Overcoming H-1B Challenges for Highly Educated Beneficiaries: How Specialized Graduate Studies Can Strengthen Your Case

By: Maddie Carlson

Challenges imposed on H-1B petitions can cause quite a headache, especially when a beneficiary is clearly overqualified to perform the responsibilities of their proffered role. While boasting higher-level graduate studies can be to the benefit of a beneficiary in many cases, the basic verbiage surrounding what they completed their studies in can sometimes be to their detriment. When it comes to fulfilling degree requirements for highly educated beneficiaries, Park has resources tailored to properly represent your client.

With over 20,000 petitions being filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a Master’s degree or higher annually, proving your clients’ ability to fulfill the academic requirements of their offered job roles can become quite tricky. This is especially true when beneficiaries graduated in niche or unique fields that may not be typically listed outright on a company’s degree requirements. This can become quite an obstacle, especially when their inapplicable Bachelor’s degree might have the same degree title as the listed degree requirements. However, without being able to qualify a candidate based on their undergraduate coursework, what should the strategy for your casework look like? Going through Park enables you to present strong arguments demonstrating how your client’s niche or unique Master’s studies are exactly what their petitioning company is looking for.

While graduate studies may often present less coursework on their transcripts, the course of study your client undertook through their own independent studies and dissertations are golden to presenting a strong case for H-1B filing. This is due to the multidisciplinary nature of original research at the graduate level. Regardless of what a beneficiary had studied in their specialized graduate courses, their research will always rely on fundamental knowledge garnered through a Bachelor’s degree. So, while their Bachelor’s degree may not be directly used in this course of action, their graduate studies certainly borrowed from the specialized knowledge obtained through those undergraduate courses – justly showcasing their specialized knowledge in the degrees required for their proffered position. Through careful course mapping of dissertations, theses, and independent research, Park provides a strong dedication to showcasing your client’s specialty knowledge.

Just because your client possesses a specialized graduate-level education does not mean that they are not qualified to take on their proffered position. More often than not, that specialization stems from foundational knowledge found in the broad degree fields often listed by companies.

And where is foundational knowledge put to the test in graduate-level degrees? Through independent coursework and studies. While transcripts for graduate-level degrees may seem lacking, Park takes great pride in finding solutions for the most specialized of candidates during the H-1B challenge season.