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Case Study: EB-2 Education RFE – Overturned!

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

If you or your employee or client is applying for an EB-2 green card, their situation must meet two requirements:

  1. They must have been hired for a job that requires a US master’s degree or higher, or a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent FOLLOWED BY at least five years of progressive work experience in the field.
  2. They must have the education required for the EB-2 qualified job or exceptional ability as clearly proven with a National Interest Waiver.

One of the most common RFEs EB-2 candidates run into is an education issue RFE.  Our client came to us with an Indian three-year bachelor’s degree, many years of progressive work experience, and an RFE.  He had the years of experience to more than cover the five years of progressive work experience following having earned the bachelor’s degree.  The issue arose because with EB-2 educational requirements the bachelor’s degree is required to be a SINGLE SOURCE and CIS does not accept that the Indian three-year degree is the equivalent of the US four-year bachelor’s degree regardless of the number of classroom contact hours.  CIS requires the missing fourth year to be accounted for.

With other visas, like H-1B, our client could have included a work experience conversion that converts three years of progressive work experience in a given field of specialization into one year of college education towards that degree to account for the missing year.  This does not work for EB-2 because that would not meet the equivalency requirement of a single source bachelor’s degree.

Our solution was to write a credential evaluation fortified by CIS approval precedents and federal case law that took twelve years of our client’s progressive work experience in the field and converted it into the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in the field.  Then, the next five years of work experience were included to meet EB-2 educational standards requiring a single source US bachelor’s degree FOLLOWED BY five years of work experience in the field.  The RFE was overturned.

If you or your employee or client is facing an education RFE for EB-2, let us help you.  Even the candidate doesn’t have the years to cover a complete work experience conversion, there are other ways to address the equivalency issue through detailed credential evaluations tailored to your or your employee or client’s unique situation, and through expert opinion letters and National Interest Waiver options.  Let us review your case for free.  Visit ccifree.com.  We will respond in 48 hours or less.

Case Study: EB-2 Education RFE – Overturned! Read More »

What USCIS Needs to Know about Your Client’s Indian Three-Year Degree

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


As an immigration attorney, it is important to first understand the truth behind misconceptions about the Indian three-year degree, and then understand how to address these misconceptions to USCIS in a way that takes their trends into account. Regardless of the actual value of your client’s education, it must be communicated in such a way that is in harmony with CIS requirements and educational trends.

There are two prominent misconceptions about the education of candidates who hold Indian three-year bachelor’s degrees:

  1. Candidates do not possess the core knowledge that comes from a US four-year degree.

The Indian three-year bachelor’s degree tends to have a more specialized curriculum while US four-year bachelor’s degree programs require general credits and classes from outside of a student’s major. However, this is changing in universities across India. Many institutions have changed to a choice-based credit system, which allows flexibility for students to take classes outside of their major. At the same time, the core education curriculum required for Indian students to earn a High School Diploma before they even enter college is extensive, rigorous, and well rounded. In most cases, Indian students are coming into college with the core knowledge US bachelor’s degree students must learn in college.

  1. The missing fourth year means a missing year of academic content.

Debunking this myth is a matter of math. The US four-year bachelor’s degree requires 120 credit hours to graduate. One college credit hour is comprised of fifteen classroom contact hours, meaning fifteen hours spent directly in the classroom. This is 1800 classroom contact hours for a US four-year bachelor’s degree. According to Dr. R. Venkatachalam, former psychology professor at Bharathiar University in India (http://www.emailwire.com/doc/three-year-indian-degree.pdf), a typical Indian three-year degree program has roughly 3,240 classroom contact hours.

Now that you understand the value of your client’s three-year Indian bachelor’s degree, how can you express this to USCIS in a way that they will understand? Regardless of how many classroom contact hours your client’s degree consists of, CIS still requires a progressive work experience evaluation to account for the missing fourth year. This means your client must have three years of work experience in their field of employ that can be converted into one year of college credit in that field. Progressive work experience means your client took on more work and responsibility in this experience, indicating that specialized skills and knowledge were learned and mastered. A credential evaluation agency with the authority to convert progressive work experience into college credit can write the detailed credential evaluation your and your client need to meet H1-b visa requirements in accordance with CIS educational trends. Do not file your client’s H1-b petition without one such credential evaluation or the missing fourth year will come back to haunt you in the form of an RFE or Denial.

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.]]>

What USCIS Needs to Know about Your Client’s Indian Three-Year Degree Read More »

Turning Work Experience into College Credit: How does THAT work?

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


If your client has an Indian three-year degree, you need to anticipate this problem before the H1b petition is submitted. Even though it has been proven time and again that the academic content of the Indian three-year degree actually far surpasses the US four-year degree in terms of classroom contact hours and Carnegie units, it is on your client to account for that final fourth year to the USCIS. You have two options.

First, your credential evaluator can write a detailed evaluation of the academic content of your client’s degree.   That means breaking down classroom contact hours and converting them into US measurements of college credits, then comparing the number of credits needed to graduate with a US bachelor’s degree to the amount of credits your client has accumulated. This is a good option if your client has a degree in their field of employ. However, if their degree fails to exactly match their field of employ the USCIS still will not accept their qualification for the visa.

USCIS standards of educational requirements are more stringent than those of employers. While many employers understand that employees with degrees in fields related to their work usually possess the specialized skills and knowledge required to carry out their jobs. The USCIS, on the other hand, requires employees education EXACTLY meet their field of employment. That means, your client needs to not only bridge the gap in the years of education, but also the gap in specialization.

To do this, an authorized credential evaluator can convert years of work experience into college credit. Work experience must be in the exact field of employ to count these towards years of academic specialization, and it must also be progressive work experience. This means the nature of the work required your client to take on more and more work and responsibilities representative of their progressively specialized skills and knowledge in the field. A credential evaluation agency with the authority to convert work experience into college credit can do this. Typically, three years of progressive work experience in a field can be evaluated as equivalent to one year of college credit in that field.

Before we delve into this any further, this is NOT a DIY manual. You cannot make these work experience conversions on your own and expect the USCIS to just accept it. You must work with an experienced credential evaluator with the authority to make these conversions, as well as a track record of being able to successfully make these conversions.

Sheila Danzig is the director of Career Consulting International at www.TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credential evaluation agency. They specialize in difficult cases and RFEs, Denials, NOIDs, 3-year degrees, etc. and offer a free review of all H1B, E2, and I140 education at http://www.ccifree.com/.]]>

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