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EB2 visa

Preempt an RFE: Beware of False Translations

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


When a candidate files a petition with USCIS, every document must be translated into English. Educational documents must be translated into English and THEN evaluated for US academic equivalency.

This causes a common problem because some degrees simply don’t have English translations. Sometimes, a translator will make an academic judgment call beyond their scope of practice, interjecting or interchanging a word. A common mistranslation is Baccalaureate, which is often translated into Bachelor’s degree. These are NOT the same. Postgraduate degree is often mistranslated into Master’s degree. This is the result of the interjection of an academic value judgment. The Russian kandidat naouk is generally evaluated to be the equivalent of a US doctorate, but it cannot be TRANSLATED into this equivalency.

Don’t get too far on your petition, or your employee or client’s petition before without an accurate account of their education. Simply go to ccifree.com and attach the academic documents and a current resume, and indicate the visa, and job or desired equivalency. Within 24 hours, we will get back to your with a pre-evaluation and full analysis of your options.

Translation and evaluation are very different, highly specialized services. A good evaluator can spot and correct when academic value gets lost in translation. Foreign credential evaluators typically have significant experience with international credentials from working in university admissions or similar work environments, or have earned graduate level degrees in international education. Because of the complex nature of international education, evaluators must have a firm grasp of education structures across the world, as well as USCIS statutes and precedent decisions, international trade agreements, and more. Evaluations must be performed on a case-by-case basis because every candidate’s path through learning – both in institutions and on-the-job – is unique. Therefore, evaluators must have the experience and insight to pass judgment with integrity.

Do not file an H1B or EB2 petition with falsely translated educational documents. Both of these visas rely heavily on academic eligibility and filing with the wrong education will result in an RFE at best, and a lot of extra work.

Before you get too far on the petition, let us provide a pre-evaluation with all of your options to help prevent or overturn an educational RFE. Simply go to ccifree.com and attach all educational documents and a current, accurate resume, and indicate the visa, and job or desired academic equivalency. We will get back to you within 24 hours with a full analysis and all of your options.

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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Avoid that EB2 RFE: Sidestep Education Traps

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


Although it is tempting for candidates to try to meet EB2 qualifications when really their education and employment is a fit for EB3, trying to make education that simply does not work for EB2 fit is a waste of time. Sometimes, the candidate’s education simply does not work for EB2.

However, EB2 education requirements are very specific and equivalencies can be complex. If you or your employee or client DOES meet EB2 educational qualifications, you need to know, and you need to know how to justify this to CIS. Filing for EB2 with the RIGHT education will save you or your employee or client years in limbo. Before you file, take the candidate’s education to a credential evaluation agency that works extensively with EB2 cases and their RFEs and Denials. These agencies understand EB2 education requirements and CIS approval trends for this particular visa. Simply having an expert review your credentials, or your employee or client’s credentials before you file will go leaps and bounds to help you sidestep EB2 education traps.

Here are the main ones to be aware of:

  1. Mismatched Education

If the candidate’s degree is in a field that is not an exact fit for the job offer on the PERM, you can expect an RFE at best. This is a major EB2 education trap because employers will hire candidates with degrees in related fields and work experience in the field, but CIS will not approve their visas. If this is your situation, or your employee or client’s situation, you will need a very detailed and specific credential evaluation to write the US academic equivalency of the right degree in the right specialization. CIS has very strict requirements about how you can meet these equivalency requirements when it comes to EB2. Talk to a credential evaluator to see if you can make this equivalency work with your, or your employee or client’s education and work experience. The answer may be no. If this is the case, don’t be tempted to pull one over on CIS. This will not work.

  1. Bachelor’s Degree Equivalency is not a Single Source

EB2 education requirements state that to qualify a candidate must hold a US bachelor’s degree FOLLOWED BY at least five years of progressive work experience in the field, OR a US Master’s degree or higher in the field. If you or your employee or client has a bachelor’s degree from outside of the United States, or a US degree in the wrong field, you will need an equivalency that is a SINGLE SOURCE. CIS accepts three years of progressive work experience in the field as the equivalent of one year of US college credit towards a degree in that specialization. Likewise, following having earned a bachelor’s degree, CIS counts fives years of progressive work experience in your client’s field of employ as the equivalent of a US Master’s degree in the field provided that a bachelor’s degree was a minimum requirement for the job itself.

This gets tricky real fast. We always recommend taking your or your employee or client’s education and a current, accurate resume to a credential evaluation agency that works regularly with EB2 visas and their RFEs, and that also works with college professors with the authority to grant college credit for work experience. Your will need to have the work experience necessary to provide a SINGLE SOURCE bachelor’s degree equivalency. This requirement is complex and requires expertise to determine whether you or your employee or client can qualify, and to provide the evidence, analysis, and documentation necessary to explain this to CIS in the petition.

  1. Poorly Translated Documents

Candidates fall into EB2 education traps when they provide mistranslated or misevaluated documents. Some degrees simply don’t translate into English and retain their academic value. Some translation agencies have begun to provide evaluation services that are attractive to candidates wanting to save time and money. However, evaluation is a completely different, highly specialized service because of the complex nature of foreign academic differentiations and the fact that degrees with the same name hold different academic values between countries. Some degrees with different names hold the same equivalency. For example, Indian Chartered Accountancy is the foreign equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in Accounting while the Canadian Chartered Accountancy and US CPA are not the equivalent of that advanced degree. This sort of problem comes up when academic value gets lost in translation, or when a translator takes credential evaluation liberties without the knowledge to assure accuracy.

To sidestep this EB2 education trap, if your or your employee or client’s educational documents need to be translated and evaluated, make this a two-step process. Do NOT compromise on this. You would never take credentials to an evaluation agency for translation! Get them translated into English first, then take them to a credential evaluation agency. Agencies that work regularly with EB2 visas can identify common translation errors and make academic value judgments accordingly.

To avoid these EB2 education traps, simply visit ccifree.com and attach all educational documents and a current, accurate resume, along with the job title. We will get back to you within 24 hours with a pre-evaluation of your case, or your employee or client’s case, and a full analysis of all of your options.

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 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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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 »

EB2 – Know if the Education Works Before You File

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


There are also situations where you, your employee, or your client may have the right education; it just needs to be evaluated in the proper manner to meet CIS requirements for the EB2 visa. This is where many petitions are met with RFEs. The education must exactly match PERM education requirements. One common cause for an RFE stems from the requirement that a Bachelor’s degree equivalency must be a SINGLE SOURCE. Unlike educational requirements for other work visas, your Bachelor’s degree equivalency cannot combine work experience with your degree. This especially becomes a problem for beneficiaries with three-year Bachelor’s degrees. CIS does, however, accept a Bachelor’s degree equivalency from performing a conversion of years of progressive work experience into college credit hours. When you have a credential evaluator look at your education, or the education or your client or employee, have him or her also take a look at your client’s work experience to see if this conversion can be substituted for their Bachelor’s degree to meet PERM requirements.

There are situations where a beneficiary’s education simply does not – even with a detailed credential evaluation – meet EB2 requirements. For example, it is not uncommon for beneficiaries to claim that their high school diploma is a college degree, either because they are lying or by mistake.

When educational documents are translated, the value of the degree can get lost in translation because there is simply no English equivalent to express the degree your client has earned. Bad translations are the cause of much confusion when it comes to meeting educational requirements. You may not catch these translations, but experienced credential evaluators can because they have detailed knowledge of educational structures across cultures. In the case of a bad translation, you, your employee, or your client may actually be qualified for EB2 status. Or they may not be. Do not proceed to file without making absolutely sure.

Some foreign degrees that do not call themselves degrees – such as the Indian Chartered Accountancy Certificate – are actually postsecondary education that meet PERM requirements for a Bachelor’s degree equivalency. Other similar certificates and titles are not actually degrees, such as the Canadian Chartered Accountancy Certificate, or the US CPA certification. It is not always obvious which degree is actually a degree until you get that RFE. The way to determine whether or not your education actually meets the requirements for a postsecondary degree can be determined in the educational steps required to obtain that license or certificate, and the jobs that license or certificate qualifies you, your employee, or your client to work.

Before you file, take your educational documents and work experience to a credential evaluator with experience working with difficult cases and RFEs for a review of your client’s case. Sometimes, your background simply does not fit the educational criteria for this visa. Sometimes, your education will work if the evaluation is carried out properly, in detail, with references to precedents, federal case law, and international trade agreements. The right evaluator for this situation understands the nuances of EB2 visa requirements, as well as CIS trends. For a free assessment of your education, or your employee or client’s education, visit us at www.ccifree.com/.

 

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The Indian Chartered Accountancy Certificate and PERM Requirements

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


Educational value gets muddled in translation. This is why EB2 petitions for candidates with these kinds of certifications and licenses – like the Indian Chartered Accountancy certification – have some of the highest RFE rates. When it comes to the issue of the Indian Chartered Accountancy degree, it’s particularly confusing because Canada has a certificate with the same name. However, while the Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate is the equivalent to a US Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, the Canadian certification with the same name is not. The US CPA is not the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree either because the educational steps required for this certification don’t include those equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree.

Confused yet? Let’s take a look at how the Indian Chartered Accountancy certificate breaks down to understand its US equivalency. There are two components necessary to an evaluation to show CIS your client meets the PERM educational requirements:

First, for your client to hold a Chartered Accountancy certification in India, he or she must have completed a program of education culminating in taking an exam by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (IACI) and passed the exam. To take the exam, your client must have met the prerequisite of 2.5 years of professional training and passing the PE-II Intermediate exam. To take the PE-II exam, your client must meet the prerequisites of holding an Indian Bachelor’s degree, or having passed the PE-I equivalent. This means in order to hold the certification your client holds, he or she must have earned an Indian Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, or your client would not have been eligible to even take the PE-II.

Second, the evaluation must cite federal case law. In an AAO decision in 2007, the organization agreed that, “Passage of the ICAI examination and obtaining associate membership in the ICAI is the foreign equivalent to a US Bachelor’s degree in accounting.”

With these two components present in a credential evaluation, your client’s education will meet the PERM requirements with an Indian Chartered Accountancy certification. An evaluation that includes a detailed analysis of both the steps of education required for your client to earn this certification AND federal case law stating ICAI equivalency, it will be clear to CIS that your client holds the equivalent of a US Bachelor’s degree in Accounting.

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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Your Roadmap to Approval May NOT be in your Client’s RFE

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


Against a backdrop of increased pressure and limited resources, the RFE your client receives in response to his or her petition is not always as unique and specific as it may appear to be. The number of petitions submitted for the same number of visas has forced CIS workers evaluating petitions to get sloppy when a decision is not entirely straightforward.

In fact, USCIS has adopted an approach to writing RFEs and Denials wherein instead of writing an RFE tailored to the actual petition, they use boilerplate text from an adjudicator’s manual. Readers unfamiliar with this CIS trend may think that the RFE lays out the guidelines and advice for how to respond to it. In practice, this is not the case. The boilerplate text has been chosen after the fact, as justification for a decision that has already been made to deny your client’s petition. Following the guidelines indicated in this kind of RFE will not actually give you and your client correct insight into what is needed for your client’s individual petition.

Boilerplate text RFE’s can he hard to identify, especially to the untrained eye, and even more difficult to respond to successfully. In order to overturn this RFE, it is necessary to construct a response that transcends what CIS can just throw more boilerplate text at. To do this, you must submit a response that must be referred to an expert at CIS with the capacity to review petitions on a case-by-case basis. In essence, you can’t respond successfully to a boilerplate RFE with a boilerplate response.

If your client’s petition received an RFE for an education situation, contact an expert credential evaluator. For difficult cases, RFEs, and Denials, you need an expert who understands CIS trends, federal case law, CIS precedents, and the intricacies of the visa requirements who can write a detailed evaluation that must be deferred to someone who can actually give your client’s petition the adjudication it deserves.

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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What’s Standing Between Your Genius Client or Employee and Their Visa?

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


While sponsoring an employee’s work Visa can cost a company anywhere from $2,500-10,000 in legal fees and USCIS fees, it’s not the money that gets in the way of your genius client or employee obtaining his or her Visa. The fact of the matter is, many of the most brilliant minds followed eclectic or non-traditional educational paths to get to where they are. Common Visas for highly skilled workers – the H-1B Visa and the EB2 Visa – requires a candidates’ degree specializations to be an exact match for their job offers. However, it is common for talented engineers to have earned their degrees in related fields or vastly different fields. Some are largely or completely self-taught and have all of the skills and know-how through solo learning, work experience, and other non-traditional training opportunities.

For these reasons, while companies may jump at the opportunity to take these brilliant minds on to become assets to their companies and to US STEM industries, CIS educational requirements for Visas stand in the way.

Does this mean your client or employee with the specialized skills and knowledge to excel at their job cannot get their Visa because their degree doesn’t match?

Of course not!

A credential evaluator with extensive knowledge and experience with international education complexities, as well as CIS trends and federal case law can take a close look at your client or employee’s educational content and work experience. This way, an equivalency can be written to show that your client or employee has the equivalent of the degree necessary in the specialization necessary to qualify for his or her specialty occupation.

However, different work Visas have different requirements for where these educational equivalencies must come from. For example, if your client or employee is petitioning for an H-1B Visa and has a bachelor’s degree that is not an exact match for their field of employ, but has three years of work experience in the field, their education can be combined with the years of progressive work experience to write an equivalency that their degree is in their field of employ. Work experience and education can be combined to bridge that gap. However, if your client or employee is petitioning for an EB2 Visa and runs into that same problem, the evaluator must handle this differently because the particular Visa requires a single source degree.

Not all evaluation agencies know how to write the evaluation your client or employee needs for his or her particular Visa. When you call in to see if you want to work with any given agency, make sure that they are aware of CIS trends as well as the different educational requirements for different Visas. For example, if you let an agency know that your employee needs an evaluation for an H-1B Visa, they should quickly ask what the job offer is. If they don’t, look elsewhere. You want an evaluation agency that will tailor the evaluation to fit the needs of your client or employee’s unique situation and Visa. In essence, the evaluation must be as complex and unique as the genius it’s written for.

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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It’s Easier to Prevent an EB2 RFE than to Overturn One

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Your education must match the education requirement on the PERM. If your education is not a match, it will trigger an RFE or Denial. If your degree does not match the education requirement, you need a credential evaluation. If your degree is anything other than a straightforward four-year bachelor’s degree from the United States, you need a credential evaluation, and you need to submit it with the rest of your petition and documentation.
    1. Your bachelor’s degree MUST be a single source degree. This is where this first factor can get tricky. With other Visas like the H1B Visa, CIS allows candidates’ evaluators to combine work experience with years of college to equate to a bachelor’s degree. This is NOT the case with EB2, the bachelor’s degree must be from a single source degree. To work around this, you must find an evaluator well-versed in federal case law that allows for using five years of work experience to show equivalence to a US Master’s Degree. At CCI we can do this, and it takes a LOT of research, evidence, and documentation.
    1. Beware of mistranslations. If your transcripts and educational documents needed to be translated into English, the value of your degree may have been inadvertently changed in translation. One common mistranslation is Baccalaureate to Bachelor’s degree, and these degrees are NOT the same. Similarly, the Russian specialist degree is often mistranslated as well. The kandidat naouk is generally the equivalent to a US doctorate, but cannot be TRANSLATED as a doctorate degree.
    John Kersey, international education expert, explains, “In international education, the same term may mean entirely different things. Most bachelor’s degrees in Pakistan, for example, are only two years long and are comparable to a United States associate’s degree, not a bachelor’s degree, which requires three to four years of study. The European Master degree typically represents four years of postsecondary education, and is thus comparable to a United States bachelor’s degree, rather than a Master’s degree, which requires five to six years of postsecondary study.” Some translation firms are now offering evaluation services as well which has compounded the problem. International credential evaluation is highly nuanced and complex, not to mention translation firms do not know the particular degree requirements of each Visa and how that must impact the way the degree is evaluated. The solution? A skilled credential evaluator with expertise in international education can pick up on mistranslations. Be sure to let your evaluator know that your educational documents were translated and find a credential evaluation agency with evaluators who at minimum hold a degree in higher education that includes significant study in international education systems. These evaluators will be able to pick up on mistranslations and have a nuanced understanding of which equivalencies are seen as valid in the eyes of CIS, as well as universities and colleges. Find an evaluation agency with evaluators well-versed in federal case law who can evaluate your work experience into the degree you need to meet the educational requirements on the PERM. Get it right the first time. Don’t make CIS ask again, and don’t give them an excuse to pick your petition apart. These are tricky factors to keep in mind, but now that you know about them, you now have to tools 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. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.]]>

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    Using Chartered Accountancy Certificate for EB2

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


    One common occurrence in which this is the case is the Chartered Accountancy certification from India. With an evaluation and a detailed expert opinion letter, the Indian Chartered Accountancy Certificate can be shown equivalent to a US Bachelor’s degree. While this certification is evaluated to be the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree with a major in Accounting, the Chartered Accountancy certification from Canada is not. Similar certifications in different countries evaluate to different equivalencies in terms of the value of US education. How can this be?

    The answer is not determined by which evaluator you go to, and will not change from one agency to the next. The equivalency answer is based on equivalencies in the home countries of the holders of these certificates. In India, the Chartered Accountancy certification is the result of post-secondary education and passing examinations that have prerequisites of post-secondary education. The Canadian Chartered Accountancy certification is a professional certification, but not post-secondary education. How does one discern the difference between what is post-secondary education and what is not? The way to evaluate these certifications – or, in the case of the Indian Chartered Accountancy certification, degrees that don’t call themselves degrees – is to look at the stages of education required to complete that certification, and the post-graduate education and professions that certification meets the prerequisite standards of.

    It looks like this:

    To hold an Indian Chartered Accountancy certification, a person must have completed a program of education that culminates in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (IACI) formal examination. To take this examination, a candidate must have passed the PE-II Intermediate examination and have 2.5 years of practical training. To take the PE-II, an Indian bachelor’s degree or the equivalent of the PE-I is necessary. Therefore, if a candidate holds an Indian Chartered Accountancy certification, the education required to get there is the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree.

    In 2007, the AAO agreed in their decision that states, “Passage of the ICAI final examination and obtaining associate membership in the ICAI is the foreign equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree in Accounting.”

    Even difficult degrees – and degrees that don’t call themselves degrees – can be understood when broken down into the steps and prerequisites necessary to obtain them.

    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. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.

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