H1B rejection rate grows from 6% to 21%

Thanks!

P.S. I am not an immigration attorney but I think you will still be subject to the lottery caps if you reapply for H1B after changing your status to F1 (please correct me if I am off here). At the same time you should have another 2 cycles for an H1B or does it not work that way?

I think that myself. That is why I asked souvik may be he has seen a case like that.


I am not too sure what you mean by cycles here. What I know is: once you exhaust your 6 years then you have to go back to your base country (or may be anywhere else) for one year at least before applying for an H1B again.

Do not quote me on this but people who transferred their H1 to F1 status do not need to go for the lottery again. The employer, if agrees to sponsor, will take care of the F1 to H1 transfer again and you should be good to go!

So when you say employer you mean future prospective employer and not my current one. Right?

And I get that it is not something we are certain but something that we know.

Hm... I am learning a lot here about H1B's. Found the same:


That kind of stinks for those who have used part of the 6-year H1B Status. What is the options you have then NightKing? You may have a few years on STEM OPT then another 3 years let's say on H1B. Can you apply for Green card in that time span?

Either one! Whichever you choose to get a job at and whichever agrees to sponsor.

Yes. The caveat here is that most people get a green card application thrown in within these 6 years of H1B and once you get the application in, you can stay indefinitely as far as I know. The issue here though is that your stay is tied to your employment and you cannot do things that GC holders can - start a business etc.

I knew this exactly. So we are spot on here.

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So the people who usually do Masters (specially STEM) goes through the usual process of Studies + 3 years OPT + Get H1B during those 3 years + Find an employer who files for your GC in those 6 years.

Now my case is different. I have an H1B already. So If I do masters (STEM) then If I am CAP exempt (not lottery) then I can directly find an employer who can file a GC for me because I already have an H1B? or may be I will have to go through the above process like a normal candidate?

If I go through the exempt route then I feel I am at a disadvantage because I only have 3 years for my GC to get approved? God knows!

This is just too much information.

Are you sure you can do this just because your application is in? or you can do this once your I-140 is approved and then you can keep renewing it until you get your physical GC? (it will probably happen after you are dead lol )

I have the exact same question and unfortunately the internet doesn't have a solid answer for us. All I know is that I have seen a bunch of b-school students(current and alumni) that have gone down the same path(F1 for MSc.->H1b->B-school F-1->a job after b-school).One thing that I did notice in their profiles was that many of them got post MBA jobs in the same industry as their pre MBA(Tech in the cases I noticed) and I am not sure if that was just a coincidence or not.

I would love to hear more about this from b-school students or alumni that could shed some light on this.

I do not think you need to go through the lottery process again. You do need to find an employer who will sponsor your H1B/GC application (transfer in this case of H1)

It is always easier to find a job in the same industry that you started out at. it could be the target industry for those folks or just a fall back. Note that people do switch jobs quite a bit - I changed mine within 6 months since I took the first decent offer and then once I got established, I got another offer 6 months later... which I rejected thinking it was not honest or fair to my employer who just secured my H1B. Then the other offer got bumped and it became clear that my consciousness was for sale (just kidding, as a part of the deal, my new employer has offered to reimburse the H1B costs to my old one but they were pissed with me leaving and made the whole thing a drama). Anyway, just some reality there....

Why are you asking about working in the same industry? You have concerns about finding employment and changing industries or is it H1B related (old H1B tied to the industry)?

I am concerned about my old H1b being tied to an industry and if RFEs or ineligibility would be a possibility if I am switching industries post MBA.(eg- I am wondering If a pre MBA H1b which was approved for a core engineering job would cause any issues/RFEs if I land a post MBA finance/consulting job). I don't want a post MBA job in the core engineering industry that I am currently in.

Did the job switch workout for you visa wise? Also, were the 2 jobs vastly different(industry,function and/or designation wise) ?

souvik101990

Yeah. That means I am burning my years right now that I could potentially use post MBA.

Not sure but is it advantageous to already have an H1B? I am not very sure.

Also, I have a friend, who was on H1B here. Secured his masters admit from ASU and went for F1 interview in Mumbai. but his F1 was rejected by the officer with the category he doesn't have intention to come back to India. I mean, why would he and who are we kidding . Jokes apart, may be it is harder to get F1 when you already have an H1B. It won't make much sense to the officer.

Got ya. I think it would be reasonable to conclude that if you were for example an engineer and after MBA you are trying to be a consultant or PM, then it would be a logical transition. You have gone through training (MBA) and even OPT potentially. I don't think you would be limited to your field (based on my quick research) by H1B pre-MBA. it is a diff situation if you were an engineer and then wanted to be a PM for example (even that could be a possibility though).

Here is something I dug up: https://www.quora.com/Can-a-person-on-a ... eir-career

P.S. My situation and job2 was fairly similar to job1. My guess is that if a company sponsors you, the clerks filling out the transfer will likely try to minimize the disruption to their client and will attempt to make jobs sound similar even if they are not quite the same. So if one switches after an MBA to go from Consulting to PM role, the two could made look pretty similar... thinking about it - it is all about working on a computer, managing people, and getting the job done for pretty much any managerial role

projectcontrols

I know bb will share his thoughts but I will share mine too.

I see what you are saying here but I don't think it will make that much of an impact. Because you already did an MBA (a full time freaking course by investing so much) and your employer is filing the petition on your behalf so that itself proves that you have enough skills to earn that VISA. At the same time, under this administration, there is a 60% chance that you will get an RFE regardless of everything else. So the process isn't going to be smooth and there is a risk involved always when it comes to VISA (I know we all understand that). Also, once you have masters you are already at an advantage of getting an H1B in the first place (I hope you know about 65K + 20K Visas and also the sequence of algorithm picking up applications for the H1B).

All in all, I feel you will be fine and you would not face anything crazy just because you are switching industries.

Thanks for your thoughts on this, bb & TheNightKing.
I hear you guys and I expect the same in regards to a cross industry H1b transfer. I am sure a post MBA consulting or banking gig would fall under the category of a specialty occupation.

I will keep you guys posted in case I hear something different.