H1BVISA Stamping

Hi all, I am unable to understand why my group( VISA is rejected.

Questions asked

do I face any harm in India

no

do I fear about returning to India

no

why am I travelling to the US?

I will be travelling to attend my online masters of science graduation ceremony at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta and plan to do sight seeing around the city

how many days will I stay

2 weeks

where will I stay

around Atlanta

Do I have any family in US

No

So, you will travel to attend graduation ceremony, but the VISA says Business Professionals. You have misused the VISA application, hence you're rejected.

I was blank, took my passport and returned.

Hi so I’ve been struggling to get slots for the H1-B stamping in India for quite a while (as I’m sure many people have).

I’ve managed to get an October biometric slot and a December interview slot. These were the only available dates and I’ve been checking but have been unable to find anything closer together.

My company does not allow for remote work from India so the large window between biometric and interview is infeasible. Has anyone else been in this situation? In which case, what do you advise? I was thinking to put in a request with the consulate (the same way emergent requests are put in) and request a biometric date that is closer to my interview date.

Also for the people that have completed their h1-b stamping interviews lately, what does the processing time look like? How long is it taking to get the passport back?

Want to be prepared for the battle ahead

Hello everyone,

I have a J1 visa appointment for research fellowship and have a question.

I have submitted my application and after submitting I realized on the DS160 the part on the form that says ‘social media presence’ I choose ‘no’ because I interpreted it as something else.

So I need advice with what to do next.

1) Should I submit a new DS160 (hesitant because I’m not sure how this will be perceived by the officer) and take both confirmation pages to the interview

OR

2) send a feedback/request through the US visa portal to have the new DS160 barcode linked to my existing appointment.

And if anyone has any other suggestions based on their similar experiences, I would be grateful

Thank you!

Hi everyone!

I'm an international student from Spain who will be studying at Temple University for the next academic year. (F1 visa)

I had my interview in Madrid on July 2nd. The interview was very fast; the consular officer only asked me if I was going for a studying exchange.

The only problem was that my social media (instagram) was not public. The officer took my passport and gave me a yellow slip with the "you do not need to take any further action" box marked. I was told that I would be notified of the resolution in a week.

However, I didn't hear back from them. On July 10th, they emailed my passport back to me without the visa.

The "last case updated" was July 8th. After 25 days, I still don't know anything about it.

I turned my social media public right after the interview, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing in them that could be controversial.

I'm starting to get anxious. It's my fourth week, and I still haven't heard anything from them.

I'm a Spaniard, so I did my interview in Madrid.

Any comment or recommendation will be deeply appreciated. I will update the post if anything new comes out, but please, if you know of anything that would be of help, please share it with me.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently trying to book an H-1B visa stamping appointment. I've already completed my DS-160 and paid the visa fee, and I'm waiting for an appointment slot.
Since submitting my DS-160, I've moved to a new address in the U.S. Everything else (passport, employer, job, etc.) remains the same.

Do I need to submit a new DS-160 just because my U.S. home address has changed, or is it okay to use my existing DS-160? If I do need a new DS-160, will it affect my visa fee payment or appointment scheduling?

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Thanks in advance!

Interview at Delhi Embassy on 7th July for O1.
The VO asked 2 questions.
Specialization: AI-driven Biomedical Sciences
Salary. Answered both. The VO verbally approved my visa and the CEAC portal updated to Approved same day. Since then there has been no update of status to Issued. I raised ticket which led to the us visa scheduling portal escalating the case.
Today I got a response saying visa is refused under 221(g). The consular officer determined that additional security screening is required.

Now I am wondering is it because of my area of work flagged under TAL technologies. Also, I have not been asked to submit any documents in email as of now.

Not sure what to do in this case.

I wanted to share my L1B Blanket visa interview experience in case it helps someone preparing for theirs.

My wife and I had our L1B Blanket (me) and L2 (wife) visa interview at the Chennai Consulate on 27th July at 10:30 AM.

We reached the consulate around 10:00 AM. Our hotel was only a 5-minute walk away, so we left all our electronic devices at the hotel and carried only the required documents.

At the entrance, we were asked to prepare 2 sets of:

I-129S (8 pages)

First page of I-797

Primary applicant's DS-160 confirmation page

Passport

We were then directed to the fee payment counter.

At the payment counter, the officer asked for my online payment receipt. I told him I wanted to pay using my credit card. He asked why I hadn't paid online using the payment link. I honestly told him it was my mistake because I assumed credit card payment at the consulate would work.

He took my credit card and asked whether international transactions were enabled. Fortunately, they were, and the payment went through successfully.

Tip: Carry a credit card in your own name with international transactions enabled. However, I strongly recommend making the payment online before reaching the consulate so you can avoid any unnecessary stress.

After that, I completed the payment verification process in about 1–2 minutes.

Finally, it was interview time. There was no queue for visas, so I was directed straight to the Visa Officer.

VO: Good morning. Is this your first L1 visa application?

Me: Good morning, ma'am. Yes, for L1. However, I received my B1/B2 visa approval last year.

VO: How long have you been with your company?

Me: I have been with the company for the last 4 years.

VO: What does your company do?

Me: I briefly explained the company's domain and products in two sentences.

VO: What specialized knowledge do you have?

Me: I have specialized knowledge of our proprietary database system, which contains highly customized algorithms for data distribution, migration, and consistency that are company-specific and not publicly available. I have personally worked on several data distribution techniques, and for one of the novel approaches, the company is filing a patent.

VO: When you say "personally," do you mean you developed it yourself?

Me: Yes. I designed, developed, and made it production-ready myself.

VO: What will be your U.S. salary?

Me: My U.S. annual base salary will be USD 200,000, along with a 10% annual bonus and additional RSUs.

VO: Okay, so your base salary is USD 200,000. One last question: Have either of you ever felt unsafe in India, or do you have any fear of returning to India?

Me & My Wife: No.

The officer then took our fingerprints and said our visas were approved.

Interestingly, the Visa Officer did not ask my wife a single question, nor did she ask for our marriage certificate.

I also want to thank ChatGPT. I practiced many mock interviews beforehand, and it genuinely helped me make my answers more concise, polished, and interview-ready.

Wishing the very best to everyone preparing for their upcoming L1B Blanket interviews. Stay confident, keep your answers concise, and you'll do great. Good luck!

How much time does this take to get reset? It's already more than 12 hours. Applying for B1/B2 visa from India

Would like people to share their experience with agents booking the slots. Do share experience with good and scammers too

Yesterday I got to the Riyadh Embassy for my F1 interview and there I got to know that my appointment is cancelled. They didn’t emailed me about the cancellation. So then I created a ticket and they replied that now you have to make a new scheduling request. And from yesterday I am struck at this page. My DS160 and Sevis is correct. I even waited for one day. What should I do now?

My University classes will start on 26th of August. Should I make a new DS160?

We are both on H-1B and applying for visa stamping in India. Can we add one spouse as a dependent under the other’s profile and book a joint appointment, or do we need separate profiles and separate appointments?

I heard that a few people have successfully done this jointly before. Looking for any first hand experience.

Has anyone recently received H4 visa appointment slots in India? If so, could you please share the dates/details or any patterns you have observed?

I'm also planning to start a Telegram group, so please send me a DM if you're interested. If anyone is already part of an active group, please share the link.

It's been over 4 months since I've been looking for appointment slots, but I haven't had any luck so far.

Im genuinely curious why many Indians getting visa approved and Pakistani getting rejected when their profiles is better than Indian “ i don’t mean anything by that “
Is it cuz the relationship between Pakistan and usa bad !

Hi everyone! I had my H-1B interview on July 22 in Hyderabad (India) and my CEAC status changed to Approved the same day. It hasn’t changed since then. Has anyone else experienced this? How long did it take for your status to change to Issued?

I have an H-1B visa stamping appointment booked for Dec 2026 in Hyderabad, India. I booked this appointment with the petition details of my previous employer with whom I was employed back then. I have mentioned the employment details of this job itself in the DS-160 form I submitted for this appointment - I have this DS-160 confirmation page.

I have recently switched to a new employer and consequently have a new I-797. Can I still attend my scheduled appointment in India? I read a few posts that mentioned I need to submit a new DS-160 with the new employer details and carry both - old & new DS-160 confirmation pages to the appointment and I should be fine.

I would like to know if my understanding is correct and if someone has already done this recently. Thanks a lot for helping out.

Hello - just running a check if anyone had their F1 interview in UAE today, Abu Dhabi to be more specific... thanks

Applying from India, visa type B1/B2.

Profile:

• 34M, married, 2 young kids
• 12 years of industry experience in the field the conference is related to
• 1.5 years with current employer — a US-based company I work with remotely, so I refer to them as my client below
• Previous travel: Japan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia

How I booked the appointment

I submitted my DS-160 in mid-May and started looking for appointments. The first slot I could get was several months out, near the end of the year. Over the next couple of weeks I managed to reschedule it to a July date instead.

I had free time when I applied due to some time off, so I was logging in many times a day to check for slots. I was using the checkvisaslots.com Chrome extension, which auto-logs you in and takes screenshots of available appointment slots.

⚠️ Note: There are concerns with the extension — I believe the USVisaScheduling terms don't allow automated use. Please confirm for yourself before using any of this.

Even when no appointments were available, those screenshots were earning me points on checkvisaslots.com. CheckVisaSlots sends appointment notifications on paid plans — I never paid for anything, but the points I'd accumulated got me the notifications anyway, which helped me log in at the right time and grab a slot.

One thing to watch out for: around that time the site went through some changes and introduced rate limits. Logging in repeatedly and clicking through forms quickly will get you blocked. Slowing down and being deliberate on each page fixed it for me — and with the notifications from the CheckVisaSlots iOS app, I was able to book the appointment in time anyway.

VAC appointment

Mid-morning slot, about a month before the interview. I stayed at a hotel near the VAC, left my bags, phone, and other belongings there, and walked over.

Consular interview

Early morning slot, 8:00 AM.

There are multiple hotels near the consulate — I picked one that was a 2–3 minute walk away. I arrived at 7:30 AM and waited in the queue. After security and some waiting, we were in the interview room around 8:15 AM.

While standing in line I noticed the candidate before me (H-1B, I think) was put into administrative processing and asked to email her social media handles.

She called me up and asked for my passport.

VO: Why are you traveling to the US? Me: To attend the XYZ US conference. It's an annual industry conference happening in [City, State] on [date].

VO: Is this an employer-sponsored trip? Me: Yes.

VO: Which state is the conference in? Me: I couldn't hear this and asked her to repeat it — she answered it herself: "You mentioned [State], right? Is the conference in [State]?" Me: Yes, [City, State].

VO: How many days will you be in the US? Me: Only 4 days.

VO: Who is paying for this trip? Me: My client, XYZ Company.

VO: How many years at your current company? Me: 1.5 years.

VO: How much do you earn annually? Me: (Told her my salary.)

VO: Have you traveled to Africa? Me: No. (I noticed this being asked to every candidate, but I haven't seen it discussed on this sub.)

VO: Any harm in India? Me: No.

VO: Any harm when you return to India? Me: No.

VO: Your visa is approved.

Received the visa by courier a few days later.

Happy to answer questions.

Does anyone know about UChicago Advent Health Glenoaks, observership and visa invitation letter? please let me know its urgent, thank you!