This post is about how I went into the US embassy and got myself a US visa – without being asked a single question (except some rhetorical questions which I didn’t have to answer). The only real question in the interview was one I asked the consular – about the SEVIS fee I hadn’t paid and how I was supposed to pay it (Can you believe he wasn’t interested in looking at the form to see whether I’d paid the fee?).
I went in, a bit nervous, but quite confident because I was already holding a US visa valid upto 2010. After the routine checks I stood in a 3 row long line and, well, kept standing.
About an hour later – one of the consulars summoned me. Unfortunately I was looking somewhere else and the only way they summon you is beckoning by hand. Fortunately, after a minute of my ignoring the officer, someone was kind enough to inform me that he was calling me. I went over and greeted him.
Slightly overweight, he was, in a red shirt. Seemed a jolly guy. Opened my passport upto the B-1/B-2 US visa and said – “You have a currently valid 5 year visa?”. Not a question where you choose the answer, is it? I said “yeah”. Next question – “You have your TOEFL and GRE scores?” – I said I only had TOEFL, he said “no problem”, and I passed him the small set of sheets which held my marks.
He was pretty happy with my scores – kept complimenting me and I kept saying “thank you”, wondering when the real interview would start. It never did. After looking at my credentials, he said “you are a credible student (thank you), your application has been accepted”.
Then I said, “how do I pay the SEVIS fee?”. He frowned, not a good sign, I thought. I quickly pulled out my RIT admission fee payment receipt and presented it, saying that there was a confusion between this and the SEVIS. He then said there was no problem, and gave me a yellow sheet which he told me to submit to the embassy at any time, without needing an appointment.
As I write this, the yellow sheet is on the way to the embassy. Edit: I had to go to the embassy with the sheet…because of some complications which could have been resolved without my help but weren’t. Oh, well.
It was fun while it lasted. Back to mathematics.
i had a similar experience when i went to get the tourist visa last year.
there we were standing in line with a bunch load of documents to prove that we wont seek asylum etc. etc… and after like 1400 fingerprint and retina scans we finally stood in line to meet the counselor dude.
when it was our turn.. he takes one look at us and says “college tour huh? , i did that with my son last year… here you go .. ten year visa’s. bye.”
after waiting for what seemed like hours we got the visa in less then a minute… absurd.
lol…..mine was kinda similar experience….but we wer in a group…so it bcame long…..n our visas wer for 5 months only