How it went
I’ll share how our interview went — 30.08, Warsaw. We were scheduled for 9:00 and arrived at 8:15. There was already a large line, but because of the child we were let ahead immediately. In the end our ticket was number 3. I won’t go into the documents — everything was standard. The only thing: they didn’t ask for the academic diploma. Strictly what is listed on the official website. The queue moves according to the tickets. So we went to the consul third.
By my estimate, from the moment we entered until the actual interview we waited 1.5 hours. When we were called, the first question was — which language do you prefer to speak, Russian or English (I chose English). And after we assured her we’d speak the truth, the consul suggested the children and my husband go sit on the little chairs.
Questions for me:
- Tell us about your research area, what is the national and international recognition.
- Tell us which academic degrees you have and in which years you obtained them.
- What are your plans in the USA? Where will you work and do you know specific scientists, what their departments are called and what they research (when I named them and added that they were interested in my work and that I have a corresponding letter, the consul asked me to give her that letter and she read it carefully).
- How much money do you have, when do you plan to move, will you buy a home immediately or rent.
- Are you an expert in scientific organizations.
- Have you attended conferences.
- Why is your work useful in the USA? How is it beneficial to people in the USA.
- Do you have your CV with you, do you have your publications with you (I gave the CV; regarding publications — I had printouts of the main works, only those indexed in databases, but I didn’t print the full articles, only the first pages where the abstract is. All articles are in English. About 20 of them, strictly matching the list in the CV). She also studied all of this carefully.
- What does your husband do and what will he do in the USA? She immediately waved him over and asked him exactly the same questions + what his education is. She asked him in Russian, since I told her he is only learning the language and preferred Russian.
She then said to come in October to have the visas stamped, because they had run out on 27.08.
Author of the story
Egor Akimov (@e_akimov), from the chat @talentvisahelp. Original message in the chat.
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