GitHub Education application rejection

[AmaLS367]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Re-verification/Repeat Application

Hi everyone,

Hi,

My GitHub Education application is rejected automatically within about one minute.

The rejection email says that my first and last name must match my GitHub profile and billing information.

I updated both my GitHub profile name and billing name to match the name shown on my academic affiliation document. My school does not provide a school-issued academic email, so I used the camera-based document verification flow.

The document includes the school name, my name, the issue date, stamp, and signature.

What else could cause an instant automatic rejection for name mismatch? Should the billing name be written in Latin characters instead of the native language, or should it exactly match the document language?

Thanks.

[zephcodeer]

Hi AmaLS367,

I understand how frustrating these automated rejections can be. Since you've already matched your profile and billing information, here are a few other things that often trigger the "instant" automated rejection:

• Latin Characters Only: Yes, definitely use Latin characters for your GitHub Profile and Billing name. GitHub's automated systems (OCR) often struggle to parse non-Latin characters from documents, leading to an immediate mismatch error.
• The "Billing Address" nuance: Sometimes the automated system compares the full name and even parts of the address fields. Ensure your GitHub billing address fields (even if just city or country) are filled out and, if possible, match the region where your university is located.
• Document Language: The system is most efficient at processing documents in English or those with clear Latin script. If your document is in a native language, the OCR might fail to extract your name correctly.
• Avoid "Over-correcting": Don't keep retrying immediately after each rejection. If you get rejected 2-3 times, the system might trigger a temporary cooldown or "cooldown" flag.

My recommendation:
If you have already tried matching the names in Latin characters and it still fails, stop trying the automated flow. Since your document has all the required details (school name, issue date, stamp, and signature), the automated system is likely just failing to "read" it correctly.

Reach out to GitHub Support directly:

1. Go to the GitHub Support Portal.
2. Open a ticket under "Education" -> "Student Developer Pack" -> "Verification issues".
3. Clearly explain: "My application was automatically rejected due to a name mismatch, even though my profile/billing info matches my provided document. I am unable to use a school email. Could you please perform a manual review of my attached document?"
4. Attach a high-quality scan/photo of your document to the ticket.

Manual reviews are usually handled by human staff who can look past minor formatting issues that the automated bot misses. Good luck!

[AmaLS367]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I tried going through GitHub Support, but when I selected “GitHub Education Application Not Approved (student)”, GitHub showed a notice saying:

“Individual manual reviews and status updates are no longer provided.”

So it looks like manual review through Support is no longer available for Education applications, at least through that category.

Because of that, I’m trying to understand what can still be changed on my side before reapplying. Do you think the best next step is to wait 2-4 hours, and then reapply through the camera flow again?

[zephcodeer]

"That's unfortunate regarding the manual reviews. I agree with your plan—wait a few hours (or even a day) to let the system reset. Make sure your profile name is exactly as it appears on your document, using only Latin characters. Hopefully, the next attempt goes through successfully!"