A good place to start is program start dates or school start dates. Uh what do you think
about that Ben. I think it's it's interesting our perspective on this specific issue because
i think very few people know how Visa Officers view school start dates. This is this is something
that probably wasn't too relevant to most student visa applicants in the past but this
year because of the lack of availability of appointments it's become a real issue
so a whole lot of our clients have been applying for schools getting their getting accepted getting
their i-120s that say okay the program start date is august 15th, right, but then our our clients
can't get a visa appointment until September 30th, right, and so they have to apply for an
emergency appointment based on that program start date and the embassies are understaffed right now.
They're understaffed with uh with their American visa officers and also with local staff because
of COVID restrictions and so they're they are trying to get as many students in as possible
but they have limited resources and then how do they choose who to prioritize, right. One student
who has a program start date you know on this date and another one on this date they're trying to get
them both in there and they just have to kind of go first come first search so then what happens is
that a lot of students are given an emergency date but it still comes after their program start date.
I think that's a really good point Ben and actually you know interestingly enough I've
been getting questions about you know from people who haven't even booked
their appointment because the first thing they see is that the next available visa
appointment is actually after their start date so they don't know what to do. They don't know
the emergency visa appointment process can you go through that a little bit. Oh yeah that you've got
a book as soon as possible because it is first come first served not just for appointments
but also for the emergency ones right right, all things being equal you're just a student who's got
a program start date if you don't get your request in early enough then you won't get a an emergency
appointment that's early enough for you to get your visa in time for your program start date so,
if you see that that next visa appointment's not available until say in some cases you know
June next year, you still need to get your appointment on the books and get that emergency
request in there so that they can slot you in as early as possible. What may have to happen
what may have to happen and this is unfortunate for a lot of people that their plans are delayed
but this is just kind of this is the world right now in the you know the era of COVID you might
have to hope to get your visa appointment for this fall semester but maybe you won't get it
maybe you won't get an appointment until October right. And then maybe you're going to have to
ask your school to move your program start date to the spring semester in January. Um
that's such a good point yeah, so rule number one is to just get your visa appointment as
soon as possible because you actually need a booked visa appointment in order to request
an expedited visa appointment. And so make sure you do that no matter how far down the road
it is you need that appointment to request the expedite. It's such a great point, Ben.
Um so interestingly enough I don't think a lot of people realize that Visa Officers
actually have this rule that if they know that a student cannot actually make it in time for their
program start date that's listed on their i-20, we're actually not allowed to approve the visa
and so this is something important to take note so if you're a student visa applicant going in for
your visa interview expedited or regular depending on where you're applying in the world first check
your i-20 to see when school starts and then what you want to do is also talk to your international
advisor, talk to your DSO to see how flexible that start date is because in my conversations with
DSOs and Ben I'm sure you've talked to some too but there is a little bit of flexibility there's
not a lot but there's a little bit it could be up to a week or 10 days past that date on your i-20
and so once you find out how much flexibility there is. What you'll want to do is ask your
international advisor or DSO to update the very last date to the very last date that you can
arrive and be on time for your program in the SEVIS system and you'll want to be prepared
to explain that situation at your visa interview if that date is different than what's on your i-20
and you can get a new physical hard copy of the i20 for that or you can just have them
update update that information and then have that virtually in the system because now in most places
around the world they are accepting uh electronic information for the i-120 the i-1 the i20
instead of requiring that you actually get the physical one just because how hard it is
to get those moving around the world right now. That's right and one other thing i'll mention is
even if you're not able to get the updated i-20 the ver you know the the the emailed
copy or the virtual copy make sure that the dso still updates it in their system because
uh this was true of a couple of the uh the consulates I worked at but even if it's
not correct on the i20 we will have staff at the consulate that will go into the SEVIS system and
check to see what the date is to confirm that you can actually arrive by that date. Now they'll go in
and check that only if they think that there's a reason to think that that program start date
has been moved so what you need to do is make sure bring a letter you know you've got that
that email print out but actually it'd be better if they sent you a pdf that you can print out
and show look i've got from my university saying that they have changed my program start date
in the the online SEVIS system and you know please check that to confirm just to make sure
that you don't get overlooked and they just see oh program start date is not realizable and so we're
going to refuse you that's another thing I want to point out realizable is the word that they use for
that program start date so it doesn't mean like the program start date can be any time after the
visa interview. If your visa interview is today we're recording this, August 13th, if your visa
interview is today and the program start date is august 14th they're not going to apply they're
not going to issue that visa because it's not realizable it's not realistically possible for you
to get to the school and start studying by august 14th. If you're just doing your visa interview
today on August 13th, so it and in fact that's also not just to get the visa because it'll
take them even with an emergency processing a full day maybe maybe two to get your visa
printed you know with everything that has to happen behind the scenes after your interview
and then also when you arrive at the at the point of entry and the customs and border patrol officer
looks at your your information in your i-20, they need to also see that it's realizable
right so you can't get your visa and then think oh great I can travel in time you know on that date
they need to know that you can get to the school so if you arrive in San Francisco, but you need to
get to you know Iowa and you don't have a flight for the next day they still may determine that
that's not realizable and turn you around so you just got to make sure get that date pushed back
as far as possible to make sure that all of that can can get fit in there so that you can you know
without anybody questioning whether or not you can get to your program on time that you'll be able to
make it. That's absolutely right and the reason why we kind of bring this up over and over again is we
don't want students to be in a situation where even if they get their visa approved they get
turned around at the port of entry or something happens everything that you do has to make it as
easy and as simple as possible for the government official to let you do what you want so in order
to make it easy for them, you have to point things out to them. I love what you said Ben about you
know making sure you have a letter from the school or making sure you bring up during your interview
hey you know my program start date has actually been changed because the officers are not going
to know that the local staff are not going to know that so you want to make sure that you make
it clear to them to help them make a decision in your favor and to help you in your process.
Yeah that's right yeah but there's also the issue that a lot of our clients have run into
when doing this is requesting that emergency appointment right because you're you're almost
everywhere in the world right now in order to get a visa appointment on time for your program that
starts this semester or even next semester you have to request one of these emergency
appointments and everyone asks asks asks us about this but it's hard to give anybody any kind of
general advice because the process is so different depending on where you're applying for a visa
a lot of places in the world right now um if you're applying for a student visa
for the first time you're automatically given an expedite but that's not true everywhere just
a lot of places um so you'll want to check to see if you're someone that needs to actually make the
additional expedite request but one other thing we want to mention after having heard back from a lot
of our clients and students is that if you were previously refused a visa and now you're trying
to get a second expedited appointment, you may not be able to get it because what we have seen from
the state department is they're prioritizing first-time visa applicants for those expedites
so that makes that one single interview even more important that you're prepared you get everything
done right the first time so that you don't end up in a situation where you're refused and then
you can't get an expedited request approved the next time to make it in time for school. That's right.
First impressions matter, just like in real life where first impressions are the most important
for your visa interview the first impression is always the most important it's the one where you
have the best chance of getting your visa um and even just to get your visa appointment now
you know considering what's going on in the world you need to be ready
to get your visa that first time obviously you know you're gonna have to make some investment
and talking to the experts and figuring out how you can ensure you're going to get your visa
because you don't want to get that refusal on the record because then you might not
even be able to get a new appointment in time for your program and when you do, it's going to be an
uphill battle once you've already been refused. Yes ,and the more times that you're refused the
harder it becomes to get that visa approved and that's actually exactly what Ben and I do
here at Argo you know we're ex-visa officers we work with students um one-on-one to help
them be prepared for that very important visa interview just because the stakes are so high.