Student Verification Issues / Turkish* Academic Documents and OCR Limitations

[serda-dev]

Hi everyone,

(This text has been edited by AI for English translation and grammar correction.)

I’m opening this discussion because I’m repeatedly facing issues with GitHub Student verification, and I suspect the problem is related to how academic documents are issued in Türkiye versus how GitHub’s automated system expects them.

I’d really appreciate guidance from anyone who has successfully resolved this, or from the GitHub team if they are monitoring this space.

---

Context

• My GitHub account is registered using my official university email address (@ktun.edu.tr)
• GitHub automatically populated my university name, which I confirmed manually
• My GitHub profile, billing information, and academic documents all use the exact same full legal name (no nicknames or variations)

Despite this, my verification keeps getting rejected.

---

---

My question to the community

For students outside the US/EU (especially Türkiye):

• Has anyone successfully verified with PDF-only academic documents? (And how?)
• Did manual review help resolve OCR-related rejections?
• Is there a recommended way to submit bilingual or non-English documents?
• Is university email-based verification sometimes sufficient, or does document OCR always override it?

Any insight, best practices, or confirmation from GitHub staff would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to respond.

---

[adkham01]

Hello bro,
I came across for this issue several times. First make sure you turned on 2 step verification, then write your full name and surname to billing and licensing section(same as student id) . After these steps I am sure you can access the GitHub Student Developer Pack.

[midiakiasat]

This is a known limitation of automated OCR-based student verification, especially for non-English academic documents (including Türkiye).

Key points:

1. University email alone is not sufficient
   Even if GitHub recognizes your university domain, document OCR still runs and can cause rejection.

2. PDF-only or scanned documents often fail OCR
   Common failure cases:

   • scanned (not digitally generated) PDFs
   • Turkish-only text
   • low contrast or stamps instead of clear text
   • missing explicit terms like “Student”, “Enrollment”, or current dates

3. Manual review is the correct solution
   Do not keep resubmitting the same files. Open a GitHub Education support ticket and explicitly request manual review due to OCR limitations.

4. What improves success in manual review

   • Submit the original Turkish document plus a short English explanation or bilingual document if available

   • Ensure the document clearly shows:

     • full legal name
     • current enrollment status
     • academic term/year
     • university name

   • Prefer digitally generated enrollment certificates over scans

5. Non-English documents are allowed
   The problem is OCR, not language. Manual review bypasses OCR entirely.

Bottom line:
This is not user error. It’s an automation limitation. Escalating to manual review is the correct and effective path.