DrPak
Forum Elite
Topics: 49
Posts: 348
|
My visa interview was scheduled for the 20th of February 2007 at 7:45 am at the US Embassy in Islamabad. I had asked several friends of mine what to expect on the day of the interview so I was fairly well prepared for the day.
In order to get to the US Embassy, you must first go to the Diplomatic Enclave bus stop. This is situated right next to the convention center on Constitution Avenue. The convention center is a very well-known landmark and any taxi driver in the city will be able to take you there. Remember, you’re not going to the convention center, but to an area right next to it. I left the house at 5:30 am (yes, AM!). It was still dark outside and freezing as hell. I got to the bus stop by 5:50 am. The first thing you should do is deposits your mobile phone or any bags you have. There is a booth there where you can deposit your phone for some 10 or 20 rupees (I forget how much now). They’ll give you a token and at the end of the day you come back to this booth and pick your phone back up. I didn’t have a bag, just a couple of files with all my documents inside it. I’d advise you not to bring a bag, because it’ll just be a hassle having to check it in. The booth for checking your bag is different from the one you need to check your phone. You have to stand in separate lines for each, so if you want no hassle at all, don’t bring either a phone or bag. By the way, a briefcase also counts as a bag which you’ll have to check in. The only things you can carry inside with you are files, preferably transparent files. I had two transparent files and a blue leather folder.
After depositing the phone (and/or bag) you must stand in line for a bus ticket to the embassy. You stand in front of what looks like a toll-plaza checkpoint and you wait. (This is very close to the bag/phone check-in place, so you don’t need to look far.) I made the mistake of standing in the wrong line at the beginning. I was standing in an enormously long line (easily more than 150 people) for about 5 minutes when a security guard came up and asked me where I’m headed. I said the US Embassy. He told me to go to the line adjacent. He must have guess I wanted the US Embassy from the suit I was wearing. The line I was standing in was for people who were going to the Indian embassy. Most of them looked like they were laborers. I was really surprised there were so many people interested in going to India! There was also another line for people going to the UK, but there were never more than a dozen people at that line. I got into the US line at around 6:00 am, after depositing my phone, and there were 20 people in front of me. The bus-ticket booth had not yet opened, so all of us 20 people were waiting in line. The booth opened at 7:00am, and by that time, there were another 70 or so people behind me. I guess it pays to go early because you get to be amongst the first ones processed and your interview time will also come sooner. The booth opened at 7 am and the first 50 of us got our tickets.When you buy your ticket, you have to show them your passport and your visa application. After you get a ticket, you walk over a little to another area where you have to stand in line to get checked by security before you can stand in yet another line to get on the bus. The security check is not invasive or inconvenient. It takes 1-2 minutes and you’re done. After being checked, we all stood in an orderly line and waited for the bus. Note that the bus ticket you get is a return ticket, so they’ll rip one stub of it and hand you the rest. Keep the ticket, don’t throw it away, you’ll need the rest of it for the return journey. Buses come to the bus stop every 10-15 minutes, so there’s no question of you missing the bus.
The bus that goes to the US Embassy also goes to the French embassy, so if you hear the conductor ask if anyone is going to the French embassy, don’t be alarmed… it’s a part of the bus’s route. The slow moving bus takes about 10 minutes to get to the US Embassy. The conductor will announce it, and you’ll all get up and out of the bus. The bus stops across the road from the US Embassy and here you’ll be asked to join one of two lines, the people going for their emigrant visa and those going for the non-immigrant visa (i.e., the B1/B2/F1). There aren’t any signs or booths here under which you can stand. There is no proper platform. You’ll just be asked to form a line over the turf next to the road. If it has rained heavily before, you’ll be standing in mud. The guard will simply say: all non-immigrant visa people stand in a line to this side, all immigrant visa people, stand in a line over to this side.
The guard will let one person at a time go forward from the line. You have to show the guard your passport and visa application and he’ll let you cross the narrow street and approach an open air security checkpoint in the embassy. Again, the security is convenient and easy and you’ll be done in a minute. Then you go forward to join another line adjacent to the security checkpoint you just entered where, again, applicants are let in one at a time. The guard manning the checkpoint sees your passport, and folds up your application inside it so it can be easily accessed when it’s time to present it inside. He lets one person in at a time. You you’re let inside, you put your stuff through an airport-like X-ray machine and your let inside the embassy. The person there asks you if you would prefer to have your interview in English or Urdu (I said English as I’m more comfortable with that).
Now that you’re inside you go to the Waiting Room. I believe there is a sign on the door that says Waiting Room… I’m not sure now. In any case, once inside the waiting room, you stand in another line where you finally present your passport and visa application to a consular official. Here you meet your first American in the whole process. As you give them the passport and visa application, you’ll be asked to put your fingers on an electronic scanner so they can get your fingerprints off them. The person will keep your passport and application and ask you to sit down and wait till they call you.
The sooner you get to this stage of submitting the passport and visa application, the sooner they’ll call you. So get to the bus stop early in the morning so you can be early in the line, this way you’ll be early on the bus, which means you’ll get early into the embassy, which means you’ll submit your passport and visa application early which means they’ll call you early. There is no benefit to going early if you don’t mind waiting a long time for your turn and you can’t be bothered to come early in the morning. I guess it depends on individual preferences.
3 of the 4 walls of the waiting room have booths. The booths are a lot like the cash teller’s booths in a bank. A consular person sits on the other side and you can talk to them over a telephone they have by the side. Any documents you need to give to the person can be pushed through the slot they have underneath the window. There are 12 booths in all, and your name will be called to one of them loudly and clearly over the public speaking system they have. (i.e. “John Smith please come to booth 10”). I have to say, my name was so badly mispronounced that I almost didn’t recognize it, so do watch out for that in case happens to you. It took me a second or two to realize the lady was speaking my name. Note that the interviews do not take place in a private room. They are conducted opposite to these booths inside of the waiting room. Oftentimes, those of us waiting could clearly hear what as being said during an interview if the person had a loud voice.
Have all your documents in place for the interview. Know where everything is so you’re not fumbling around when standing in front of the interviewer. Remember that you’ll be holding a phone in one hand and will only have one hand to give the documents over to the interview. My turn came after 30 minutes of waiting, at around 8:45 am. The interview lasted about 7-8 minutes. I had taken EVERYTHING I could think would be relevant. The lady who interviewed me was nice and started the interview with a great smile. She asked me a lot of questions: Why do you want to go to the US? What are your plans after that? What do you do now? Did you work before? Who is going to support your trip? What does your Dad do? Where is he working? I was also preemptive a lot of the times and showed her things myself. I showed her a book I had written and she took it to her side of the booth and looked at it. I had summarized my parent’s financial assets myself in a table I printed out (I wrote the Rupee and corresponding dollar value of everything), I showed that to her myself without her asking about my assets. I told her I had documents to prove all the assets I had listed down, but she waved her hand and said it wasn’t necessary. I had a letter from the university where my dad teaches attesting to the fact that he teaches there, I showed that to her myself, without her asking. I also had a letter from my brother’s company in the US attesting that he works there I showed that to her too. She saw my medical college transcripts (I was surprised, I brought them along but didn’t think anyone would ask for them. I almost left them at home) She also looked at my at Step 2 CK orange card, my Step 2 CS ‘orange card’ (which is no longer orange as you get the permit online), and the confirmation letter of the date and place of my Step 2 CS exam (in Los Angeles) as well as the confirmation of the date of my Step 2 CK exam at prometric in islamabad. I had stapled a lot of similar documents together (e.g., Step 1 score+ CK permit + CS permit + CS confirmation of date and place were all stapled together) so it made for easy perusing. The visa support letter that ECFMG sends you with the CS exam was stapled into the application also.
Then she typed a lot on her computer and in the end said “Well, everything looks okay at my end” and proceeded to give me the token to collect my passport and visa from the American Express. She told me I’ll get the passport back in 2 weeks. I asked her what kind of visa she was giving me and she said it was a 5-year multiple. She gave me the token, and I asked if I was done. She smiled and said I was done, and I thanked her and walked out at 9:00am. I walked out of the embassy, crossed the road and waited for the bus back to the diplomatic enclave bus-stop. I took a taxi from there back home, I was home by 9:30am.
On another note (and I don’t know how much this helped) but I was very very anal about all my documents. I had all my documents in place 10 days before the interview. I was also very well dressed. I went in looking and acting like a professional. Maybe this helped and maybe it didn’t, only God knows. However, I was determined that there would be no cause from my side for the visa to get rejected. I had everything in place at the right time, I dressed right for the interview and conducted myself confidently. Over and above that, it’s all God’s will, whether you get it or not, so I suggest everyone do what they can for the interview and leave the rest to God. That is the approach I took and although I was a little bit nervous about the whole thing, I was a lot calmer than some other people I saw there.
|
| DrgDrg
Forum Newbie
Topics: 0
Posts: 3
|
Congratulations Dr. Pak! Your Amercian visa-interview story was great! You seem to be a really well prepared person, very descriptive at writing, and most importantly, very well educated.
I havent even taken the Step 1. I live in mexico, and I alreday have a visa, I have had one almost all my life, but Im barely in 6th sem of med school. Im just starting to get preped for Step 1. I think im gonah present in about one year and a half. I want to have all the preparation I can. I want to get atleast in the 90s, since im an IMG and want to get matched in a General Surgery Residenship (which from what I have heard is quite hard for IMGs to get). I know 2 American Plastic Surgeons, my half-uncle is a Dr in New York, and I have a cousin thats a nurse with a masters degree (plus she works in the administrative part of a hospital). Im not trying to "buy" myself a residenship, I just think I need some extra help since Im a Mexican medicine student. I obviously WILL get a good score to it. I also speak fluent english. The only problem is that I havent studied any medicine in english (thank God medicine is almost exactly the same everywhere). So do you think I have a good chance of getting a GS residency with all of that, plus a 90 (2 digit score) in both Step 1 and 2?
Well, I guess I got a little side-tracked with what was the purpose of this message. Let me get back to it by saying once again...
Congratulations on you being "1 step" closer to your proffesional dream! Best of luck to you Dr. Pak!
Take care, and God bless you!
DrgDrg
|
| amirhossein
Forum Guru
Topics: 57
Posts: 859
|
Nice story from Pakistan.
Congratz!
___________________
All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope
|
|
| |
| | | |
