Education Verification

This article will help you:

• Understand what an Education Verification is and why it’s an important part of a background report
• Decide when to include Education Verifications in your background check package
• Interpret Education Verification on a background check report

This article is intended for the following user roles: admin, adjudicator, user

Education Verification verifies a candidate's certifications or educational claims. They confirm where the candidate went to school, the type of degree obtained, the major, and sometimes the graduation date.

Education can be verified for colleges, universities, high schools, and GED equivalency exams. International education verification enabled (default) or disabled. These verifications will take longer and additional fees apply.

Candidates will be asked for their:

• Social Security Number (SSN)
• First and Last Name
• School Name
• School State/City

Education Verification Process

The process for Education Verification can take up to three steps:

1. We reach out to our Education Databases to verify the highest level of education completed.
2. If the Education Database does not return any information, we will reach out directly to the school’s registrar. We will make three attempts to contact the registrar.
3. If the school does not respond after three requests, or if the registrar cannot confirm the highest level of education completed, the report will generate an Exception, and the candidate will be asked to upload proof of education. They have 7 days to upload the information before that section of the report moves to Suspended status.

Any user with an admin role may upload any requested documents directly to the candidate's report using the exception link.

Note: Checkr is unable to use any proof of education obtained outside the background check process. For example, we are unable to accept third party confirmation of the candidate’s information, and Checkr is unable to accept documents from clients through email. If you wish to allow the candidate to upload supporting documents, please point them to the Applicant Portal.

Interpreting the Results

For candidates with multiple degrees earned, Checkr will display the different degrees on their report.

Once the search is complete, you'll also see a log of notes from the calls made.

Note: Use the log to determine whether a candidate is in consider status because they couldn't be reached (or didn't upload documents), or whether they gave conflicting information to what was verified. Both will trigger a "warning" icon.

If we still haven't received the information, or if the details are not a close match to what the applicant submitted, you'll see a "warning" icon (⚠) appear next to that information.