US Embassy Likely To Change Student Visa Application Process By Summer

In an important update, the US embassy in India is likely to take a decision on changing plans in the visa application system for those applying in summer 2022. Donald L Heflin, the minister counsellor for consular affairs at the US Embassy in Delhi said that back in 2021, they have interviewed more students and issued more student visas in India (62K) in an unprecedented manner.

Similarly, even in 2022, they are hoping for more student visas to be issued. However, the move will solely depend on how well prepared the student visa applicants are. In the 2021 Summer, when US campuses made way for international students after being shut down during the pandemic, the US Embassy and consulates in India had announced the opening of thousands of visa interview slots, especially for Indian students who have plans to take courses at universities and colleges in America 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. The minister-counsellor said that they faced two major problems in 2021. Firstly, their worldwide computer system crashed due to the huge number of student visa applicants from India and secondly, a large number of student visa interview slots were bought up by people who were not genuine applicants.

“In the first part of the season, we had good and genuine students applying for visas. Eventually, 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. Now that the US government has made software changes, it ensures students, who are refused a visa in the summer-spring, will not be able to seek another visa interview appointment again this year.

In the meantime, all the student visa applicants are advised to keep checking for interview dates on the US embassy website to schedule their visa appointments once they receive their documents from US universities without any special timeline being announced for them. “We hope to address both the problems 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.

Besides this, the US government announced the visa interview waiver scheme last year and it has benefitted several Indian students. Indian students who are in the US and want to travel to India are using the visa waiver dropbox scheme. Also, “Indian students’ parents who have B1-B2 visas that have expired in the last few years can try to grab a dropbox appointment to renew their visas,” Heflin said. Hopefully, by 2023, the US consular facilities will bounce back to 100% in India. The US embassy also expects to start issuing new B1-B2 visitor visas in India in September this year.