Finally, you've come to the last hurdle before you go
ahead and pursue your dream. Visa is the most discussed topic on the
internet. I don't see any reason why it is so much hyped out of
proportions. All students who have a decent admit and have enough finances
normally get a Visa.
However, Visa issuance policies are a function of the ever changing world
dynamics. Hence, you'll find that getting a Visa maybe easier one year as
compared to other due to the changing policies of the US consulate.
Fall 2008 was a good year for students. I did not hear any instance where
a legitimate student was denied F1 Visa.
But nevertheless this is a exhausting exercise. You'll have to get many
documents made and ensure that they are all authentic and acceptable by
the consulate.
As a first step you will require a Visa interview date, visit https://www.vfs-usa.co.in
for all the information you'll require to fill up the forms and register
for a date. The official VFS website lists all the procedures and steps in
a coherent manner. Make sure your read and understand all the instructions
and FAQs. You will require your I20 to complete the online process.
Basically you'll need that to pay your SEVIS fee and you'll also require
to enter your SEVIS number on your online form. In case you haven't yet
received the I20, you can request your University to send you your SEVIS
registration number so that you can proceed with your online application
meanwhile. The number is a 11 character sequence, something like
'N0005432612'.
What if I decide to change University after I have booked a
appointment? This is possible and there are specific rules for this. Talk to the
VFS official over phone. You'll also need to get you SEVIS fee transferred
to the new account. Your University may help you doing this.
What is the best place to appear for the Interview? or Which consulate
is most lenient in granting Visas? There are many theories of a particular consulate being more lenient
than the other. Chennai specially has earned a bad name for rejecting more
F1 Visas than any other consulate. I believe if you do a comparative
analysis on the percentage of F1 Visa rejected for all the consulates,
there won't be any difference. So just take that thought out of your mind
and apply for interview at the consulate where you are supposed to.
Documents required for Visa
Application:
Tip
Many people get their F1 Visa without being
asked for a single document. Remember its your confidence and the way you
talk that makes a lot of difference. The Visa officers are expert in
judging you by your behavior and confidence. They are really smart and
know their art really well.
When you have all the proper documents in your folder, you'll
automatically have that confidence and you'll be much more relaxed. What I
mean is that complete documents are important. They play their part in
your Visa process even if they were never asked for.
The basic things that you'll need to
carry on the day of interview are listed below (Note these may change over
time and may be different for different consulate - refer the VFS website
for most accurate details) Essential Documents:
1) Passport
2) DS forms (signed)
3) I-20 (signed)
4) GRE & TOEFL score cards
5) Degree Certificate
6) SEVIS fee receipt
7) HDFC Visa fee receipt (Only the consulate copy)
8) Appointment letter
This is normally not enough. You'll also need to have documents to prove
your finances for the entire period of study. This includes your tuition,
living expenses, books etc. While the consulate doesn't give any specific
guidelines on what kind of documents it requires, generally original bank
documents, sponsor certificates etc. is what they'll expect.
So, lets discuss various documents that you may need to show that you are
financially capable to bear entire expense:
Bank Loan Documents: If you have got a loan approved, you'll need to have proper bank
documents/certificates stating so.
Sponsors Certificate: If you have your parents or relatives as sponsors, you will require
a sponsor certificate. Note that many people take it for-granted that if
one's father is sponsoring then sponsor certificate may not be required.
Legally, you should have a certificate from anyone who is sponsoring,
regardless of whether he is your father or your distant relative. If any
of your distant relative is sponsoring you, then prepare to answer some
questions regarding why is such a distant relative/Uncle interested in
sponsoring you.
There is no specific format for a sponsor certificate prescribed by
consulate. Ideally a sponsor certificate should be notarized by a
authorized notary.
I referred the I-134 Affidavit of support to make a sponsor certificate
of my own and got it stamped by a notary. Note that this certificate is
to be printed on a stamp paper. You can refer my sample
certificate below (again I take absolutely no guarantee that this is the
way it should be done... I did it this way for myself and it worked for
me)
Father's
Salary Certificate and Proof of Job, post and service. If your father is salaried and is one of your sponsors, you'll need
to carry his last Income Tax return, Salary certificate and proof of
Job, post and service. In government jobs, such a certificate can be
issued by the head of the department or immediate boss of ones father. Note that it should be in English and even the stamps etc. should be
preferably in English. In case father has a business, you'll need to have equivalent
certificates for proof of business, income etc.
Bank (PPF, GPF) Passbooks and statements of
past 12 months as proof of liquid money. Basically what people usually do is that they show liquid assets of
at least the I20 amount and the rest as fixed deposits, investments in
shares and other 'readily convertible into liquid assets'. You should produce bank passbooks/statements of all the bank
accounts that has got substantial balance.
Share portfolio certificates from the
broker. In case you are showing a substantial amount invested in shares,
you'll need to have a certificate from the broker stating the same. For
people having demat accounts with ICICI/HDFC etc, may approach the bank
and ask them to attest the print-out of the portfolio that your online
login shows. You can have a signed cover letter (statement by the bank
vouching for the accompanied attested portfolio) accompanied with that attested
copy of portfolio. This will make a valid certificate as a proof of your
investments in shares.
CA Certificates (Optional) The CA certificates are totally optional. The idea is to give
the Visa officer a complete picture of your financial credibility. So
far as you are meticulous with your documents and you have coherently
listed all your assets and plan for the flow of money for next 2 years,
the officer will never bother to see a CA certificate.
All semester marksheets, Class X and XII
marksheets and UG Degree/Provisional certificate. Marksheets are something that Visa Officers will often ask for. So
they are one of the most essential documents you should not miss. Apart
from that, you can also keep the class X and XII marksheet.
GRE and TOEFL score sheets, SOP,
Resume GRE and TOEFL scores are again frequently asked by the Visa
Officers. Do not forget to keep the original score sheets that you got
via postal mail. Keep a copy of the SOP and Resume with you (The ones
that you sent to the University). Although they are never asked for but
then again, keep those 2 piece of papers for completeness.
Your experience letter, original
salary certificate, latest salary slip, your company ID and latest
form-16. (For employed people) If you are currently employed, these are again very important
certificates that you need to take with you. I have read Visa
experiences where the Visa Officer asked for the company tag/ID. You
should have enough authentic proofs to prove your employment in that
company.
Also be prepared to answer questions like "Why are you leaving such a
good job?" etc. Think of such answers beforehand but don't mug them up.
Some additional documents that
you'd require to keep:
In case there are recent transactions involving huge incoming transfer of money
into your bank accounts, you will require some docs to justify them. For
example, if you have sold many shares to generate enough money into the
account, just have copies of cheques that your broker gave you to justify the
passbook entries. In case it was a ECS, then there is no need. Similarly, you
need to account for all the big incoming transfers in recent weeks and have
something to justify that it was indeed your own money in some other form.
Acceptances letters from all the Universities that gave you an admit.
Your state of residence certificate. Your company can issue such a certificate
if you are employed.
You may want to keep a spare photograph and a set of spare DS forms.
Any relevant emails that you might have exchanged with the University Officials.
For Ex. if you are showing that your professor promised a Research Assistantship
to you then you should have any email correspondences that you had with your
prof. regarding the same.
The list mentioned above is by no means a exhaustive list. Everyone
requires different documents to suit his/her particular situation. By
listing the documents above, I have just tried to convey the idea of what
documents are required and why.
Tip
Never ever be tempted to forge any document. No
matter how small it is or how cleanly you can do it, never even attempt to
do that. You may have to pay a huge penalty for such a misadventure. Many
people get permanent ineligibility to enter into US for such kinds of
frauds.
Never get lured by any fascinating 'fool-proof' idea suggested by
consultants. There is a lot of fraud happening in this space where
consultants beguile unsuspecting students.
Check this article.
Apart from the documents, you need to be well prepared with some very
common questions that are normally asked in Visa Interviews. Make sure you
read your University website in and out so that you know well about it.
Common questions like "Why this University?", "Why MS in USA?" etc. need
to have a coherent answers. I will not go into what the answers should be.
You can keep reading the posts in the edulix Visa forum to get a fair idea
of various questions and their answers.
I would suggest everyone to read this thread
http://www.edulix.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=25391 for exhaustive
information on common questions, mannerism and other aspects.
A very good way to prepare for the interview is to read many interview
experiences of other students. I found this exhaustive collection(464
pages) of interview experiences very useful and am putting it for you to
refer. Again, I got this from edulix. You can learn a lot from others
experiences. Specially read the rejected ones and try to find out what
went wrong.
Preparing and Indexing your documents for the
interview
Tip - Always have a Summary of your financial docs
While many of us get exhaustive and comprehensive
documents to show all our finances but we forget that the Visa Officer may
not be familiar with the different document formats and their worth and
authenticity. While you may have plenty to show, the VO hasn't got time to
understand and see all of it and normally they won't see most of it.
The idea is to let them have a birds eye view first. This is where a
summary of all your finances comes in. Just jot down all your finance sources and amounts on a sheet of paper
and when asked for your finances, just hand over this single piece of
paper telling that this is what the overview is. Further, if he/she asks
for any particular document, just show that particular document. This is
very convenient for the VO as well as for yourself too.
I have been often asked what kind of summary I made. This is a sample
of what I made:
Arranging the Harmonium Folder I read this fancy name 'harmonium folder' on various
posts on Internet. I was really amused by the name. Even when I went to the
stationary shop of ask for it, I was hesitant to use this word fearing the
shopkeeper will ask 'Now what is this Harmonium folder?". However, when I
said that, the shopkeeper in fact promptly showed me 10's of different
'Harmonium Folders'
So, basically many students stack their documents in this thing called
harmonium folder. Its a folder that has many compartments to segregate
various documents in different compartments. You need to make small sets of
related documents and arrange them in order. You'll also need to remember
where you have placed various documents so that you can produce a particular
document as soon as asked for.
Attached on right is a picture of what a harmonium
folder looks like. Click on the picture to have a bigger view.
You'd like to have the documents arranged in a order of decreasing
importance.
Make small tags of which partition contains which documents.
There is a list of documents that you'll need to produce for initial
verification (By Indian officers) before the interview. Keep all those
documents in the first partition. These documents are listed in the
"Essential Documents" section above.
The second and third partitions may contain your primary financial
documents (including the summary first) and your academic documents.
One way of arranging the documents is as below:
>> Passport
(Pocket - 1)
>> DS-156, DS-157, DS-158 forms (Pocket - 1)
>> I20, SEVIS fee receipt.
(Pocket - 1)
>> GRE and TOEFL sheet.
(Pocket - 1)
>> HDFC Receipt.
(Pocket - 1)
>> Bachelors Degree
(Pocket - 1)
>> Visa Appointment Letter
(Pocket - 1)
>> Bank Loan Certificate/Document.
>> Sponsor Certificates.
>> Fathers Salary Certificate and Proof of Job, post and service.
>> Bank Passbook + Statements (12 Months) as proofs of Liquid Money.
>> Authentic Share Portfolio Certificate
>> CA Certificates (if any, although CA certificates are optional)
>> Marksheets of all Semesters and Class X/XII
>> SOP, Resume.
>> All acceptance letters from all Universities.
>> Form-16.
>> Past three ITR's (if employed) - Optional
>> Original Salary Certificate from company (if employed)
>> Company ID Tag, Past 2 Salary Slips (if employed)
>> Experience letter and State of Residence Proof. (if employed)
>> Copy of Shares in ICICI Demat
>> Relavant emails exchanged with profs, Universities or VFS (if any)
>> Photocopy of cheques/docs justifying recent bank transactions (if any)
>> Spare Photo, Spare set of DS Forms.
I have mentioned the pocket-1 contents specifically, the other pocket
contents differ on person to person based on what kind of documents one is
carrying.
On the day of the
Interview.
You should always try to be in the city of the Interview
at least one day before the Interview. This will help you to acclimatize with
the environment and weather. Try to have a good dinner and sleep early a day
before.
The dress for the interview should be formals which for men normally is a full
sleeves shirt and a pant (No suit or tie required). Looking neat in appearance
is very important.
For people who have interviews in Chennai or Mumbai, there is a very good
facility of "Stars & Stripes Lounge". If you are alone for the interview, and
you are carrying some small luggage with you, I'd suggest that you avail that
facility.
I am not sure about the Mumbai Lounge, but I can say that Chennai's lounge is
truly good. It helps you have a relaxed AC place to wait. The only other option
is to wait at the road outside the consulate and that can be really tiring and
sweaty.
For people who want to change at the center itself, there is a tidy changing
room at the lounge. You can also safely put any small luggage that you are
carrying with you at the lounge and collect it back after the Interview. At the
time of your interview a vehicle will take you at the location (consulate) and you'll
interestingly be put at the head of the line bypassing all the other queued
interviewees (much to their chagrin:-) )
You'll be first asked for your appointment letter at the very first
gate. Thereafter your documents will be checked by some Indian officials. Some
of your basic docs will be transferred to a different folder that you'll be
handing over to the VO at the time of Interview. Please don't fiddle with the
order of the docs that they put into a new folder. Some smart people do that and
get into trouble.
Tip - Be calm and confident
After all the hard work you've been doing for past so many months, today
is the culmination of everything. Be calm and confident. You'll see tense
faces inside the consulate. Try to strike a conversation with someone
sitting besides you, standing in queue with you. Believe me, it'll help a
lot to reduce stress. I tried that and it reduced the stress a lot.
Remember you've won bigger battles in past one year... this is only a
small ritual and you'll be 'finally done'.
Once in the waiting line for the Interview, keep yourself engaged in seeing
other interviews going on. Once your chance comes, greet them (very important)
and hand over your folder when asked for. Try to keep a smiling face and a
direct eye contact. Try to give short precise answers and don't speak much
unless asked for. Don't be ready to thrust a document whenever a related thing
is asked. Remember that most of the times they'll judge you by your body
language. If you have a document to fortify something you are saying, first
state the answer to the question in its entirety and then just say that you have
such and such document in support of that. Visa Officers are not fluent with all
the documents and formats other than documents like passbooks and salary
certificates etc. Whenever you handover a document, briefly mention who issued
that and what it states. Sometimes people just overwhelm the VOs with arcane documents and
presume that he'll understand everything immediately.
Most of the things you'll find in all the Visa tips and tricks articles are pure
common sense. The basic thing is that you need to convince the VO are:
Your finances are strong and you'll be comfortably able to bear your study
(and living) expenses.
You intend to come back to your country after you finish you studies and
will not become a illegal immigrant.
You are a bona-fide student and there are no institutes in your own
country where you can pursue your area of interest.
You'll be asked a very few questions in a span of 1-4 minutes and once you
have clearly conveyed the above facts, Visa is all yours.
After the Interview
:-)
Hopefully, you'll get you Visa. Its really a great moment
to hear those words that many refer to as 'the golden words'. The feelings
cannot be put down in words. The only way to feel it is to experience it.
So, you've got your visa... now what?? No need to tell you that.... Its party
time.
Give yourself some time and really party hard.
Why I am particularly stressing on party is not without a reason. The better
school you are going the bigger party it should be because very soon you are
going to thoroughly submerge into studies and you'll realize that actually the
tough part has only begun now :-)
For employed people who were waiting for this day before they could resign, can
now happily resign and prepare to get back to old school days.
Finish your party in a couple of days and move on to the next and the final
phase... the preparations for departure.
You can ask questions in comments below.
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