Interview Experience
NYC
I arrived 40 minutes before my appointment at 11:15 am, and I'm glad I did! It took me a solid 10 minutes to go around the federal building to find the correct visitor entrance (it is the one on Broadway - despite the interview letter saying it's on Lafayette St). I took the elevator to the 7th floor and entered room 700, a huge waiting room with booths for check-in and two doors on each end of the room opening to the interview suites. I was told to wait until 10:50 am to get in line for the check-in with the photo and fingerprints, which took another 10 minutes for some reason. Then I got seated near the entrance to the interview suites and waited until 11:20 before I got called into the suites by the IO, who was a friendly lady.
I entered her office and we started with the oath. I am so dumb. I thought we were repeating the oath after the IO. I attempted to say it back before she interrupted me to simply answer yes or no. Awkward moment
but luckily she laughed it off.
Then she took my passport and we went through the I-485. The whole interview was just the I-485. She wanted to see if my answers matched with what I had put on the form.
You need to really study your I-485 before going in for the interview - there were some answers that I couldn't remember off the top of my head (like my old addresses and the clubs I joined in college) but it was no issue. We then went through the yes/no part. At one point, my brain mistakenly registered half of her sentence as the end and I said "no" before she even finished reading the question. So embarrassing... but she found that hilarious.
Out of everything I brought as part of my AOS package, she just asked for copies of my bachelor's diplomas. I gave her the originals anyway.
Throughout the interview, she made some small talk about my hometown and my birthday plans (my birthday is tomorrow and she celebrated it earlier)! At the end, she told me that my green card would arrive in 3-4 weeks. Of course, I asked her to confirm I was approved - she said yes, and congratulated me. At one point, she even talked about citizenship along the lines of "if you become a citizen one day - if you want to" etc. but I don't remember the context anymore lol.
The interview lasted 20 mins and she wished me a happy birthday again as I was leaving the suites. Everyone was lovely at the FO, which I didn't expect!
As of now, I have received the "card is being produced" update and am waiting to receive my welcome letter and green card. Fingers crossed that everything from here goes fine. Extremely grateful to have met so many people in the forum during the AOS process; you reminded me that I was not alone in this. I hope you all get the fantastic news you deserve soon. I plan to tag along to continue hearing your updates and helping as much as I can.
It's still so unbelievable to me that I completed the entire application process without a lawyer. All thanks to this forum and
@Sm1smom for the stellar AOS spreadsheet and guidance!