Faculty application rejected 5 times - valid faculty ID, verified academic email, no specific reason given

[msshehata]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

Hi GitHub Education team,

I'm hoping someone can help me get unstuck. My faculty application has been auto-rejected five times, most recently on April 22, 2026, with only the generic message "We were unfortunately not able to verify your academic status." No specific issue is indicated. Support routes rejected applications back here.

Account state at time of application:

• Full name on profile matches the name on my faculty ID exactly
• Verified academic email (institutional domain) added to the account before applying
• Two-factor authentication enabled
• Billing information complete
• Applied from the same city as my campus, with location services enabled and no VPN

Evidence submitted:
A photo of my current faculty ID card, front and back in one frame. The card clearly shows:

• My full name (matching my GitHub profile)
• "Faculty" designation
• My photo and ID number
• The full institution name and logo
• The campus address
• Issue Date in 2024, Valid To date in 2029 (card is current)

What I submitted across the five attempts:

• Verified academic letter of my employment
• Profile screenshot of my profile on university's Workday showing current employment
• screenshot of my webpage on official university website

Could someone from the Education team please take a look? I am happy to provide additional dated evidence. a current (term teaching schedule or an affiliation letter on institutional letterhead) if that would help. Just let me know what would resolve this.

Thanks for your time.

[github-actions[bot]]

💬 Your Product Feedback Has Been Submitted 🎉

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us! Your feedback is invaluable as we build a better GitHub experience for all our users.

Here's what you can expect moving forward ⏩

• Your input will be carefully reviewed and cataloged by members of our product teams. 
  • Due to the high volume of submissions, we may not always be able to provide individual responses.
  • Rest assured, your feedback will help chart our course for product improvements.
• Other users may engage with your post, sharing their own perspectives or experiences. 
• GitHub staff may reach out for further clarification or insight. 
  • We may 'Answer' your discussion if there is a current solution, workaround, or roadmap/changelog post related to the feedback.

Where to look to see what's shipping 👀

• Read the Changelog for real-time updates on the latest GitHub features, enhancements, and calls for feedback.
• Explore our Product Roadmap, which details upcoming major releases and initiatives.

What you can do in the meantime 💻

• Upvote and comment on other user feedback Discussions that resonate with you.
• Add more information at any point! Useful details include: use cases, relevant labels, desired outcomes, and any accompanying screenshots.

As a member of the GitHub community, your participation is essential. While we can't promise that every suggestion will be implemented, we want to emphasize that your feedback is instrumental in guiding our decisions and priorities.

Thank you once again for your contribution to making GitHub even better! We're grateful for your ongoing support and collaboration in shaping the future of our platform. ⭐

[P-r-e-m-i-u-m]

Yo @msshehata — honestly, your documentation sounds perfect, so this is definitely a system failure, not a user error.
Since you've been rejected 5 times with solid docs, it's highly likely the third-party database (SheerID) doesn't have your institution listed correctly or is failing to match the ID format.
The hard truth: GitHub Education doesn't do manual reviews anymore. Even if a human looks at this, the system might not let them override it easily.
Your best bet:
Reply to the rejection email with the phrase "Requesting manual review for verification failure." If that fails, try applying again in a few days—sometimes the database syncs and the auto-accept works. It sucks, but the automated bot is stubborn.

[msshehata]

thanks you for the reply. unfortunately the rejection email is sent from a no-reply account. i have already tried submitting several application over 10 days. nothing worked!

[msshehata]

It has been over two weeks now, and I’m still having trouble. I have tried many times with different documents and done everything possible, but with no luck. Any help is appreciated, as this is very frustrating. Is there any way someone from the GitHub Copilot team can look into extreme cases like this?

[Guo-ziyang]

我是一名学生，在申请时也遇到了相似的情况，建议给education.github.com写信试试

[customplay55000-cmd]

You are right, there system is Dump. I am also facing the same issue, everything is fine and document is genuine but don't know why system reject the application without mentioning the reason. If you found any solution please help me also.

[catcd]

Do you have any updates? I’ve tried times, but they keep rejecting me with a very general reason that I’ve already addressed.

[ebonakdarian]

No update, but the problem clearly still exists :-/ and it can't say what the problem is :(