AU DV-2025/2026 questions

[solomani]

Hi all,

My family and I won the DV25 green card lottery, and we will emigrate to the USA next year. However, my daughter just missed the cutoff by a month or two due to aging out (over 21 and 6 months at the time a visa became available).

We plan to petition for her to join us, but this is an 8-10 year process. Until then, we are looking at alternatives, such as her applying for the visa lottery.

She left school at year 10, got a Cert III, and became a legal secretary. However, the minimum requirement for a DV is a high school certificate (so year 12/HSC). The US Gov is quite specific about this – it can't be a vocational cert (for example, even though a cert IV is equivalent to year 12 here by TAFE standards, it's not academic). It can't be an equivalency cert IV (for example, you can't take Cert IV Legal Studies and qualify as that only qualifies you to enter university for specific related courses – ie, law).

They want a generic HSC as the question they will ask is – will this get you into university at a universal level (ie, depending on your ATAR, you could apply for any course at any uni). Which means she has to do a Cert IV Tertiary Prep course at TAFE.

This is my understanding, and I wondered if any other Australians had a similar circumstance and what happened with your application – did the consular officer accept a generic cert IV or only the HSC equivalent cert IV?

It may seem pedantic, but the time and cost difference between the Tertiary Prep course and the more generic courses is upwards of 50%. I am willing to foot the bill, but also don't want to waste money and find out it didn't meet the bar.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SusieQQQ]

Ok not Australian, but the requirement is 12 years of formal high school. Will this certificate meet that requirement? (Also, this is a lottery, so spending a significant amount of money in the hope that you get selected, even though AU has higher than average chances, seems questionable.)

Start the process for your daughter as soon as you activate your visa (you don’t have to wait until you emigrate permanently, if these two are not the same date).

There are some other options for shorter stays or work visas for Australians but I think things like the E3 (a friend of mine did this) need a degree. (Is she planning to get one anyway regardless of lottery factors?) Not sure if she would want to or qualify for some of the J visa exchange jobs but that’s also an avenue to explore.

Good luck.

 

[solomani]

Thank you, we have checked the other paths, as of today, the only way forward is petition (we will do this either way), DV or student. DV is a crap shoot, but its a crap shoot that may pay dividends - even if it takes 5 years it would still be faster than the petition.

 

[SusieQQQ]

Thank you, we have checked the other paths, as of today, the only way forward is petition (we will do this either way), DV or student. DV is a crap shoot, but its a crap shoot that may pay dividends - even if it takes 5 years it would still be faster than the petition.

To repeat an earlier question: does the “Cert IV Tertiary Prep course at TAFE“ count towards12 years of formal (primary and secondary) school education? Or is it something like the US GED, which is accepted by all US universities for entrance but is seen as an equivalence certificate by USCIS/DOS because it does not count as 12 years of formal schooling? In other words, would she actually go back to high school to complete this or is it done through some kind of adult education medium?

 

[Britsimon]

Cert III doesn't meet the standard required - it is equivalent to O levels in the UK system. She would have needed two further years of secondary education.

Working as a legal secretary also doesn't meet the requirement for DV - so she would need to uplevel her role, perhaps toward mangerial, and then get 2 years of experience at that level.

Also, DV isn't quite a plan - although the OC rate of selection is so high that it is almost that good.