Criteria for Recommendation Letters for EB1-OR

I

ixora78

Registered Users (C)
I plan to file for the EB1-OR category.
I am in the process of collecting recommendation letters.
I have some questions in the criteria for the people who will write the recommendation letters.

Since I have been working in industries for about 3 years now, is it better to get people from both industries and universities to write? My initial plan is to get 5 from professors in universities (IEEE Fellow and from well-known univerties worldwide) and another 3 from industries (Vice-President/Directors of leading companies).

Or is it better to get all letters from universities?

Also, is if better to get universities throughout the world or only universities in US?

PLease advice. Thank yoU!
 
Good luck

ixora78 said:
I plan to file for the EB1-OR category.
I am in the process of collecting recommendation letters.
I have some questions in the criteria for the people who will write the recommendation letters.

Since I have been working in industries for about 3 years now, is it better to get people from both industries and universities to write? My initial plan is to get 5 from professors in universities (IEEE Fellow and from well-known univerties worldwide) and another 3 from industries (Vice-President/Directors of leading companies).
Letters from both industry and University experts is better. Make sure that the person from whom you get letters is an expert in the field and not just a director.

Or is it better to get all letters from universities?

Also, is if better to get universities throughout the world or only universities in US?
Throughout the world..(remember..international recognition is very important here) both from your collaborators, persons who cited your work as well as those who work in your field with whom you have not collaborated.

PLease advice. Thank yoU!
Click to expand...

Good luck!
 
letters from good mix of independent industrial and university experts generally gives good impression about your case!
all the best!
 
eb1doc said:
letters from good mix of independent industrial and university experts generally gives good impression about your case!
all the best!
Click to expand...

Can I know how many recommendation letters you submitted? How long each letter has to be? I am currently preparing 3 letters already, 1 of the letters is around 8 pages, is it too long? The other 2 are about 5-6 pages. Do you think this is the right format?

Thanks!
 
ixora78,
I submitted 12 letters from a mix of technical experts in the industry & university professors (8 from the US, 1 from Canada, 2 from UK, 1 from Japan) for both EB1-EA and EB2-NIW (identical letters). Length of all letters were between 2-3 pages. Most of the reference letters were written by the referees themselves (I only supplied my CV and a template provided by my lawyer), and interestingly the content of the letters were not repetitive. Perhaps my choice of candidates has resulted in different individuals discussing different aspects of my qualifications. Out of the 12 letters, 10 were independent, 1 from PhD advisor, 1 from former colleague who is now a department head.
Since you will be enclosing your CV with your petition, it is very important the letters do not sound generic or similar in content. My attorney polished the letters (performed very minor editing) before they were finalized.
At least 6 to 7 letters are needed, and 9 was the number recommended by my attorney. All 12 people I contacted agreed to write letters and the attorney included all of them in the petition.
 
2006gc said:
ixora78,
I submitted 12 letters from a mix of technical experts in the industry & university professors (8 from the US, 1 from Canada, 2 from UK, 1 from Japan) for both EB1-EA and EB2-NIW (identical letters). Length of all letters were between 2-3 pages. Most of the reference letters were written by the referees themselves (I only supplied my CV and a template provided by my lawyer), and interestingly the content of the letters were not repetitive. Perhaps my choice of candidates has resulted in different individuals discussing different aspects of my qualifications. Out of the 12 letters, 10 were independent, 1 from PhD advisor, 1 from former colleague who is now a department head.
Since you will be enclosing your CV with your petition, it is very important the letters do not sound generic or similar in content. My attorney polished the letters (performed very minor editing) before they were finalized.
At least 6 to 7 letters are needed, and 9 was the number recommended by my attorney. All 12 people I contacted agreed to write letters and the attorney included all of them in the petition.
Click to expand...

For my case, I plan to include 8 or 9 letters (4 or 5 from US, 2 from UK, 1 from Korea, 1 from Sweden). However, most of these letters (except 1!!) will be written by myself since most of the people I contact, they are too busy to write. How is you status right now? Have your I-140 being approved?
 
2006gc said:
ixora78,
I submitted 12 letters from a mix of technical experts in the industry & university professors (8 from the US, 1 from Canada, 2 from UK, 1 from Japan) for both EB1-EA and EB2-NIW (identical letters). Length of all letters were between 2-3 pages. Most of the reference letters were written by the referees themselves (I only supplied my CV and a template provided by my lawyer), and interestingly the content of the letters were not repetitive. Perhaps my choice of candidates has resulted in different individuals discussing different aspects of my qualifications. Out of the 12 letters, 10 were independent, 1 from PhD advisor, 1 from former colleague who is now a department head.
Since you will be enclosing your CV with your petition, it is very important the letters do not sound generic or similar in content. My attorney polished the letters (performed very minor editing) before they were finalized.
At least 6 to 7 letters are needed, and 9 was the number recommended by my attorney. All 12 people I contacted agreed to write letters and the attorney included all of them in the petition.
Click to expand...

By the way, you mentioned that you used the same letters for both EB1-EA and EB2-NIW. Did you change the contents at all??
 
Both my I-140 (EB1-EA) & I-485 have been approved. See my post on 05/23/2006 and my signature below. If you are going to write the letters yourself, please take extra care so that the letters are not similar. In my case, all referees wrote letters themselves although I offerred to write one for them. All of them know the drill and had indicated to me that they have written many such letters before. This simplifies the work at my end. My attorney only polished the letters (changing the header and the last paragraph) before finalizing the letters, and my referees sent the letters directly to my attorney's office.
When I made a request to my references, I asked them to write letters for the extraordinary ability category. A few, had in their letters, mentioned the buzz words needed for the NIW petitions - national in scope, intrinsic merit of national interest etc. So the attorney adviced me to file another NIW petition, and he charged me $200 for his para-legal's time to draft the cover letter for this second I-140 petition.
The NIW petition is still pending but its outcome has no effect as I already received emails that a new card has been ordered for me and my wife.
Good luck.

-------
I-140 (EB2-NIW)/I-485(concurrent filing)
I-140 (EB1-EA)
ND: 01/27/2006 for all petitions (VSC)
I-140 (EB1-EA): Transferred to NSC on 05/05, AD: 05/23/2006
I-140 (EB2-NIW): Transferred to TSC on 04/24, LUD: 05/11
I-485: LUD: 03/11 (not transferred to TSC), AD: 05/23/2006, new card ordered email on 05/24/2006.
 
By the way, my attorney advised me to link I-485 to I-140 NIW petition since I am from non-retro country (and therefore PD is current for both EB1 and EB2) and his former clients have received NIW approvals from VSC within only a few months (much quicker than EB1-EA category which typically take about 9 months for approval). He had also indicated that if EB1-EA is approved first, we can always request interfiling.
 
Thank you so much for your information.
I am planning to file both EB1-OR and EB2-NIW.
My lawyer charged me extra $1000 for 2 categories...

I saw from some posts that only photocopies of reference letters need to be sent in during the filing. So, I will use the same letters for the both categories.

Recently, I saw that the EB1 categories will be eligible for premium processing. So, I wonder if this is the case, would it be make sense to just file EB1-OR and wait until the acknowledgment of the results prior to EB1-NIW filing? Since if I am luckly enough that my EB1-OR is being approved, I don't even need to worry about the NIW anymore? Please advice.

Also, I notice that my lawyer is extremely slow in responding to me emails and polishing my letters. How about your lawyer?
 
Recently, I saw that the EB1 categories will be eligible for premium processing. So, I wonder if this is the case, would it be make sense to just file EB1-OR and wait until the acknowledgment of the results prior to EB1-NIW filing? Since if I am luckly enough that my EB1-OR is being approved, I don't even need to worry about the NIW anymore? Please advice.

thats good ! just relax don't bother avt NIW we all did that !
 
Yes, that makes sense. Also, nowadays I-140 processing is getting faster. Go ahead and submit I-140 now, and who knows you may even get an approval even before premium processing start date! A number of people who submitted their I-140 petitions in March etc. already got their approvals.
 
2006gc said:
I-140 (EB1-EA): Transferred to NSC on 05/05, AD: 05/23/2006
I-140 (EB2-NIW): Transferred to TSC on 04/24, LUD: 05/11
I-485: LUD: 03/11 (not transferred to TSC), AD: 05/23/2006, new card ordered email on 05/24/2006.
Click to expand...

Intersting... I did concurrent filing in March, and got concurrent approval on 5/24/06. On the following day, they sent me another email that they ordered a couple of new cards for me and my wife. Congratulations! How exciting!

jf
 
140 approvals are fast

2006gc said:
Yes, that makes sense. Also, nowadays I-140 processing is getting faster. Go ahead and submit I-140 now, and who knows you may even get an approval even before premium processing start date! A number of people who submitted their I-140 petitions in March etc. already got their approvals.
Click to expand...

I filed my I-140 (EB1-OR) at TSC, ND 29th March 2006. My petitioned was approved on 9th May 2006. waiting to file I-485 (Retro/India). I did file I-140 myself.
 
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