..If you’ve ever suspected your School Director or Principal hadn’t actually earned the degrees and credentials prominently displayed on their office wall, you’re not alone. When journalism students at Pittsburgh High School (Kansas, USA) decided to look into the background of their new Head of School, Amy Robertson, their suspicions proved legitimate. Miss Robertson, who had spent the past 19 years involved in International Education in the UAE, joined Pittsburgh High School in early 2017.
.. The journalism class began investigation into Miss Robertson by looking at her advanced degrees and credentials. Her Master’s degree and PhD were both from Corllins University. The students soon learned, however, that Corllins is a school characterized by many critics as strictly a diploma mill — a place where you buy advanced degrees. The school board thereafter asked Miss Robinson to produce transcripts to substantiate her undergraduate degree from a well-known American university. She was unable to do so. She did state that Corllins University lost its accreditation after she had graduated. Miss Robertson resigned the $93,000-a-year position, stating it was “in the best interest of the district.”
..Fortunately for International Educators, as far back as 2012, teachers working under Amy Robertson at Dubai American Scientific School had their own concerns and shared them with International Schools Review Members. Fourteen ISR Reviews of Dubai American Scientific School make references to Amy Robertson and include links to news articles covering Miss Robertson’s problems with the Dubai Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), which said she was not authorized to head the school. All educational permits associated with Dubai American Scientific School were later suspended. The school had failed inspection every year from 2008 to 2012 and was closed in September of 2013.
See the following links for articles related to the incident
The Kansas City Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article142682464.html
CNBC:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06/these-high-school-journalists-uncovered-a-principals-resume-lie.html
..Amy Robertson’s case is not unique. International Schools Review hosts more than just a few Reviews in which teachers, based on their personal experience with administrators, question the authenticity of an individual’s degrees and credentials. Of course, school administrators are human and surely not everyone will agree with their decisions; but when an admin has a full alphabet of acronyms following their name but does not, nor cannot, display insight into curriculum, best practices, current trends in education and/or basic organizational/management skills, one can only wonder about the authenticity of their degrees. Trust your intuition!
..When in doubt, follow the lead of the journalism students at Pittsburgh High School and research, research, research! Then Share your findings with colleagues here on International Schools Review. International Educators Keeping Each Other Informed is what International Schools Review is ALL about!
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I do believe it is not uncommon. I was recruited by the Queen’s school IAA in Jordan by a Dr Zola, a professed Harvard graduate. The contract was for 1 year and I agreed to another year once I arrived at the school. One month into our tenure Dr Zola ‘left’ and it turned out he had lied about his credentials even so far as he had NO post graduate qualifications at all. All of us who he had recruited were fired at end of that year 2011 and I am still waiting to get paid out my contract despite the fact that the Appellate Court has agreed my claim – the Queen refuses to pay it!
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I am also quite annoyed with the PTC. I have a principal now who only has a PTC admin certificate and they are just horrible. They have no idea how to run a school or empower teachers. I know of other colleagues and friends who have worked at schools where their principals only had the PTC certificate of admin and leadership. What a joke! It certainly is just padding the pockets of other principals who “teach” these courses. I have a friend who si a principal in Canada now and did the PTC about 6 years ago and now has a Masters in Admin and leadership and she called the PTC certification a dog and pony show compared to a real Masters. It prepares you for nothing but a big salary and how to take advantage of being in a powerful position. No ethics! The PTC is a scam and should not be considered equal to a Masters in any way or form. YOu are lying to yourself if you think it is. I hope the PTC gets shut down and goes by way of Lehman Brothers. Dont waste your hard earned salaries paying for any PTC course.
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Hmmm. I tend to agree and see your point.
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Fred have you taken a PTC course? PTC is not a university, I am pretty sure they are not accredited by any of the major bodies, they do not provide a university degree. They do provide courses developed and run by current and former school heads and principals that give practical-real world training that many university education courses do not; yes they are expensive!
As an experienced head of school, I have found candidates with PTC training tend to be better prepared for the position than those that do not. The PTC certificate is not an equivalent to a Masters in Educational Leadership, schools should not consider this as a sole or major qualifier for a senior leadership post.
In my opinion, the PTC provides some best post-university school leadership training out there, they are for profit and have no prerequisites to attend. I can say from experience attending PTC courses there are more than a few in attendance that will never make it in a school leadership position. Don’t bash the PTC because you got a dud, do your due diligence as the kids in Kansas did and find out about who you are hiring.
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Very true. And increased amount of Int schools (and even many unis) don’t give a rip, just want a native speaker, preferably young naive backpacker. However I just must question the issue here of the diploma mill, since not all created equal, and not all grads of them are idiots. They are cheap, and often online. My first job was at one generally considered a ‘mill’, but did have several legit campuses and I had some very fine students there. It has ”regional institutional accreditation from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU)”. Would this count as accreditation, as opposed to Corllins? Important question!
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Yes the NWCCU is a legit accreditation institution. You really have no clue about what a diploma mill is or how to identify one; so you should refrain from trying to make bold claims that can be refuted with a simple Google search.
Nobody cares about your 4th tier university work history and experience.
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Yes the PTC is the principal training center.
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Due the the contentious nature of this topic, I am pursuing follow ups of my own, as I suggest everyone does. For example: “While the students say they never intended to undermine the new principal, they felt a responsibility to report their findings”. Imo the students did right, but did not go far enough, and the hiring people were lazy, too. I personally was able to stop the potential hire of a new president at my place of employment simple by bothering to contact friends who had worked at the university he hailed from, and from whom I heard a resound No Way (with explicit examples from fac) and forwarded the results to the Dean, who thanked me. But I still don’t think this issue is really about degree status. People need to know primarily about performance record. The unhired president I refer to had all the right papers and talked the talk- seemed warm and appealing. So journalism students and everyone else need to follow this line too. I’ve seen hiring committees far too concerned with illustrious degrees and publications while ignoring performance track record.
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It has been noticed that many European nationals come to the Gulf with little or no experienced in education but due to thier skin colour they are given administrative post . Meanwhile many of them can’t speak proper English. This is really weird.
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Seeing is believing. The schools are cheating their students and there will be a high staff turnover.
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Besides having fake credentials the PTC just exacerbates this problem of unqualified admin worldwide. The PTC is giving out these certificates for principals, counselors, EAL and other areas of education and schools are accepting this as equal to a Masters degree when it is not. The PTC needs to be stopped and shut down. Schools are hiring principals with no qualifications, and they admit to it but they have this lame certificate from the PTC. No one in the US or Canada would accept that for a principal position much less a directorship. The reason international education is declining is because too many admin folks are doing this short cut and getting their PTC certification that is not worth the paper it is written on. Schools need to stop accepting the PTC certification as qualifications to be an administrator or counselor or EAL specialist. Not sure why the PTC certification qualifies these people overseas when no one in the US or Canada would accept it and would, quite honestly laugh them out the door. I got my Med in Admin and leadership and went back to the US and was hired as a principal due to my qualifications and experience not becuase I took a PTC course given by admin. These people want ot line each others pockets and delve out their “wisdom” to others and call it certification. What I mean by that is many admin are “teaching” at these PTC locations and get paid big bucks. Can you say conflict of interest? Horrible way to do business and it is just causing more and more problems internationally with so many more unqualified admin out there thanks to the PTC. The PTC should be shut down and no one should be taking it seriously or hiring anyone who only has that certificate as an admin member.
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Anonymous- Can you please explain what the “PTC” is? Thanks!!!
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I’m assuming the Principal’s Training Center?
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Someone should take a look at some of the accredited WASC schools. WASC comes in and does no teacher/admin credential checking at all. I know schools with unqualified teachers and administrators who got accreditation. How? I will leave it to your imagination.
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It’s worth noting that all degrees earned in the US can be verified via the National Student Clearinghouse. So it should be easy to verify a degree earned on US soil.
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I worked at a school where the director had a masters but in business administration. He knew nothing about education and tried to run the school as if it were a widget factory. Things came to a head when appointed his wife, also with no educational experience, to principal of the high school. He was gone at the end of the first year. Many of us posted reviews of this guy to ISR and the board chairman is a member of this site. He called for a meeting of all the faculty and when it was over so was the director’s job. Just having a degree does not qualify someone to lead a school.
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I know that Kevin Donnely the previous Head at El Gouna International School in Egypt claimed to have been Head of The International School of New York. This was a lie. Here he is lying about it in an interview.
He is now a Principal at a school in Africa.
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Right here is a reason why ALL international teaching staff/admin need to have criminal background and credential checks: Interpol is after a ‘teacher’ who murdered another one in Yangon. Myanmar is notorious for unregistered schools that don’t hired qualified teachers, check their qualifications or backgrounds. These people enter the country on 10 week visas as fake ‘consultants’ and many are very sleazy. Makes legitimate teachers look bad.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/14/interpol-issues-red-notice-for-scottish-teacher-harris-binotti-wanted-for-myanmar
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Wow this needs to be posted in the main forum!
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Yeah, there should be a teacher alert in case he is working in Bali, Cambodia or somewhere……..
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This guy has been nabbed in the UK apparently. Doesn’t explain why he was in a teaching position as a non qualified teacher around vulnerable children and why he had not been reference and criminal checked. He is one of many out there.
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This is going to sound catty, but its a bit obnoxious to be claiming extensive professional academic experience, while passing judgement on past administrators, who you feel have been inexperienced and you are posting your feelings on an academic site with numerous grammatical errors in said post… I will leave the poster’s name off this, but really?
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Seriously? Are you really obtuse?
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There is a head who caused huge problems in at least three school I know of, and many staff doubted the validity of her doctorate. Is there an institution that can provide researched proof?
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Uh, Yeah! Documents are supposed to be authenticated through a pain in the neck and expensive process.
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Yes. If the degree was earned in the US then it can be verified through The National Student Clearinghouse.
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As a educator with 25 years experience I strongly suspect my current Boss is lacking in proper credentials. During the last 7 or so years in China I can also claim the last principal I worked with in Changchun had no Administrative experience. Her claim to fame was that she had been the MYP coordinator at the school until the owners moved her into the leadership position. Realizing that this was a very normal business practice.
So I offered to help her with the transition and mentor her so the school would keep moving forward. The owners just a few months before asked me about the role of principal and I clearly explained my requirements and they never asked me again. However I did help with the firing and hiring of many staff. Challenging times for sure
So Chinese in that the owners know she would accept a lot less money.
I have been an assist principal and principal with years of overseas experience. I did enjoy playing a supportive role and have since moved on.
Prior to that at Dulwich College Beijing when they hired me the person who hired me had no admin experience. In August the new boss had been a english teacher.
And the next year year my new Boss his experience was that he had been head of boarding somewhere in the UK
So Your right many people in admin have no education or prior experience. Such is life in the international education. Most schools don’t even check references.
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Degree mill or not, teaching fac and admin should be evaluated on performance, not paper qualifications. I have been a victim of this myself. I work as an university adjunct, 100 level composition courses only. A few years ago some dreadful Americans (alas they are the worst) many with poor student evals themselves, decided to gang up on adjuncts who did not have PhDs. In the US a uni might get away with only hiring PhDs, because there is a tragically large ”adjunct pool” (hate that term) in the Humanities. But my uni, while American, is not located in the US but rather in a small developing country where native English speakers with PhDs are only found in the dregs of poor state universities working for appallingly low wages- so that should be a red flag in itself. In a nutshell, after a major adjunct hiring disaster- ie a perv- (ask yourself why a US/UK PhD is ”over here” is working for less than $500 a month), I was welcomed back. Tg. Now, before some of you get in a huff, WHY do I say Americans are the worst? Simple: To bother getting a PhD in the humanities in the US today, given the lack of job opps, implies you must be wealthy to begin with, and income not of much concern to you. Brits/Irish very different. The older gen got their PhDs free or nearly so thanks to a generous state, and thus you find profs from all social classes- much healthier, says me.
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A tremendous amount of what you have written is completely untrue and self serving. Try getting a high profile job at a highly regarded US or International University whose diploma and degrees are connected to said Universities that cater to a well educated- and not the first generation acquiring a university degree in a wealth family. A PHD is respected and revered in the true academic community for, if nothing else, the determination, staying power, hard work and sweat of the brow it takes to get it. This is not to put down any adjunct or other non-doctorate teacher, but please do not put down Americans and highly educated professionals. There is a huge difference between a respected international school and The Cornell Medical School in Qatar. There is-
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I was waiting for the snarky comments, so thank you for being first! What’s self-serving about an adjunct with more than 20 yrs of experience in international journalism (as well as several books), working in a variety of American universities abroad since 2002, and happy to earn less that $1200 a month? Sorry but it’s only snobby Americans who have given me trouble, no one from the rest of the world. Ever.
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Also who is going to evaluate these illegitimate heads of school. My last principal gave negative evaluations to teachers he didn’t like and wanted to leave regardless of the fact some were excellent in the classroom. When good teachers gave notice, he never encouraged them to discuss why they were leaving or to stay as some might have done. Anyone half-way competent was seen as a threat to his lazy and inept work ethic.Supported by a naive and money grabbing local owner. This guide had no leadership qualities, ethics or redeeming qualities unless you count looking like a rat, dying your moustache and hair and stinking of stale smoke and alcohol.
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I left a school I was at for 2 years when they brought in the new Snake Oil Salesman He has less than 2 years classroom experience, dropped out of site for a while (based on dates from his Linkedin account), returning with 2 ed management degrees from an online diploma mill. Myself and another teacher questioned some of his “visions” and “edicts” and he immediately went the owner, said he could not work with us and wanted us fired (other teacher had been there 5 years). The school shuffled us to another building, but I left. The other teacher didn’t have a lot of choice as she had 2 small children and needed her visa the school provided. A shame really-
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I take issue with your assessment of US Ph.Ds. There are fake degrees to be had, and humanities Ph.Ds do indeed know when they begin that long journey of persistence that it might not land a university job. Fortunately, organizations such as the American Historical Association carefully track the career success of US educated Ph.Ds, and as recently as 2011 the great majority (80-85 percent, if I recall) of those who got the degree found a suitable job. Mine came in 2012, however, as the effect of government layoffs were gutting state universities right and left. As a result of the economic downturn, academic jobs were simply not available not only for us humanities people (even now only 1 of my 8 fellow grads has a tenor track position), but also for the STEM grads from my US News Top 40 university; few if any of us had jobs lined up as we marched. Furthermore, in my personal experience, few if any of the 50 or so liberal arts PhDs from my stay at UX were anything near wealthy. We are mostly just passionate learners willing to take a chance. My point is that so much depends on social and economic cycles over which we have no control. I am delighted to be applying my PhD and the passion that caused it to teaching in international high schools, even at my first job, which paid less than $25k. If people want to make foolish assumptions about me and question my motives, well, go ahead. I’m enjoying the experience.
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See above. Not slagging off US PhDs, or even rich people. Only saying that the degree itself doth not a great prof/teacher/administrator make.
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I have an extremely close friend who was my TENURED PROFESSOR OF HUMANITIES in college and now holds a Provost position at an extremely well known and reputable Law School, and YES! In The US…
Now me- I only have a Masters (BA is Humanities),and I also work overseas and make a considerable- and I do mean considerable amount more than $1200 a month.
The “snarky comments” from we Americans is because we know how untruthful what you are pitching is- And while again, you say it is the “dreadful Americans” who make so many problems, I have never seen a school advertising for South African or Irish trained teachers only.
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Eh? Sure, I made tons more money after I got iced out of my adjunct position at a university I love (not sacked, they just kept cutting my hours) by a handful of seriously snooty Americans who were not at all popular with students or other faculty. And guess what, they are all gone. some sacked because they truly sucked at their jobs, fancy high-brow US uni PhD or no. Most of you critics seem to be missing my point because you are so busy getting knickers in twist about my intense dislike of *some* US fac, who had all the right papers but couldn’t relate to students in my region, having ‘know-it-all’ attitudes and trying to impose US culture or the latest educational fads on students now in the EU who are no longer buying it. I made loads more money in the two jobs I had during my 2.5 years absence from Uni Wonderful, but hated both the places and their nasty local admin/politics. Far prefer less money and brighter students. Please, critics, respond to what I said, not what your flaming knickers are pushing you to.
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Of course you should want the people running and teaching CHILDREN at a school to have the appropriate educational background instead of their ‘performance’ history. No, having degrees doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the best educator, but WE ALL should want people to have the basic qualifications checked off before we evaluate them in whatever capacity they’re hired for when working with children.
Your statement about Americans who get PhD’s coming from a wealthy background is just plain ignorant.
This topic is about one admin who got caught with shoddy credentials. Your ‘victimization’ and rant against Americans is irrelevant at best. We’re talking about educators who work with CHILDREN in a K-12 school, not a university setting.
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mbkirova, I think maybe its time for you to just “chill”. You have an obvious dislike for American educators, particularly those with PHDs and good jobs related to their degrees. You are clearly bitter and angry about something- Maybe you low paying position (?).
As an educator, none of us will ever make a lot of money compared to other professions that require the same amount of schooling, time and degree wise, but going into teaching was and is a choice we make knowing the ropes and the rules. You knew you were not ever going to rise above adjunct position without a PHD and that goes along with a changing class load depending on need and a much lower pay scale, so now, as we “snooty Americans” with our “twisted knickers” might say, so deal or change jobs, or get a PHD.
I agree 110% that a degree does not guarantee anyone will be an effective teacher, and you keep going on about how the students don’t like the American educators… Well, I have been teaching for a very-very long time and know through experience that the “popular” teachers were many times ineffective. My job is to educate and because I do a kick-ass job at that, I in return am respected by both faculty and my students. And because of that I also have a professional resume and reputation that proceeds me. As well as a top salary.
I do not know if you are an effective educator or not, but I do know you are wasting a lot of time bringing up things that have absolutely no relevance to this topic and seem determined for someone to agree with your rant and offer up a “poor you” as the non-PHD holder victim of the year.
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Not angry or bitter! LOVE my job, in country where my low wage is still plenty. Just take heed: I spent my pre-teaching years as a journalist, a field in which you are solely evaluated on your ability to investigate and communicate. Plus, sniff poo, which I sense here.
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I think you have proven your own point, mbkirova- Being “solely evaluated on your ability” as a journalist.., you now teach…
We all know the adage: Those who can do. Those who can’t teach. Right?
I also sense anger and bitterness.
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LOL! Guess you haven’t heard that the market for writing (journalism) tanked at the end of the 80s? 😉 No pay there now, it’s all blogs. Where have you been?
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I agree with some of what you say, especially about “popular” teachers being ineffective. We had one who let the kiddies run wild and would tell them all about his dating life and have them spend all their time making posters – disguised as a social studies lesson. What a jerk! The fake principal knew there was no learning taking place but hey, why rock the boat.
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Matt- she was teaching her Kiddos the social sciences about her dating life. Hey! Why use a text book when a poster goes on the wall? I spent 2 years at an international school in Qatar where “projects” were HUGE posters that the kids would throw together in 3 minutes and get 100 on. And when I would refuse to take their garbage (Hell! they gave the crap to everyone else.), they had hissy-fits. I taught English and Humanities (Geography), and I did make my darlings make a lot of maps, but with longitude and latitude, equator, poles, all the good stuff… But then again, I do have 2 legitimate degrees.
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my uni had to sack a prof like that. PhD from Purdue.
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Ironically, I spend a lot of time in Pittsburg and I was here when the story broke. Yes, she was hired for next school year. She resigned after questions arose. Official transcripts are checked after hire rather than before. How she was planning about getting around that, I don’t know.
From the Washington Post article, “In an emergency faculty meeting Tuesday, the superintendent said Robertson was unable to produce a transcript confirming her undergraduate degree from the University of Tulsa, Smith said.” Geeze – she couldn’t even produce her undergraduate transcript? TU is a well-know private university here, and they serve their students. There are any number of ways she could have arranged to have the university overnight an official transcript, especially since it’s only a little over two hour drive between Pittsburg and Tulsa.
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I saw this posted in the forum. How appalling! It’s interesting to see someone trying to cape for this phoney when everything else suggests otherwise. I hope you send the 14 reviews to the school board. This should serve as a warning to all those people with false credentials currently working abroad. Time’s are changing!
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There is no smoke without fire – especially when it appears in several credible news sources. Something smells fishy.
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Just googled and the Superintendent even says in Pittsburg Morning Sun that she never even started the job. “Robertson “didn’t work in the district, never set foot in Pittsburg and was never near the kids.” Your claim that she took up the job in early 2017 is untrue. Stop with the perpetuation of the story as all of the facts have yet to be revealed.
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Do you mean she resigned before actually having a chance to cause any damage? That’s good news!
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This just happened at my school only a few months ago. Guangdong Country Garden School,or CGS located at Guangdong,Foshan,Bgy, China.It Is supposed to be a world IB school (which it clearly is not)We had a Dr. Chris Carter employed as a High School Principal for 2 years.Later he was in charge of recruitment, he was found to have a fake Doctorate degree, and teaching license from the State of California.You can read further details on ISR website and the cover up made by Guangdong Country Garden School or CGS http://www.countrygardenexposed.is/
The cover up made by cgs is the most horrific part in my opinion.
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This is simply not true. I know Amy Robertson and have worked with her in the past. I’ve seen her original documents and can 100% state that at no time did she ever falsify anything. I also know she has hired a lawyer who is fighting the damage caused by people posting misinformation. The reason the school in Dubai was closed had nothing to do with Amy Robertson. The owners of the school were in trouble with the government long before she came on the scene. Mosaica Education tried and failed to turn the school around. Ms. Robertson was lied to when she joined the school. Rather than continue to post misinformation, please print the truth.
I. Martinez
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Are you calling the three reputable news agencies “fake news?” Okay Donald.
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Ha-Ha-Ha!!!! Listen, everyone has friends and family who will either blindly believe them or lie. I agree with the post that basically says where there is smoke expect there to be some fire. I just left a school in Qatar last November shortly after a secondary principal was hired with shady credentials. His management and academic degrees were from an online institution that many-many schools simply will not accept. When myself and another teacher questioned him about this and again as was stated in the article, his obvious lack of basic “How to run and handle a school” knowledge, he tried to have us fired- but the principal of primary had us shuffled over to her building. I was actually happy at my job until he came.
A lot of these INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS are business first, which means education comes maybe 5th, if that high, behind making a buck for the owners. Real Administrators have expectations from the school as well as from the teachers and kids. “Fake Administrators” smile and talk a lot.
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Yeah, totally agree. At a school in parochial China, a lot of the US teachers who lack credentials just keep ‘buying’ them through some fake accrediting agency in Florida including the so-called Secondary Principal and no-one ever questions or checks any of them. For those of us who sweated, paid and worked for our accreditation, it is sick-making.
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Ms Martinez, I would like to know more about what you know. If you see my posts, you will know I have been getting a hard time. Please post more about this!
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I have worked with Ms. Robertson and have personally seen the original documents everyone in the media has claimed are ‘bogus’. I also know that because of the laws protecting personnel files, copies of the original degrees are not allowed to be disseminated to the public. She does have a PhD, a MA and a legit teaching qualification. After the global crucifixion she’s been through, she will never pursue any future positions in education. The students did well to discover Corllins is not accredited now. However, when Ms. Robertson’s degrees were sent to the US State Department for notarisation, authentication and attestation, she had no way of knowing that in the future there would be issues. I’ve spoken to her on three occasions and know she has a US attorney to deal with the fallout from this unfortunate drama. What is so awful is everyone rushing to judgement and not one person reporting the story has seen the original documents. Her friends, family, former colleagues and former students know the truth. It sickens me to read comments by people who are so quick to pass judgement based on regurgitated reporting when we all know the media spins stories to suit their own agendas. Perhaps a little humanity and compassion is required? Before passing judgement and believing every word printed, one might consider there are always two sides to every single story.
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Anyone can produce a document (physical paper), and state it is legit when it is not. Today with all the modern technology making agree is simply a click away- I do not know how the authentication process works- even though I also had documents authenticated for work in the UAE. I paid an agency to get it done for me, but nothing is 100% without mistakes.
It is not in contention that the “school” from which she received her “degrees” from has been deemed a diploma mill and completely discredited. But lets also lay some blame-credit on the schools who have hired her, for not doing their due-diligence.
Some schools prefer people with no real experience in education- Look for instance at the SABIS International Schools… They hire from top to bottom people with absolutely NO school, classroom or academic background, so they can mold them to their program of memorization group learning. Someone with school/academic experience would not very readily “buy into” the SABIS “teaching” method as it is never exits level 1 of Blooms Taxonomy. There is no thinking or individually. They teach to “the group” with everyone doing and repeating over and over the exact same answers and response. You are told to “chant”. Really- They are fed answers to tests where all students are trained to memorize the exact same answers word for word to each question. So, simply because someone has a resume showing employment at “schools”, you can never assume they are trained at or hold legitimate degrees from legitimate universities in anything. And students doing well “under” someone???? I have also worked at schools where we have been told to our faces during faculty meetings that every child is to pass with certain grades regardless of what they have done or at what level they can actually work at and our jobs depended on it.
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Agreed. Anything can be printed on a fancy piece of paper and framed. Saying that you saw the ‘original documents’ really means nothing. Sorry you were duped into believing that it is. If her documents were legit she could have them verified automatically through the National Student Clearinghouse.
I’ve had the most asinine documents notarized and apostilled to get a EU visa. They were just some words typed up that had no legal backing, but were required. Getting documents notarized is not a complex process. You’re basically just paying someone to stamp a piece of paper that they witnessed you sign.
When you get your documents apostilled they don’t actually check to see if you actually attended a university. They will check to make sure your notarization is legit though. I’ve been in and out of the US State Department to get a document apostilled in less than 15 minutes.
It isn’t necessary to get a lawyer to validate your degree.
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Hey Anonymous- I need to get my document authenticated and whatever else for a job in China and was again going to use a company… Can I easily do it myself and save the outrageous fee they charge? Its was well over $1500 last time I did it a number of years ago… Thanks!
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ELA I don’t know anything about the process for China other than it’s been made to be more complicated recently. You should search in the main forum or ask.
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