Azteca University - International - Foreign Credential Evaluation

Reiner: Where did you earn your degree?
Brooks (as Dr Buck Mitcheson, psychiatrist): Texas.
Reiner: Oh, you mean at the University of Texas?
Brooks: No. The state. Put my hand on a rock, looked up to the sky, and said, "I am a psychiatrist!

Sound familiar?

 

A credential evaluation company isn't an accrediting body, or a parliament with full recognition, degree-granting charter bestowal rights. They cannot "make up" for anything that's lacking in terms of original recognition within a country. If a higher education institution operates under a business license/registration and cannot be counted among the government-recognized/accredited institutions in that specific country location, it does not deserve an equivalency judgement in another country location. That's the most basic principle of ethical credential evaluation.

 

Yes it is. And it seems that's precisely what's missing, in this case.

 

No doubt they do. If so, I don't see two boxes here. I, too, think some people will endorse, and pay, anyone who tells them what they want to hear. Rich said it best... now place your hand on the rock and repeat after me ... Arise. You are now Doctor of the Universe.

 

When it comes to making a profit and appeasing clients, ethics often times go out the window and rules are broken.

 

Yes - sometimes by businesses and sometimes by the clients, too. Either way, there's a price.

 

Relative to the horde of evaluators not connected to NACES or even AICE, I think so. I did a little searching some time ago and found them listed by a number of legitimately accredited schools like Dallas College, Sanjac, Alvin, Oakwood, University of Nebraska Medical and a large number of others that popped up, as well as being listed by some states I found during the search. The total number of schools I saw was just north of 100, could be more but that's where I stopped. Getting listed by schools and states as a recognized and accepted evaluation service is valuable when not backed by the two aforementioned FCE organizations. Honestly, if you're not a member of NACES, and you don't make any lists, you're as good as invisible.

From examining this for the last few years, the preconceived notion I had going in was that evaluators would evaluate schools based largely on what its accreditation status is in its country of origin. That turned out be to wrong. Examples have come up a number of times where unaccredited school degrees have gotten evaluated as equivalent to accredited in the United States. Instead, it appears that some (or maybe more) evaluators base their decision to report equivalency solely on the program and what it offers in comparison to U.S. programs (RA or unaccredited), not its accreditation status in its country of origin.

I'm aware that some view a bit of Validential's operations to not be normal to what they'd expect from an evaluator, and that's understandable. I myself have issues with the way they have their chat system bug the heck out of you while you're on the site, it was unbearable the few times I went and that would personally turn me off from using them right there. I also chuckled at an evaluation of a degree from France being given RA equivalency for Canada. Canada doesn't have a regional accreditation system, but they do have some regionally accredited schools (accredited by U.S. agencies of course), so if a comparison is made to those it wouldn't be illegitimate even if it does seem a bit odd compared to what we'd normally expect. In any case, those things don't diminish the fact that they have managed to make the lists of a good number of states and schools. These are lists that pretty much always only carry NACES evaluators, but Validential still makes those lists. How? I don't know, but they're doing it, so hey, hats off to them. I have no need to ever use them myself.

 

Funny you mention Validential's chatbot. I have left my browser on Validential's website a couple of times to explore other sites only to hear the new message alert sound every 3 to 5 minutes without even interacting with the site. That makes them look very spammy. Validential will work for some as will California FCE. If I were desperate, I would use one of these services if the degree I had did not receive full recognition by a NACES evaluator. Other evaluators rarely mentioned who are NACES endorsed are offering some pretty competitive pricing for their foreign credential services so I will stick with a NACES evaluator for my PhD. I initially was going to do IEE but Josef Silny & Associates, Inc. also gives UCN's PhD a full recognition equivalency and their service is among the oldest having started in 1989. Their pricing is also lower than IEE and almost comparable to Validential.

 

The operations are definitely not normal, as I'm sure you've read. And not understandable - i.e. expected from a legitimate evaluator. At least to me.

Only one I can think of - Athabasca, which also has its proper Canadian Provincial recognition. I read someone else's account of that "equivalency." That faux pas is clearly on Validential - no one else, for lack of knowledge. The Validential guy clearly thought RA was also a Canadian thing. They have concentrated on the business of selling things - not the business of ethical and accurate credential evaluation.

Then doubtless you know they have other web-tricks and cyber-traps. They seem to own a bunch of websites which point you to Validential, - when you're not looking to visit - as mentioned on the other channel Cheap Trick (and not just an old Rock group.)

I don't know how either - but for Validential, my battered black fedora is staying ON. But I MIGHT try them - just to see what equivalency I can get for a Mongolian Driver's Permit. Just a minute --- it's here somewhere...

 

There will always be those who slip through the cracks! That's what these schools who are less than fully recognized with multiple validations and partnerships as well as the evaluators who support them are counting on.

 

"Something for everyone, our comedy tonight." - Zero Mostel.

 

As you mentioned earlier, it wouldn't be right to put Validential and CUFCE on the same line, so I'd say Validential is much better than a last resort like CUFCE just for the fact that they have a far larger amount of verifiable listings. But in general, the widest acceptance is going to come through a NACES evaluator as you pointed out.

 

Certainly, but I think at least in this case it's not common to slip through as many times as this service has to such a degree that it may not be a slip at all. Schools and states have no incentive to deviate from the NACES list ever, and we rarely see them do it. It's common to see a school only accept WES, ECE and maybe one other. So while we may not like some things Validential is doing, the schools and states that list them aren't concerned with any of that at all and have confidence in them.

See, what I caution us about here is not to lose sight of the overall picture: we can take evaluations from any evaluator and find issues with them. Many have expressed issues with WES evaluations, some have expressed issues with ECE's. So keeping that in mind, Validential having approaches to their evaluations that we disagree with shouldn't be overstated.

 

I meant people's issues with Validential as being understandable.

Simon Fraser University and Capilano University are also both regionally accredited. There may be others but I'm not aware of them.

I'd need to know some more information from Validential to fully understand their position on that to be sure enough to make a conclusion, but if they weren't basing it on the known RA schools in Canada then that would be a problem.

I've heard about it here, I never actually seen it myself. But if they are doing that it's an old trick based on old web principles back when web designers would stuff in a long paragraph of keywords at the bottom of a page, or set up tons of doorway sites that led to the real site. That may be seen as unethical to do today (and doesn't really work anymore as search engines got hip to it), but there was a time when that was something designers did routinely. Times have changed though, I do understand that.

LOL.

 

Thanks for the whole update - 3 other RA Universities in Canada. I've heard, of course, of all three BC schools, but I missed their being RA. I note ALL Canadian RA's are in Western Canada - the one source of progress in Canadian Higher Ed. - and many, many other areas besides.

Color me unconverted and unconvinced as far as Validential is concerned, though - but thanks for a good read. My black fedora's off to you - not them.

 

lol, not that I was attempting to convert you as I'm not quite a believer myself. I just don't want to put them in the same basket as a place like CUFCE which has much lesser acceptance and even far greater questionable practices.

What Validential needs is someone from the outside to discuss some ways to improve their image. If they're able to get on that many listings they're doing something right with establishing relationships, but they could still use improvement. The chat situation is already a disaster enough on its own for me, and if the other things people have mentioned are accurate, they're really doing it to themselves, but they're still succeeding somehow. I've found that people in that situation who are still succeeding tend to not want to hear constructive criticism even when they ask for it. I made a great deal of my living from positions where I gave constructive criticism, and the more successful the people who needed to hear it were, the less receptive they were. I did get quite a bit of satisfaction from them not taking my criticism only for what I warned them about to blow up in their faces soon after.

 

CUFCE has been doing what they do since 2001. I'm sure they'll continue on their chosen path. I figure Validential could do exactly what Validential is doing now for many years yet. If they're making money - they likely don't want to hear about change.

As for telling clients what they don't want to hear -- yes, it is satisfying to see them refuse advice and have stuff blow up in their faces. Schadenfreude - one of Dr. Steve Levicoff's favourite $10 words. But you don't make any money from that. They don't often come back for more advice they don't want to hear. It can be very unsatisfying financially.

As Voltaire's Candide said: "Il faut cultiver notre jardin." We have to cultivate our garden, i.e. we have to weed out our hopeless clients sometimes - or let them do it for us.

 

In addition to the four Canadian universities with RA, there are a slew (49) of them with recognized "National Faith-Related Accrediting Organizations" (as CHEA calls them).

What's that about?

 

Religion.

The faith-based accreditors are not the same as CHEA's list. They're usually associated with one specific denom. Any school that grants degrees - religious included - has to have proper provincial recognition as a University. Same as Secular schools. There's one in my town - Redeemer College and University. The religious accreditation is separate. Good article here: https://www.macleans.ca/education/university/christian-schools-in-canada/

Plenty of these schools teach secular degrees - so their faithful can go into business, learn IT, become teachers in their Denom's K-12 schools (or public ones) etc. etc.