Recommended Courier Service for Documents Sent From Russia to the USA

[Voyageur]

I was wondering if anyone can help me with this problem. My wife is from Stavropol in the Russian Federation and she graduated from two Universities there with two different degrees.

She wants to apply to a local University. All roads for the transfer of credits and courses lead to WES. This is an agency that translates degrees and courses of study from foreign universities and correlates them to the US equivalent.

To obtain credit, you have to get certified transcripts in a sealed envelope from the University in question.

After the usual Russian tribulations with officials  and the costs involved therein  these sealed envelopes are now in the possession of my Mother-in-law in Stavropol.

Here is the problem....my Mother-in-law went to the local DHL office and they said that they cannot accept an envelope that is sealed, that they must be able to open it before accepting it.  Of course, then WES would not accept the transcripts and we would be back to square one.  In my experience, in sending documents using DHL to Ukraine and Russia for the US, this has never been a problem.

We are obviously going to look at another courier but I was wondering if anyone had encountered a similar situation or can recommend a courier that will not need to open the envelope.

[BC]

May sound ludicrous but try putting the sealed envelope into an unsealed envelope then in the unsealed dhl bag.

[Jet]

You might try UPS, if available in M.I.L.'s area. You might also check out www.naces.org for another evaluation service that is accepted by the local University. We used Josef Silney to evaluate my wife's degrees and there was NO need for a sealed envelope - just transcripts and diplomas (originals). Cost was around $175 per, and was acceptable proof to get her a HS teaching position here in FL

[Voyageur]

Thanks for the info Jet and BC.

It was interesting to hear about the naces.org service. My wife also wants to be a teacher but in Pennsylvania, for public schools, you need to have a combination of State University certification testing and a University degree. She has her teaching degrees from Russian Universities but we sure that most of her credits will not be transfered. The University that my wife wants to attend only recognizes WES. Both Universities that are options only recognize WES which is unfortunate.

Jet, how long did it take you wife to get her paperwork in order, so that she could teach in Florida? What are the teaching requirements for Florida public schools, if you do not mind me asking about it?

[Jet]

PA board of education does recognise NACES (I checked) so depending on what her degrees are in, they may very well transfer without additional need for University study. It took my wife about 2 months to get things in order for a temporary teaching certificate (credential evaluation, background check, etc...) which allowed her to teach provided she took both the general knowledge and subject area portions of the FTCE - Florida Teacher Certification Exam within two years of employment. IIRC they use the PRAXIS test in PA, and both Borders and Barnes & Noble carry study guides for that Exam (the TOEFL too for that matter-which she may also need to be admitted to University of choice). Qualifying for the job was the easy part, finding a school to hire her took a bit longer - 4 months and @ 10 interviews, she eventually settled for a position teaching advanced mathmatics as there were *zero* openings for Physics instructors. In FL the Master's in Physics qualified her for Mathmatics as well.

The real "icing on the cake" for Lil though, was the fact that she was able to get credit for her 7 years teaching in Russia, so her pay scale is that of a 9 year American teacher 

Make no mistake, her first year teaching here was DIFFICULT, but she has won the admiration of administration and students alike, and this year has gone much more smoothly.

My parents have quite a few current and retired PA teacher friends, so if you have any specific questions, I can try to get them answered for you. They live in Montgomery County, a bit NW of Phila.

[Voyageur]

Thanks for the advice Jet and BC. I will post the final solution for this problem, it may help someone else in the future.

It seems that DHL in Stavropol did not have an X-ray machine to test the contents of the envelope. So this is why the usual custom of paying off problems  was not even a possibility for the sealed envelope. My M-I-L is resourceful and located another DHL office in Mineralnye Vody that did not have to open the package, but this was several hours drive.

We did find a UPS office in Stavropol that was happy to take the sealed envelope for us.

[lawman65]

what about a service to Ukraine