With thousands of Indian students applying for their student visas (F-1 visa), the United States embassy has said that interview slots will be available soon.
Though the exact date of when the next tranche of interview slots will be released in unknown, students should check the website “once or twice per day for this upcoming appointment release,” a US Embassy official told The Times of India.
“We cannot give out a specific date, but the next large batch of appointments will be released in the coming weeks,” the US Embassy official said.
“We have already released tens of thousands of appointments and we have tens of thousands of additional appointments for July and August that will be released soon,” the official added.
Indians have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of US visas for years – including student visas, H-1B visas, and tourist visas.
One out of every five student visas issued by the United States in 2022 was for Indians, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti said, underscoring the efforts taken by the US consulates in India to cut visa wait times.
The agreement extends to six major countries falling under the jurisdiction of the Italian Embassy in Dakar, namely Senegal, The Gambia, Cabo Verde, the Republic of Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Mali. The contract includes a comprehensive range of services, including the collection and processing of visa applications, as well as document legalisation.
The United States has been grappling with high wait times for most of its visas, with the wait time for a tourist visa reaching over 900 days post pandemic.”More Indians come to the United States as students than students from any other country. Last year, India became number 1 and I don’t see that changing ahead in the future. I see that relationship at the very top of how we articulate our values of welcoming not just Americans to higher education but to opening that door to people worldwide,” said the envoy.
Indian students comprise over 21 per cent of the total population of international students in the United States. During the 2021-2022 academic year, nearly 200,000 Indian students were studying in the United States.
