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PERM education requirements

EB2 or EB3? Know which one before you file!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

Oftentimes, candidates are tempted to file for EB2 instead of EB3 because the processing time can be years shorter. However, EB2 is scrutinized VERY carefully and requirements surrounding educational equivalencies for this particular visa are very strict and different from EB2. This can sometimes motivate candidates to say that the education is more than it actually is. Sometimes the misunderstanding is a mistake. Don’t take anything for granted, be 100% certain of the education you’re working with. Filing for EB2 with EB3 education successfully is a long shot and should only be done once EB3 is secured.

Before you get too far on the petition, let us review provide a pre-evaluation with all of your options so you can make the right decision about which classification to file for. Simply hit visit ccifree.com and attach the candidate’s resume and educational documents along with the job title or desired academic equivalency. We will get back to you within 24 hours with the pre-evaluation and a full analysis of all of your options.

One major difference between EB2 and EB3 is that EB3 allows for education to be combined, if, and only if it is so stated on the PERM. EB2 requires a single source degree. However, there are some interesting ways “around” it that have worked.

Both EB2 and EB3 visas are Green Card (permanent residency) visas, and the requirements are education-based for academics and skilled professionals. CIS takes two key aspects into account when assessing eligibility for these visas:

  1. The candidate’s job.
  2. The candidate’s education.

For both EB2 and EB3, the job must hold as a minimum requirement the visa’s education requirements, and the candidate must meet these requirements within CIS guidelines for equivalency. That means the candidate must hold the required degree or training for the job, and the degree must be in the exact field of the job.

EB3 is for skilled, unskilled, or professional workers. These requirements are different for the different kinds of jobs. If the job is classified as skilled work, to meet EB3 requirements the job must require at least two years of training or job experience, and the candidate must have this education or experience. For jobs classified as professional, the job must require and the candidate must hold a US bachelor’s degree or its foreign equivalent in that field. If the job is classified as “other” or unskilled, the job must require and the candidate require less than two years of training, and the job must be permanent to meet CIS requirements for EB3.

As you can see, EB3 is a broad classification that most candidates can meet. EB2 visa requirements are much more strict and have very specific requirements surrounding equivalencies for candidate with degrees from outside of the United States.

To meet EB2 requirements, candidates must either have:

  1. A US bachelor’s degree or a SINGLE SOURCE equivalent FOLLOWED BY five years of progressive work experience in the field, or
  2. A US Master’s Degree or higher or its foreign equivalent.

For candidates with education outside of the United States, meeting EB2 education requirements can be difficult because of the single source equivalency rule. The Bachelor’s degree equivalency must be a single source, so when it comes writing equivalencies for three-year bachelor’s degrees, you or your employee or client may not be able to meet EB2 standards. For example, when we work with H1B visas, when candidates have three-year degrees and at least three years of progressive work experience in the field, we can write a credential evaluation that converts the three years of progressive work experience into one year of college credit in the field, signed off by a professor authorized to issue college credit for work experience. We can then add that additional year to the three-year degree and have what CIS would accept as the equivalency of a US four-year Bachelor’s degree. The does NOT work for EB2 because the Bachelor’s degree must be a single source, so combining years of education with work experience will just result in an RFE or Denial.

If you or your employee or client has a three-year Bachelor’s degree and no additional education, their best option is to file for EB3 as a skilled worker with an Associate’s degree and work experience. Filing for EB2 would be a waste of time.

However, there are situations where a candidate DOES qualify for EB2 with a detailed credential evaluation. Before you get too far on your case or your employee or client’s case, visit ccifree.com and submit the candidate’s educational documents and a current, accurate resume, along with the job or desired equivalency. We will get back to you within 24 hours with a pre-evaluation of the candidate’s education, a full analysis, and an overview of 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.

EB2 or EB3? Know which one before you file! Read More »

Case Study: EB2 RFE for Mismatched Education – APPROVED

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

A recent client came to us with a bachelor’s degree in engineering for a job in computer sciences and a big RFE to show for it. Candidates for both H-1B and EB2 visas have been running into this problem because while employers will hire them with degrees in related fields – because of related work experience and because they understand the great degree of academic overlap between the fields – USCIS requires the degree be an exact match for the job offer. What is needed to meet this requirement is a credential evaluation that shows the candidate’s academic and professional background is the equivalent of the right degree specialization.

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

At TheDegreePeople, we recently helped a client with a three-year bachelor’s degree overturn the Denial he received from USCIS for his EB2 petition. He had over ten years of work experience in his field of employ, a three-year bachelor’s degree, and a two-year master’s degree. PERM requirements for his visa stated he needed a master’s degree plus two years of work experience in the field, requirements that he clearly met. The problem, of course, was the three-year bachelor’s degree.

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 »

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

There are plenty of good credential evaluators out there who are not a good fit for your EB2 credential evaluation, or your employee or client’s EB2 credential evaluation. They can write accurate evaluations, but not the right one for what you need.

Finding the right credential evaluator for your unique case, or your employee or client’s unique case is often the difference between approval and problems. Many EB2 candidates who are qualified for this advanced degree visa are met with RFEs at best because the credential evaluation did not interpret their credentials in terms of PERM educational requirements. These requirements are very specific when it comes to the EB2 classification, and the right credential evaluator understands this.

How can you find the right credential evaluator? Ask yourself these five questions to find your way to the perfect match for your case, or your client or employee’s case:

  1. 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 »

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

Before you, your client, or your employee file for EB2 visa status, make sure that the education meets the requirements for this particular visa. Filing for EB2 instead of EB3 is preferential to beneficiaries because the turnaround waiting time for EB3 can take as long as a decade. However, if your education – or your client’s or employee’s education – does not meet EB2 requirements in the first place, time and effort is wasted anyway. These visas require advanced degrees or their equivalencies, and education requirements on the PERM are very specific when it comes to equivalencies.

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/.

EB2 – Know if the Education Works Before You File Read More »

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

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

In other words…USCIS is not your friend.

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.

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

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