US Embassy might change student visa application process from 2022 summer

Thousands of Indian students who want to study in the US universities in the 2022 Fall season need to know about the changes the US embassy in India planning to make in the visa application system this summer of 2022.

“Last year we interviewed more students and issued more students and issued more student visas in India than ever before. This year we hope the number of student visas will be even higher than the 62,000 issued last year. However, that will also depend on how well prepared the student visa applicants are,” Donald L Heflin, minister-counsellor for consular affairs at the US Embassy in Delhi, told this reporter.

International students are advised to schedule their appointments on the US embassy website. Heflin also told that last year because of a huge number of applications from India, computer systems worldwide crashed. One more problem was the applications that were sent by the people were not genuine. According to him, in the first part, many genuine students came while in the second part, many students came whose applications were already rejected.

Last summer, when US campuses opened their doors to international students after being shut down during the pandemic, the US Embassy and consulates in India announced the opening of thousands of visa interview slots since June 2021, especially for Indian students planning to join courses at universities and colleges in the USA in the Fall 2021 session starting August-September last year.

Students had been advised to visit the US Embassy website to schedule their visa appointments.

“Last year we faced two big problems; first because of the huge number of student visa applicants from India, our worldwide computer system crashed. Second, a large number of student visa interview slots were bought up by people who were not genuine applicants. Also, in the first part of the season we had good and genuine students applying for visas; in the later part, last summer, many applicants who we interviewed were coming to us a second or third time having been refused student visas earlier. That was taking slots away from good students,” Heflin said. Thus, F1 visa for USA from India slot booking must be one prior to the applicant's dates for flying to the USA.

Changes made in the US Student Visa Software

The US Embassy has made software changes to the student visa software so that students who were refused a visa once in the summer-spring of 2022 will not be able to seek visa interview appointments again this year. Student visa applicants are also advised to keep checking the US Embassy website for interview dates to schedule their visa appointments once they receive their documents from US universities.

“We hope to address both the problems of non-availability of non-availability of interview slots for good and genuine students as well as the blocking of slots by non-student agents, who don’t show up for the interview, with these measures,” Heflin said.

Visa interview waiver scheme

Last year, the US government announced a visa interview waiver scheme that benefitted Indian students. Heflin said, “Many Indian students who are in the US and want to travel to India to meet their families are using the visa waiver drop box scheme. Currently, there are slots available for this facility,”.

Parents of Indian students who are going to the US for studies having valid visitor visas can go with their children to the US this fall. However, those who have never had a visa will not be able to go. Heflin said, “Those parents who have B1-B2 visas that have expired in the last few years can try to grab a drop box appointment to renew their visas,”.