Working With a Vendor to Achieve Your Goal: How WES and IELTS Helped to Thwart Falsified Documents

By Shawn Patton, World Education Services; Marianne Schlickeisen, IELTS USA; Kittie Pain, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Itwas March 2022 when Kutztown University started to receive some awkward emails claiming to be from WES or IELTS. It didn’t sit right. Kittie Pain, director of graduate admissions, and her staff reached out to each company directly for confirmation regarding the documents they had received. Within a few business days, they received the feedback they suspected. The communications were, in fact, fraudulent and each company would open an investigation.

It sounds as though the story would end there, but it doesn’t. WES and IELTS continued to work closely with the university for months to come. In that process, they learned from one another and gleaned important insights to share with others.

How WES and IELTS Handle Security

Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous operators who prey on individuals applying for college admissions. However, both WES and IELTS have measures of security in place so these actors will not be successful.

To protect your institution from fraud, WES recommends never accepting electronic evaluation reports from applicants or other individuals by email; only accept them directly from WES either through their secure, online portal, AccessWES, or by physical mail. If you would like to create an AccessWES account for your institution or department, please submit the AccessWES request form to get started. WES also offers a free integration with Slate that automatically uploads completed evaluation reports and authenticated documents directly into your Slate system. If you currently use Slate for your applicant management and would like to set up the integration, please submit the Slate integration request form

IELTS test security and the integrity of IELTS results are their utmost priority and at the core of everything they do. IELTS test security refers to measures taken before test day, on test day, and after test day. They have an embedded multi-layered process within their test delivery operations to systematically prevent, detect, and mitigate the risk of fraud or malpractice. But no single measure alone can ensure security; your role is also critical.

IELTS has always provided Test Report Form (TRF) Verifications to universities. However, they have seen an increase in requests for TRF Verifications since the fall of 2019. They have also seen a growing interest in their presentations to university staff members about the importance of test security as a way to protect a university’s credibility and the university’s admissions process. IELTS suggests that all universities accepting IELTS scores should register for the free IELTS Results Service E-Delivery to ensure institutions are ONLY receiving scores directly from the test center.

If you accept IELTS scores directly from applicants, they recommend that your admissions process include verifying the authenticity of IELTS Test Report Forms. Should you come across a Test Report Form that seems suspicious to you or not searchable in the IELTS Results Service account, please complete the Results Service Support Request Form. If IELTS USA cannot locate the Test Report Form, they will escalate it to the appropriate IELTS Test Center partner (British Council or IDP) to start a formal investigation. Once the British Council or IDP has concluded their investigation, one of their staff will reply directly to you with the results of the investigation. The process usually takes approximately five-to-seven business days.

Working with WES and IELTS to Prevent Fraud

Kutztown University (KU) is a Slate school, so documents can be uploaded by everyone, and sometimes people will upload a transcript. While an uploaded transcript is not considered an official document, reviewing unofficial documents helped the graduate admissions staff catch fraud earlier in the funnel. When the staff saw potentially fraudulent documents coming in, they would immediately send them for verification and confirmation. Once a transcript was confirmed to be fraudulent, they would cancel the application and send a notice to the applicant to let them know why. This also resulted in an early warning placed on the applicant’s file.

As a reminder, WES and IELTS point out that GEM professionals should never accept evaluations or test scores that aren’t received through the portal and that their services integrate with Slate. If you receive an email from someone claiming to be a WES employee, check the sender’s email address domain. Only email addresses with the “@wes.org” domain are legitimately from WES. Every IELTS test taken at an authorized IELTS test center will have scores available for either E-Delivery, or for Verification using their free online IELTS Results Service. The Service includes three options that we urge you to register for and build into your application review process.

• Verification,

• E-Delivery where you can download csv, xml, or json data files, and

• API integration.

Secure Your Admissions Process

To recap, both IELTS and WES offer digital portals that make it fast and easy for any admissions officer to gain access to evaluation reports and test scores.

IELTS Results Service is fast and simple to use. Any scores on the system that do not match 100% with the Test Report Form submitted to you can be submitted to the IELTS USA team through the process mentioned above.

In addition to manually downloading the scores, you can also register for API integration, an upgrade to the

E-Delivery Service that allows scores to flow directly from your Results Service account to your CRM where they will match with existing applicant records.

When in doubt, WES has a dedicated team of regional directors that work directly with their institutional partners to advise on best practices in credential evaluation, answer questions about the reports they receive from applicants, and support their international enrollment goals. If you ever receive a suspicious email from an applicant or someone attempting to represent themselves as a WES employee, we encourage you to reach out directly to your regional director for clarification. If you are unsure how to contact your regional director, you can do so through the partner contact form found here

Conclusion

What continues to happen with Kutztown University, WES, and IELTS? To this day, they continue to evolve through ongoing conversations with one another. They alert each other to patterns they see, new government alerts, and even Reddit posts! By working together, they are setting a high bar for protecting against international admissions fraud, ensuring a secure process for both international students and institutions alike.

World Education Services (WES) is a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to helping international students, immigrants, and refugees achieve their educational and career goals in the United States and Canada. For more than 45 years, WES has set the standard of excellence in the field of international academic credential evaluation. Learn more at www.wes.org

IELTS USA is a non-profit providing information and support to organizations that use IELTS to measure the English language proficiency of international applicants. IELTS USA works with US stakeholders to increase the number of institutions and programs that use the test throughout the United States. IELTS is accepted by approx. 3,500 US institutions. Learn more at ielts.org/usa n

If you would like more information about how the IELTS Results Service works, or about signing up, please contact us on stakeholder@ieltsusa.org

Shawn is a passionate international education professional with experience developing international academic partnerships and managing programs that promote international mobility. He serves as a regional director at World Education Services (WES), where he supports clients to ensure they meet their credential evaluation needs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the University of California, Irvine and is currentlypursuinganMBAatTheUniversity of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Marianne joined IELTS USA after working in international admissions for several years in North Carolina and DC. She currently works with all graduate programs at US institutions to ensure they understand the IELTS test. Additionally, she works with the IELTS partners on the Joint Research Committee to support researchers based in the US. Prior to working at IELTS, Marianne earned her master’s degree in International Communication from American University.

Kittie Pain serves as the director of graduate admissions at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. She holds a bachelor’s degree from McDaniel College and a master’s degree from Drew University. She likes good books and a stiff Manhattan.