The Evaluation Company vs AAE Evaluations: Which Is Right for You in 2026?

Searching for the right evaluation company in 2026 means navigating a market that looks deceptively similar on the surface — most providers carry NACES membership and offer document-by-document and course-by-course evaluations — but differs significantly beneath it in processing speed, immigration specialisation, pricing transparency, and the depth of services available.

Two providers that frequently appear in comparison searches are TEC (The Evaluation Company) — a Houston-based NACES member founded in 1982 with 40+ years of academic evaluation experience — and AAE Evaluations — a NACES-member agency known for fast processing, immigration-specific documentation, and STEM field expertise.

This guide compares both providers across every dimension that matters: services, turnaround times, pricing, NACES recognition, immigration capability, and the use cases where each genuinely excels. Our goal is a fair, accurate comparison that helps you make the right choice for your specific situation — whether that is a university application, a professional licence, or an H-1B petition.

Company Overviews

TEC: The Evaluation Company

TEC was founded in 1982 and joined NACES in 1996. It maintains offices in Houston (TX), Miami (FL), and New York (NY), and has built a strong reputation over four decades serving primarily academic institutions, nursing boards, engineering licensing bodies, and teaching credential agencies. TEC is a NAFSA Global Partner and its evaluators maintain affiliations with AACRAO, TAICEP, NAGAP, and several regional admissions organisations.

TEC’s institutional relationships are its standout feature — it integrates directly with Slate (the admissions management platform used by many U.S. universities) and has formal relationships with institutions like NYU. Its recently expanded VisaKey service for healthcare worker certification and its USCIS-approved Healthcare Worker Certificate issuance signal growing immigration capability, though its core immigration expert opinion letter offerings remain limited compared to specialist providers.

Standard processing time: 10 business days across most evaluation types.

AAE Evaluations

AAE Evaluations is a NACES-member credential evaluation agency that has processed over 150,000 cases across 43+ nationalities. It operates as both a credential evaluation service and a full-service immigration documentation provider — offering expert opinion letters for H-1B, EB-2 NIW, EB-1A/B, O-1, and L-1 visa categories alongside academic evaluations, course-by-course evaluations, and work experience assessments.

AAE’s defining advantages are processing speed — 3 to 10 business days standard with 24-hour and 48-hour expedited options — and its network of 200+ independently verified subject-matter experts spanning 20+ academic and professional disciplines, which enables it to serve immigration petitioners and STEM professionals with a depth TEC’s generalised evaluation model cannot match.

Standard processing time: 3–10 business days; 24-hour and 48-hour expedited options.

Side-by-Side Comparison: TEC vs AAE Evaluations

Services: Where Each Provider Leads

Academic Evaluations: Both Competitive, TEC Has Institutional Depth

For standard document-by-document and course-by-course academic evaluations, both providers are NACES-member services that meet the quality standard most U.S. universities require. TEC’s advantage is its institutional infrastructure — Slate integration, 40+ years of relationships with admissions offices, and a known track record at institutions like NYU. If a specific university you are applying to recommends TEC by name, that is a meaningful practical consideration.

AAE Evaluations’ academic evaluation service and course-by-course evaluation are accepted at the vast majority of U.S. institutions and provide the same fundamental credential equivalency output. AAE’s advantage at the academic level is speed — 3–10 business days standard versus TEC’s 10 — and pricing transparency.

Verdict: TEC is the stronger choice if your target institution specifically recommends it or if you are applying through Slate integration. For general NACES-accepted academic evaluations with faster processing, AAE Evaluations is the better fit.

Professional Licensing: Both Capable, TEC Specialises in Nursing and Teaching

TEC has invested significantly in professional licensing evaluations — particularly for nursing, engineering, and teaching. Its VisaKey product specifically serves healthcare worker immigration pathways, and its recent USCIS approval for Healthcare Worker Certificate issuance gives it a unique credential in that space. For teachers, TEC’s Teacher’s Course Analysis is a named service with defined pricing ($290 standard, $400 expedited at 5 days, $575 rush at 2 days).

AAE Evaluations provides professional licensing evaluations and serves all of the same fields — but its primary differentiation in this space is the ability to combine a licensing evaluation with immigration expert opinion letters in a single coordinated engagement, which TEC cannot offer.

Verdict: TEC is well-positioned for standalone nursing, teaching, and engineering licensing evaluations with strong institutional relationships. AAE Evaluations is the better choice when licensing evaluation needs to be coordinated with immigration petition documentation.

Immigration Documentation: AAE Evaluations Has No Competitor Here

This is where the comparison becomes one-sided. TEC does not offer immigration-specific expert opinion letters. It cannot produce an H-1B specialty occupation letter, an EB-2 NIW expert opinion letter addressing the Dhanasar prongs, an EB-1A extraordinary ability letter, an O-1 advisory letter, or an L-1 expert opinion letter. It also does not offer work experience evaluations applying the USCIS three-for-one rule.

For any employment-based visa petition — H-1B, EB-2, EB-1, O-1, L-1 — the documentation requirements extend well beyond a credential evaluation. You typically need:

1. A credential evaluation establishing that your foreign degree is equivalent to the required U.S. degree level
2. An expert opinion letter addressing the visa-specific USCIS eligibility criteria
3. In some cases, a work experience evaluation establishing degree equivalency through the three-for-one rule

TEC can provide item 1. AAE Evaluations provides all three — coordinated as a single engagement with consistent evidence across every document in your petition package.

For H-1B petitions, see our H-1B expert opinion letters service. For EB-2 NIW, see our EB-2 NIW expert opinion letters. For EB-1A, see our EB-1 expert opinion letters. For O-1 petitions, see our O-1 expert and advisory letters.

Verdict: For any immigration petition involving expert opinion letters or work experience evaluation, AAE Evaluations is the only viable choice between these two providers.

Processing Speed: A Decisive Difference

TEC’s standard turnaround is 10 business days across most evaluation types. Expedited options are available for select services — a teacher’s 2-business-day rush costs $575. The standard timeline means that in the most routine scenario, you are waiting two full calendar weeks from complete document submission to report receipt.

AAE Evaluations completes standard evaluations in 3 to 10 business days — and offers 48-hour and 24-hour expedited processing across all evaluation types. For immigration petitioners working against H-1B cap season deadlines, RFE response windows, or start-of-employment timelines, the difference between 10 days and 24 hours is not a minor convenience — it can be decisive.

For a detailed breakdown of how processing speeds compare across all major providers, see our WES vs AAE Evaluations guide and our how to choose credential evaluation services guide.

Pricing Comparison

TEC publishes partial pricing for select services. Their Teacher’s Course Analysis is $290 standard / $400 expedited / $575 rush. Standard academic evaluation pricing is not prominently listed on their main service pages, which makes total cost calculation — including delivery fees, additional copies, and translation charges — less transparent than it should be.

AAE Evaluations publishes all-inclusive pricing across every service type and turnaround tier on a single, dedicated pricing page — with no hidden per-criterion add-on fees for immigration letters and no surprise charges. For a full guide to additional charges that commonly inflate the total cost of credential evaluations across providers, see our post on 5 hidden fees in credential evaluation services.

The general market benchmarks for standard evaluations remain:

NACES Membership and Institutional Recognition

Both TEC and AAE Evaluations are NACES members — meaning both meet the professional standards required for acceptance at the vast majority of U.S. universities, employers, state licensing boards, and federal immigration authorities. This is the foundational quality gate, and both providers clear it.

TEC’s 1996 NACES membership and 40+ years of operation give it stronger name recognition among admissions offices at institutions that have used the service for decades. If a specific university, nursing board, or state licensing agency specifically requests a TEC evaluation by name, that is a practical constraint — use TEC.

For all other situations where any NACES-member evaluation is acceptable, the differentiating factors are speed, pricing, and the depth of services available — areas where AAE Evaluations leads meaningfully.

For more on how NACES membership works and what it actually guarantees, see our comprehensive credential evaluation services guide.

How AAE Evaluations Serves the Full Spectrum of Credential Needs

AAE Evaluations is built to handle the complete range of credential documentation requirements — not just standalone academic evaluations.

For university applicants: Our academic evaluation and course-by-course evaluation services are accepted by the vast majority of U.S. institutions and delivered in 3–10 business days — faster than TEC’s standard 10-day window.

For professional licensing: Our evaluations serve nursing, engineering, accounting (CPA), teaching, and other regulated professions, with the same NACES-member quality TEC provides and faster standard turnaround.

For immigration petitioners: AAE Evaluations is the only provider in this comparison that offers the complete documentation stack — credential evaluations, work experience evaluations, and the full suite of immigration expert opinion letters — coordinated as a single engagement. Our network of 200+ independent subject-matter experts spans 20+ disciplines and allows us to match every petitioner with a genuinely field-aligned evaluator.

For STEM professionals: AAE Evaluations has developed particular depth in evaluations for IT, software engineering, data science, biotechnology, mechanical engineering, and healthcare — fields where the subject-level analysis of a course-by-course evaluation or H-1B expert opinion letter requires genuine technical expertise.

For RFE responses: When USCIS issues a Request for Evidence on an immigration petition, AAE Evaluations drafts RFE-specific letters built around the exact language and objections of the notice — not adaptations of the original petition letters. See our EB-2 NIW RFE response guide for more on this.

Contact AAE Evaluations to discuss your specific needs, or view full pricing across all service types and processing tiers.

Which Evaluation Company Should You Choose?

The honest answer depends entirely on your use case:

Choose TEC if:

• Your specific target institution, nursing board, or state licensing agency requests TEC evaluations by name
• You are applying through Slate and the Slate-TEC integration simplifies your admissions workflow
• You are a healthcare professional needing a Healthcare Worker Certificate (TEC recently received USCIS approval for this)
• You have a standard academic evaluation need with no immigration documentation requirement and a non-urgent timeline

Choose AAE Evaluations if:

• You need an immigration expert opinion letter (H-1B, EB-2 NIW, EB-1A, O-1, L-1) alongside or instead of a credential evaluation — TEC cannot provide these
• You are working against an immigration filing deadline, an admissions cutoff, or an RFE response window and need 24-hour or 48-hour processing
• You need a work experience evaluation applying the USCIS three-for-one rule
• You want a single provider that can coordinate your entire petition documentation package for consistency
• You need STEM field expertise at the subject-matter level — for specialist disciplines, a generalist evaluator is not equivalent to a field-aligned one
• You want transparent all-inclusive pricing with no hidden fees before you commit

For most internationally educated professionals navigating the U.S. immigration system in 2026, AAE Evaluations is the stronger choice — because immigration petitions require documentation that goes significantly beyond what any general academic evaluation company can produce.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Is The Evaluation Company (TEC) the same as AAE Evaluations?

No. TEC (evalcompany.com) and AAE Evaluations (aaeevaluations.com) are two separate NACES-member credential evaluation agencies. TEC was founded in 1982 and specialises primarily in academic admissions evaluations, professional licensing (nursing, engineering, teaching), and document verification. AAE Evaluations is a more recently established NACES member that specialises in immigration documentation — providing both credential evaluations and the full suite of immigration expert opinion letters for H-1B, EB-2 NIW, EB-1A, O-1, and L-1 visa petitions alongside its academic evaluation services.

Q2. Which evaluation company is better for immigration purposes?

For employment-based immigration petitions, AAE Evaluations is definitively the stronger choice. TEC does not offer immigration-specific expert opinion letters — it cannot produce H-1B specialty occupation letters, EB-2 NIW letters addressing Dhanasar criteria, EB-1A extraordinary ability letters, or O-1 advisory letters. Most employment-based immigration petitions require both a credential evaluation and an expert opinion letter. AAE Evaluations provides both as a coordinated single engagement. See our guides on H-1B expert opinion letters and EB-2 NIW expert opinion letters.

Q3. How do TEC and AAE Evaluations compare on processing speed?

TEC’s standard turnaround is 10 business days across most evaluation types, with 5-day and 2-day expedited options available on select services (at significantly higher cost). AAE Evaluations completes standard evaluations in 3 to 10 business days and offers 48-hour and 24-hour expedited processing across all evaluation types. For immigration petitioners and applicants with tight deadlines, this difference is often decisive.

Q4. Are both TEC and AAE Evaluations NACES members?

Yes. Both TEC and AAE Evaluations are members of NACES (National Association of Credential Evaluation Services), the most widely recognised quality standard for credential evaluation services in the United States. NACES membership means both providers are accepted by the vast majority of U.S. universities, employers, state licensing boards, and USCIS. The differentiating factors between NACES members are processing speed, specialisation, pricing, and the depth of services available. For a full overview of what NACES membership guarantees, see our credential evaluation services guide.

Q5. What services does TEC offer that AAE Evaluations does not?

TEC offers direct Slate integration for university admissions offices, Cuban Application processing, and USCIS-approved Healthcare Worker Certificates through its VisaKey product. TEC also has 40+ years of institutional relationships that give it strong name recognition with specific admissions offices. If your target institution requests a TEC evaluation by name, that is a material consideration.

Q6. What services does AAE Evaluations offer that TEC does not?

AAE Evaluations offers the complete suite of immigration expert opinion letters — H-1B, EB-2 NIW, EB-1A/EB-1B, O-1, and L-1 — which TEC does not provide. AAE also offers work experience evaluations applying the USCIS three-for-one rule, 24-hour and 48-hour processing across all evaluation types, and coordinated immigration documentation packages combining credential evaluations and expert letters in a single engagement. For immigration petitioners and STEM professionals, these are the decisive differentiators. See our full services overview.

Q7. How much does a credential evaluation cost from each provider?

TEC publishes partial pricing: their Teacher’s Course Analysis is $290 standard / $575 rush. General academic evaluation pricing requires direct inquiry. AAE Evaluations maintains fully transparent, all-inclusive pricing across all service types and processing tiers on its pricing page — with no hidden per-criterion fees. For a guide to evaluating total costs including delivery, additional copies, and expedited charges, see our post on 5 hidden fees in credential evaluation services.

Q8. Can I use one credential evaluation from either provider for multiple purposes?

Yes — a credential evaluation from any NACES-member provider, including both TEC and AAE Evaluations, can be submitted for university admissions, employment verification, state licensing boards, and USCIS immigration filings. A single report serves multiple purposes. Additional certified copies for different recipients can be ordered at any time. AAE Evaluations’ credential evaluation reports do not expire — your earned credentials are permanently valid. For more on maximising the utility of your evaluation report, see our international evaluation guide.