For those who needs to evaluate your degree, stay away from USCES (U.S credential evaluation service)

[Heidi9292 10]

Form i-944 requests applicants  to evaluate their oversea degrees. I did my research and came across some recommendations on USCES (source: reddit), aka the U.S credential evaluation service.

 

Their website looks professional, their online customer service react very fast even after business hours, and they claim their evaluation has 100% USCIS approval rate. What's even better is they have reasonable price for rush service and they are willing to work with photocopies. They have nice review on trustpilot and review.io. They even have an office in New York. So I decided to give it a try.

 

I ordered the two business day service, which includes a certified translation of my Chinese credentials and a general evaluation report. I paid at 9 am. but they won't count the day I paid as the first business day. I thought ok I'd wait. From their online system, I can see they romanized my Chinese name wrong. I contacted the customer service to change it, they asked me to provide evidence so I gave them my passport info and my u.s driver license. 

 

During the wait I started to google more about this company. On LinkedIn I found out most of their employees are living in Philippines. Their New York office is no longer in use, the NY office phone number now belongs to a music production company. They claimed their headquarter is in Laredo, Texas, but I found multiple companies, including a construction company, under the same address. Their texas office phone number also belongs to another evaluation service called crediteval. 

 

I started to rush them since I no longer trust them and I haven't received anything after 24 hours. They were supposed to send me the first version of translation to review, before they proceed to the evaluation. After I got the translation, I only got more angry. Whoever translated those documents definitely don't speak Chinese. They translated "higher education" into "high school education." They translate Bachelor of Arts degree into Art Degree diploma. And, they still have my name spelled wrong. My B.A degree from an accredited university became a high school diploma according to their translation. Honestly, google translate can do a better job.

 

I complained at their customer service and left a bad review on review.io. They blocked me from their website. I can no longer chat with the customer service. I got my refund from them tho, but the whole process is a waste of time and energy. I also feel sick because some sketchy company has all my personal information.

[Timona 4,208]

Use the ones listed on any US school's international student's office website. I do believe they are credible lest they would not make the list. 

 

I'm sure community colleges also have them. 

[Boiler 45,982]

Use the one that your College/Employer wants you to use.

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

Unfortunately, a hard lesson to learn , chalk it up to experience (and learn the lesson that if something seems very cheap compared to the competition it’s always worth closer inspection). Both posts above have sensible suggestions. WES seems accepted by everyone, I know there are one or two others of similar reputation.

[carmel34 3,651]

Only use approved evaluation services that are listed on the NACES website for I-944 purposes:

 

https://www.naces.org/members

 

Lesson learned--don't use reddit for recommendations.  Most reputable colleges and universities in the US do our own evaluation of original foreign transcripts sent directly from the foreign institution, we don't use evaluation services.

Edited December 18, 2020 by carmel34

[Heidi9292 10]

On 12/18/2020 at 3:10 PM, SusieQQQ said:

Unfortunately, a hard lesson to learn , chalk it up to experience (and learn the lesson that if something seems very cheap compared to the competition it’s always worth closer inspection). Both posts above have sensible suggestions. WES seems accepted by everyone, I know there are one or two others of similar reputation.

I did use WES 6 years ago when I applied graduate schools in the U.S. However, I was still in college when I applied, so that evaluation only covered 3 years of my undergraduate studies. The only downside for WES is their delivery time is too long and I need to get the form delivered to the USCIS by the end of the month. I eventually found another NACES approved service and they are even willing to use my own translations for my credentials. It was only 30 bucks more expensive but much more professional.

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

I guess I don’t understand why there is such a rush, but ok 

[Heidi9292 10]

On 12/19/2020 at 3:40 PM, SusieQQQ said:

I guess I don’t understand why there is such a rush, but ok 

Well this is a reply to an RFE (because we originally filed in early Sept when i944 was paused). We also need to resend our i864 form since we made a couple of mistakes the first time and missed some tax documents.

 

Unfortunately, my husband's company will have a major layoff soon and he could lose his job at any time in early 2021. If he lost his job, we both are going to lost our health insurance and he might not be eligible for sponsoring me. He works in IT so eventually he can find another job and be a qualified sponsor, but it could take months in this economy and then we will miss the reply deadline. That's why we wanted to get the documents delivered to USCIS in December, so at least when we filed everything we said on the form was true.

[kkmk 47]

On 12/19/2020 at 3:37 PM, Heidi9292 said:

I did use WES 6 years ago when I applied graduate schools in the U.S. However, I was still in college when I applied, so that evaluation only covered 3 years of my undergraduate studies. The only downside for WES is their delivery time is too long and I need to get the form delivered to the USCIS by the end of the month. I eventually found another NACES approved service and they are even willing to use my own translations for my credentials. It was only 30 bucks more expensive but much more professional.

hi! which service was it? and how much was it? was it satisfactory?