularly, but it takes a VERY detailed evaluation in which we hold CIS’s hand, guiding them through the complex terrain of the equivalency.

    One way credential evaluators address this kind of RFE is by utilizing the progressive work experience conversion formula of three years of work experience in the field to one year of college credit in that field to write a Master’s degree equivalence. A credential evaluator can cite federal case law and CIS precedent decisions to write an evaluation that converts five years of progressive work experience in the field to a US Master’s degree in that field to meet PERM education requirements.

    We see difficult RFEs and Denials every day at TheDegreePeople. While there are never any guarantees with CIS, we follow their educational trends closely and know what tends to work and what does not. If you, your client, or your employ has received an RFE for an education situation, visit us online at cciFree.com. We will review your case at no cost and advise you on how to best proceed.

    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.

    Two Common Reasons and Solutions for Educational RFEs for EB2 Petitions Read More »

    Case Studies of Difficult EB2 Education RFEs Answered

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

    You must show that you, your employee, or your client holds the correct degree equivalency to meet the education requirements on the PERM within the parameters of what is acceptable – which is complex. A credential evaluation for any degree from outside of the United States, or that does not match the job title on the PERM is essential. EB2 educational requirements are different than other visa requirements when it comes to what can be converted and combined to prove degree equivalency. For example, unlike other visas, an EB2 candidate’s bachelor’s degree must be a single source.

    At TheDegreePeople, we specialize in difficult RFEs. Evaluators use strategies like functional equivalencies and close examination of the academic content of candidates’ education to fulfill CIS educational requirements for this visa while adhering to equivalency restrictions on the PERM. Below are two case studies we have seen recently in which EB2 candidates received common but difficult education RFEs.

    1. Client holds an Indian Three-Year Bachelor’s degree.

    The client in the previous case study held a four-year engineering degree from India. Most Indian bachelor’s degrees, however, are three-year programs. One of the biggest RFE triggers is having a three-year bachelor’s degree instead of a US four-year bachelor’s degree. CIS sees the missing fourth year and issues an RFE because the missing year is misunderstood as missing academic content. This is what happened to our client.

    To address the missing fourth year, we wrote a detailed credential evaluation that examined the academic content of his three-year degree. This was done by breaking down the number of classroom contact hours required for our client to earn his degree, then use the internationally recognized Carnegie unit conversion that measures college credit hours. Fifteen hours in the classroom is converted into one hour of college credit. The US Department of Education defines a credit hour as “an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement.”

    A US four-year bachelor’s degree program requires a minimum of 120 college credit hours to graduate. Our client’s degree required FAR MORE than 120 college credit hours to graduate. We were able to show CIS that the actual academic content of our client’s degree was the equivalency of a US four-year bachelor’s degree and his visa was approved. This is important, because EB2 education requirements insist that the bachelor’s degree be a single source. That means we could not convert years of work experience into college credit to account for the missing year.

    1. Education does not match PERM requirements.

    One of the biggest educational triggers for RFEs is that the candidate’s education does not match the job title. Just under a decade ago, a candidate could have a degree in a field related to the job title and the visa would be approved. Today, employers hire employees with related degrees all the time because they understand that with a related degree and the proper work experience the candidate has the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the job. However, in the past six or seven years, CIS has been issuing RFEs for candidates with education that does not exactly match their job title. This was the case with a client who came to us with a difficult RFE.

    He had an Indian four-year bachelor’s degree in engineering, and his job was in the field of computer sciences. To address this RFE, we had to show that his bachelor’s degree in engineering was the functional equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences. To do this, we had to show that someone with a bachelor’s degree in engineering could be accepted into the same Master’s program in computer sciences, same as someone with a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences to show that the skills and knowledge necessary to learn to earn an engineering degree equipped the candidate to perform the same functions as someone with a degree in computer sciences. We did this by documenting a host of examples of how our client’s bachelor’s degree in engineering would be accepted for admission into Master’s degree programs in computer sciences, and this proved clearly that the skills and knowledge our client learned in order to have earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering enabled him to be successful in a Master’s degree program in computer sciences. This is a functional equivalency – the bachelor’s degree he held in engineering functioned the same as the degree CIS required him to hold. CIS accepted this evaluation and approved his EB2 visa.

    At TheDegreePeople, we see difficult EB2 RFEs day in and day out. While there are never any guarantees with CIS, we have found several strategies that work with consistency. For a review of your case, your employee’s case, or your client’s case at no charge or obligation, please go to www.cciFree.com and fill out the form on the website. Send in the requested documents. I will personally get back to you within 24 hours.

    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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