Profile Details:

University: Carnegie Mellon University
Course: MS in Information Security

First Attempt
Chennai Consulate
Date: July 2017
Status: Approved
Counter No: 26
 

Visa Interview Experience:
 

A long post though the interview lasted for hardly 45 sec!!
VO: A pretty lady in 30s maybe ( Doesn't matter at all)
Mood of the VO: Friendly and had approved the visa to a couple in front of me. (Does matter)
The weather: was slightly pleasant as it in the was morning. I reached the consulate by 7:15am.

VO: Sir please pass me your passport.
Me: Good morning ma'am. And promptly passed the passport.

VO: I need your i20 and sevis confirmation receipt.
Me: sure. Again passed the same as prompt as a bash shell!

VO: So you are going to Carnegie Mellon. Can you tell me which course?
Me: Just repeated exactly the same in the i20. (I'm going for MS with information security specialization)

Here are my 2 cents regarding this. I was really scared of this "information security" before going to the consulate and I never wanted any kind of delays due to some administrative processing. My i20 says computer and info systems security/info assurance. The wicked side of my brain thought if asked about the course, let me somehow drop the word security.
But my honest side overrode the wicked one and I blurted out the whole damn thing clearly and the VO very carefully verified this looking at the i20. I think things wouldn't have been smooth if I hadn't been truthful at that moment.

VO: So why Carnegie Mellon?
Me: Told the usual stuff like ranked top and picked up the names of two profs handling extraordinary courses. Told about the super flexible and challenging coursework.

VO: What about the funding?
Me: I have an educational loan sanctioned along with CMU Scholarship and parents are sponsoring the rest.

VO: What do your parents do?
Me: My dad is a professor in a government aided institution.

By this time, I think she was pretty much convinced and was typing a lot.

VO: Why MS now? (I think this was just to pass a few seconds before telling the golden words)
Me: starting saying the usual "I am passionate", "I am in love" etc etc.. She didn't seem listening but was nodding her head as if just to show she was listening and eagerly waiting for me to stop. ( while I was eagerly waiting for her to make me stop and utter the golden words!)
I just stopped realizing this and heard the VO saying
"Sir your visa is approved!" and something else which my over jubilant brain didn't let me hear and I literally ran out of the consulate.

Then something started bugging me I felt like she said the visa is approved but there was no confirmation whatsoever and I ran out like a stupid kid. I checked my whole file to see whether I can find my passport (If a reject or something the VO should give back the passport, right?)

The passport wasn't there and there were no slips (that 214 b or 221 g slips) which helped me breathe properly!

To have a further confirmation, today I saw the status on the site which states the passport has been received and is being processed for delivery. So Visa is approved.

I thank this group for being extremely helpful right from writing GRE till the visa process. I have never had the pain of paying hefty consultant fees.

PS: Profile in brief - 317, 111, 9.53 gpa cs, 3 years work experience at Cisco, 1 IEEE paper, lots of projects (1 being funded)

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