Stuck in Re-verification Redirect Loop (Shared District Domain) - Ticket #4471343

[DeannaFeest]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

My application for the Student Developer Pack is permanently stuck due to a documented database error. My .edu domain (already verified last year) is shared across 10 sister colleges in the same district. This year it appears GitHub mapped this domain to one of the 10 specifically, but my enrollment documentation is from another college.
Furthermore, I am a fully remote international student completing my classes online from abroad, which triggers an automated geographic IP/location mismatch. It seems the system accepts the proof of that ~50% of my applications. Because of the first issue, however, it still gets auto-rejected without a provided reason.

My standard support tickets are being closed automatically by a bot without any human reading them. Can a Community Manager please review Ticket #4471343 and trigger a manual backend education override?

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[maheerCodes]

hey Deanna 👋.

this is a genuinely tricky edge case,,, two separate issues stacking on top of each other(shared domain mapped to the wrong sister college + remote international location mismatch)is exactly the kind of thing automated systems handle badly,and unfortunately community moderators here (including me)dont have backend access to trigger manual overrides or look up ticket numbers ,,,only github's education/support team can do that, so i cant directly action #4471343.

on the shared domain issue specifically:
if your .edu domain is shared across 10 sister colleges and github's system has it mapped to college A while your enrollment doc is from college B (both under the same domain), the name-matching/institution-matching check likely fails because the system expects the document's institution name to match whatever its mapped that domain to. a few things worth trying :

• if your enrollment doc clearly states the specific sister college (college B) by name, and the email domain is genuinely shared/identical across all 10, try submitting a document that explicitly mentions both the district/system name and your specific college, if such a document exists (e.g. some district-wide registrar letters mention both),
• if you have any alternate verification path ,,, e.g. if college B has its own distinct subdomain or email format thats different from the shared one, using that as your github primary email instead might bypass the domain-mapping issue entirely.

on the location/IP mismatch.
since you mentioned this passes ~50% of the time, it sounds like its already somewhat tolerant ,,but if you have any control over it, appplying while connected to a VPN that routes through your country/region of enrollment (rather than your physical location abroad) might reduce the mismatch flag, since the system seems to be checking IP location against the institution's expected region.

on the auto-closed tickets.
this part is genuinely frustrating and outside anyone's control here ,,, but a couple things that sometimes help get a ticket actually read by a human rather than auto-closed:

• keep ticket descriptions very short and structured (bullet points: domain, two colleges involved, ticket number, "requesting manual review") ,,, long narrative explanations sometimes get mis-classified by triage bots as spam/duplicate and auto-closed faster.
• if a ticket gets auto-closed, reply to the closure email itself rather than opening a brand new ticket ,,, replies to closed tickets sometimes route differently than fresh submissions,

i know none of this guarantees a fix given how specific and edge-case this is ,,, but the domain-mapping issue especially does sound like something that genuinely needs a human on github's side to fix manually. hope ticket #4471343 (or a re-submission of it, structured as above) eventually gets real eyes on it ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[DeannaFeest]

Hey maheerCodes!

Thanks quite a bunch for the seriously elaborate response, I would've been delighted if GitHub support bothered to cough up even 5% of that. Admittedly perhaps somewhat naively, I assumed some semblance of "official support" would sporadically be hovering around here. Considering they've scratched any and all "manual review", don't allow tickets requesting manual review to be submitted, auto-close the ones they do "allow", and provide "The Community" as The Sole Solution... Alas. Something about a consummation devoutly to be wished, and so forth...

On the shared domain:
I have mountains of documents that mention both my specific college AND the 'umbrella'-name. Tried them all, and all were rejected. It truly doesn't matter because it actually is a bug that the robot can not solve. The only way I might be able to get approved, is if I submit an application pretending to be a student at the college that claimed the .edu domain.
Some say crime doesn't pay; GitHub makes it mandatory.

On the location issue:
VPNs get detected by the system almost instantly. It might let you "pass" the 'Share location'-thingy, but unless you pay for a dedicated, private IP address somewhere, The Terminator will smell it and reject it every time. It'll just not provide any reason for doing so.

On... the dots?
First dot: Done did do that, yep. But nope.
Second dot: GitHub knew you were going to say that. Which is why they simply no longer send closure emails one can reply to. Or at all. Better yet: They close the ticket without even a notification...

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...
I guess I'm just gonna have to go ahead and commit fraud. Fabricate an enrollment verification and figure out how to borrow/obtain/hack my dad's IP back home...?

[tanvishinde017]

Hi @DeannaFeest,

Unfortunately, the community and Community Managers generally cannot perform manual Education overrides or access backend verification records.

From your description, this sounds like two separate edge cases interacting:

1. A shared .edu domain used by multiple institutions, which may cause the system to associate your email domain with a different campus than the one shown on your documents.
2. Your status as a remote international student, which could explain the location mismatch signals.

Since you've already opened Ticket #4471343, I would avoid submitting multiple new applications because repeated submissions can sometimes make troubleshooting more difficult.

For privacy reasons, avoid posting personal documents publicly. If Support reopens communication, it may help to clearly explain:

• Which specific sister college you attend.
• That the email domain is shared across multiple institutions.
• That you are enrolled remotely and are studying from another country.
• That your institution was successfully verified previously.

Hopefully a GitHub staff member can confirm whether this is an institution-mapping issue rather than a problem with your eligibility.

If you eventually receive a resolution, please consider updating this discussion so others facing similar shared-domain situations can benefit from it.