Foreign Credential Evaluation in the United States: Part  1

By Holly O’Neill West        

Introduction

Many people, both in the U.S. and abroad, have never heard of foreign credential evaluation. During my ten years as an evaluator, I can’t tell you how many times I’d get a blank stare when I told people what I did for a living. My well-practiced response: “I evaluate foreign educational credentials in terms of U.S. educational equivalence for the purpose of immigration, licensing, further education, etc.” Simple and to the point, right? Not exactly.

Despite it being a relatively unusual field to be involved in, the field of foreign credential evaluation is growing rapidly, and it has evolved a great deal over the past thirty years. In the beginning, educational equivalencies in the U.S. were generally determined by counting the number of years a person had studied in a foreign country and then comparing it to the level of education a student would have completed in the same number of years in the U.S. Little consideration was given to the quality of education received or to the fundamental philosophical differences that exist in the educational systems of different countries. Evaluation standards and methodology have become more sophisticated over the years, however, and what was once a fairly black and white field has become colored in shades of gray.

A Brief History

Originally, the task of foreign credential evaluation was left up to the U.S. Department of Education through the Foreign Credential Evaluation Service (FCES). Between 1966-69, however, the FCES was curtailed, and finally terminated in 1970. Unlike many foreign countries, there are no national government standards for assessing foreign educational credentials in the U.S. Since 1970, the evaluation of foreign credentials has largely been done by private credential evaluation services or through the admissions offices of colleges and universities. National guidelines for assessing foreign educational credentials have come primarily from placement recommendations developed by the National Council on the Evaluation of Foreign Educational Credentials (the Council), but this is not a government agency and their recommendations are non-binding. It should be noted, however, that the Council has existed since 1955 and their guidelines generally hold a good deal of weight with many institutions and agencies in the U.S. Individual evaluation agencies, colleges, and universities also develop their own evaluation policies, many of which are at least loosely based upon the guidelines recommended by the Council.

Useful Resources

College Admissions
Chronicle of Higher Education
EAIE:  European Association for International Educators
NAFSA:  Association of International Educators
National Association of Credentials Evaluation Services
TOEFL Online - Test of English as a Foreign Language
US Department of Postsecondary Education

Holly O’Neill West worked as a foreign credential evaluator for a Los Angeles-based credential evaluation service for almost ten years. During that time, she wrote monographs on the educational systems of Afghanistan, Sudan, and Zambia, and contributed to “A Guide to Educational Systems Around the World” by co-writing the profile on Brazil. Her experience as an evaluator and her marriage to a British national have convinced her that immigration to the U.S. can be an inconvenient process at best and heartbreaking at worst. Her hope is that the work she did as a foreign credential evaluator helped to make the road a bit easier for at least some immigrants to this country. She is now employed as a web designer.