Issues regarding education is a perennial problem H-1B beneficiaries face when it comes time to file. This is because there are many educational pathways that highly skilled workers take to acquire the specialized knowledge and skill sets that their employers hire them for. If the educational pathway is anything but a US bachelor’s degree or higher in the exact field of the H-1B job, USCIS is likely to answer the H-1B petition with an RFE instead of outright approval.
Common education situations that are likely to trigger approval issues:
- Degree earned outside the United States
- Three-year bachelor’s degree
- Generalized degree
- Degree with a major in a different field from the H-1B job
- Incomplete college
- No college
- Credential earned at an unaccredited institution.
To address these education issues in your H-1B petition or RFE response, it is essential to clearly show the US academic value of the beneficiary’s educational pathway is the equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree or higher in the field of the H-1B job. The most effective strategy to accomplish this is with a detailed credential evaluation that includes a progressive work experience conversion.
What is a progressive work experience conversion? Progressive work experience happens when it can be shown that education occurred on the job. This is work experience where the beneficiary can show the nature of their work became more complex and specialized over time, indicating that specialized education occurred on the job. Three years of this kind of work experience can be converted into one year of college credit in the major of the field of the job. A professor authorized to grant college credit for work experience can write this conversion to account for missing years of education or show the equivalency of the degree in the matching major.
At CCI TheDegreePeople.com, we work with authorized professors to write each credential evaluation uniquely to fit the job, the education, the visa, and USCIS approval trends. We work with difficult education RFEs every year. We know how to prevent them, and we know how to answer them.
Let us review your petition or RFE for free before you file to check for education issues and advise solutions. Visit www.ccifree.com and we will respond in 4 hours or less.
Sheila Danzig
Sheila Danzig is the director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com. Sheila specializes in overturning RFEs and Denials for work visas.