Hey all, I am Apurva and welcome back to WeDesified this is our 12th video in the
study in the USA series in this video we are going to talk all about i20 the information it contains
the common mistakes that could happen in the i20 and how to rectify them
so let's get to it but before that please subscribe to our channel and
click the bell icon so that you will be notified every time we upload a new video
in the last video we talked about the breakdown of expenditure estimation
and the financial documentation you could show to get your i-20 once you submit these documents
the college reviews them and processes your i-20 within a week or two and ships it to your
home address due to the covered 19 pandemic colleges can send the i-20s over email also
otherwise they have to physically courier you the copy and you need to take that form to your
visa interview some colleges even charge you for the shipping cost certificate of eligibility for
non-immigrant student status also commonly known as form i-20 is the most important document for
an international student in the u.s more than the visa stamp i20 is the one that determines
how long you can stay in the country legally as a student you need i20 for almost everything like
to open a bank account to get your social security number to apply for a driving license to apply for
employment or for any official purpose you need a valid i20 so it is very important to make sure
all the information on your i20 is correct and up to date what information does the i20 contain
i20 is a three page document and the first important thing you should notice is the service
id after the 9 11 attacks the u.s reformed its student visa program and introduced savp
to keep a record of all foreign students in the u.s under this program each college will issue a
unique identification number to every admitted student so if you get multiple admissions and
multiple i20s issued you have multiple service numbers on your name and that's totally fine
but you need to make sure that you are paying your service fees and submitting the ds160 with
the correct service id from the college you want to join the first section contains your
personal information such as first and last name date of birth country of birth citizenship etc
and they need to exactly match with your passport if you see any discrepancy then reach out to your
international office immediately and get it rectified they will issue you a new i-20 with
corrected information on the right corner you can see the type of visa you should be applying for
next you will see the school name as registered in the savp and the contact information of the
school official following that you can see the information about your program make sure the
education level and the major mention matches with the program you applied for education level would
be bachelors for undergrad students masters for graduate students and doctorate for psja students
sometimes the major name can be different from what it is commonly called
like computer science is called computer and informational science in some colleges and
computational science in some colleges based on how they registered their program name with savp
still double check they have mentioned correct information on your i-20 unless you are doing
double majors the major 2 field would be none also verify the program start and end dates
this start date determines when you can apply for your visa which is 120 days earlier and
the earliest admission day tells you when you can enter into united states which is
30 days before the start date the end date is usually an estimate of your last day of classes
and you are eligible to do opt after that for some reason if your estimated end date changes
in the future you can get it updated then but for now for undergraduate students it should
be around four years for graduate students it should be around two to two and a half years
and for phd students it's about six years the next section is about the financials
on the left side they give an estimation for nine months which is fall and spring semesters together
and on the right side they provide the breakdown based on the documentation you submitted
we have explained the breakdown of financials in the previous video
so please check that out you can see the personal funds and funds from your sponsors and scholarship
amounts on this right side make sure the estimate is correct for the program you are enrolled in
one of the common mistakes that can happen is if you get a scholarship or an assistantship after
admission they might miss to mention that in this section so you need to get it corrected because
the scholarships and assistantships on your i-20 creates a good impression to the visa officer
and improves your chances of getting the visa so don't forget to pay attention to this
like you can see here if you get a fee waiver and stipend everything will be put under the
departmental funding the next section is for the attestation from the school
and the last section is for your signature after verifying all the above information
you have to get the parent or guardian signature only if you are below 18.
many people get it signed without noticing it it's not a big mistake but avoid it
if you're a bachelor student and under 18 you should get it signed
otherwise just leave it blank you have to sign the i-20 before you appear for the visa interview
the second page is for the information about cpt and opt employment authorization when you get it
so at this point it will be blank it also contains travel endorsements with this signature your i20
is valid for traveling in and out of us for a year from the date of the signature
and the third page is a bunch of instructions for the students and schools along with the
i-20 the admission packet would also contain useful information about the university these
resources help you with your class registrations immunization accommodation fees payments etc and
also information about any student organizations that will help your transition to be smooth
so don't forget to check that out so that's all we have for today hope this is helpful we will
come up with more videos about what's next after i-20 very soon please let us know all
our questions in the comments box below we will reply and make videos answering all your questions
please like share and subscribe to our channel until next time keep learning
bye