Validential

[Validential]

From the Validential website:
"Membership

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]Validential is member 155004 of the Association of International Educators (NAFSA). Validential is also an Organizational Member of The Association for International Credential Evaluation Professionals, an Associate Member of the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals, and a member of the European Association for International Education. Validential is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and holds an A rating.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]"

I'm not sure that any of that actually qualifies them to do what they're doing.  I took a minute and went to the TAICEP website and it seems that the only requirement for being an Organizational Member is to pay a $300.00 annual fee.

Validential has been completing foreign academic evaluations since late 2014, and I acquired the business in 2016 and have spent the intervening years retooling the platform to deliver a superior, consistent academic evaluation service to our clients, at the lowest price and with the fastest turnaround time (next day is standard). We rely on our considerable bench of experienced evaluators in this field, processing over ten thousand evaluations each year, and our evaluations are accepted nationwide (although some institutions do require to your their selected agency, so we recommend to always confirm before purchasing from any agency). Unlike other countries, the US (thankfully) takes a freemarket approach and does not stifle this particular industry with regulations. As a result, prices overall are lower, and service levels typically higher (although there are certainly some exceptions) than in other countries.

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Validential is a smart company, they have several websites that uses different domain names, these sites indicate they're a Validential site and the look/feel is very similar to Valedential.  Some of the website names are just one letter off other websites, but again, they all have the same menu tabs and 'about us' telling you they are Validential.  I think they have a huge client base or repeat customers that refer by word of mouth...

Just by googling a phrase on their site, you come up with several that has "Validential is ranked #1 in America for next day evaluations".  They aren't the "bottom of the barrel" of Academic Evaluation agencies, they're more of "middle of the road".  They are acceptable if your college, employment, or immigration agency accepts them.  I was able to find about 4 different sites including their flagship of the same name.

I'm the president of Validential, and my prior business was online advertising, so I understand the value of SEO. We have a network of websites (AcademicEvaluations.org; CredentialEvaluations.org, etc.) that are oriented towards the types of searches our clients conduct when looking for the services we provided. By deriving a portion of our traffic in this fashion from SEO instead of SEM, we're able to keep our marketing costs down, and pass the savings along to our clients in the form of lower prices. As you noted, we clearly identify on our sites that all services are provided by Validential.

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I have increasing doubts about the expertise of Validential evaluators. I was recently looking at a sample of a Canadian equivalency course-by-course evaluation. I was struck by the fact that they use terminology that would not normally be utilized by people who are competent in the intricacies of the Canadian system of higher education. In the sample "Canadian equivalency evaluation" that was conducted by Validential (see here; https://eiu.ac/u-s-canada-equivalency-samples/), the company refers to to "regionally accredited universities in Canada." This sounds odd to me, as there is no such thing as regional accreditation in Canada. Why would they use that kind of terminology?

Here is a nice explanation of the Canadian system:

"Use of the Term "Accredited"
Canada does not have a national or regional accreditation system for post-secondary institutions and therefore educational jurisdictions, except in some limited circumstances, do not normally employ the term "accredited" to denote provincially authorized or recognized institutions." (source: https://www.bccat.ca/system/quality)

They could have talked about recognized Canadian institutions of higher education.

How could you compare a foreign qualification to something that doesn't even exist in Canada?

Thanks for your comment! When our agency references an educational equivalence as compared to a 'regionally accredited institution', we do this in order to communicate to the reader that our clients' foreign studies have been compared to, and weighed against, comparable academic studies of authorized, degree-issuing institutions in the target country (in this case, Canada). While countries may (and often do) have different standards and vernacular related to how and what they call such accredited educational institutions, 'regionally accredited institution' is a standard term used in the academic evaluation industry that encapsulates those variances in a consistent way for the reader.