EB1a NSC self-petition RFE - Help

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EB1Aaspirant

New Member
Hello all,
This is a great forum for a lot of people.
I have self-petitioned for EB1a at NSC on June 28th 2010 and got an RFE dated July 20th. It was a surprise as my online status still says initial review.
My credentials:
Post-doc working on Diabetes/ Obesity at a very well respected lab
5 Publications, one as a co-author in #1 journal published recently
45 citations overall
One book published as a sole author, available online all around the world
Several news articles about my work,
Reviewer for two journals

I have claimed four different criteria in my petition
1. Original scholarly contributions, 2. Publications 3. Judge of others work 4. News/ media coverage.
Request For Evidence questions
1. The record contains several letters from your colleagues and mentors, as well as independent experts. While these letters praise your work, they do not constitute verifiable documentary evidence of contributions to the field. Please submit objective documentary evidence of the significance of your contributions to the field.
(I do not understand this question. The letters clearly point to my contributions by referring to my publications and other presentations. Is this a very general kind of query? I am planning to submit a list of my contributions and get more letters for this question and highlight my contributions in them. Is this enough? )
After this statement the next paragraph states the following.

2. The record contains evidence that you have authored peer reviewed articles and made several presentations at scientific conferences. The record also includes evidence that your work has been cited by other researchers on 45 occasions.

(That’s where the sentence ends. What does this mean? Are they satisfied by the evidence?)


3. Please submit any news/ trade journal articles relating to your work in the field.
(This query clearly tells me that the officer did not look at the application carefully at all. I have submitted around 10 news articles and three of them talk about my work clearly and mention my name at least 3 times each. How do I respond to this? Should I repeat what I said earlier and respectfully ask the officer to look at it again?)

4. Submit more evidence of being a judge of others work and clearly state the criteria.

(I will submit more evidence as a journal reviewer. I have also reviewed many articles for my boss. Should I mentions this and get another letter from him stating the same? Is it worth it?)

Last question:
When I respond to the query, should I include all the documentary evidence again with the letter or is it OK if I refer to my previous submission?

Thank you all a lot.

Waiting for some words of wisdom

Also, looking at the RFE what do you think my chances are?
 
Hi

The first guess I can make from this REf (especially from question number 2), is that the IO never recived your publications. Did you send copies with the application?
 
Hi,

I'm unclear about what they mean by "verifiable documentary evidence of contributions to the field" beyond your publications. As niwseek asks: were your publications submitted with your application? If you did, then the problem lies in your reference letters. Did your references talk about specific things in your work that have helped them or others materially in their research? Every letter praises the applicant, but they may have wanted to see more than praise-- i.e., actual material contributions to the scientific community. My letters clearly stated how aspects of my work have been used by the "bigshots", and that their research benefited greatly from it.

And about more evidence being a judge of others' work: I would suggest asking the editor-in-chief (or a ranking editor) of the journal(s) you reviewed for for a short letter, saying your assistance in reviewing articles has been invaluable, and that your reviews were excellent. (I had one letter like this in my application. Even though the editor-in-chief didn't know me personally, he wrote a nice short letter for me after I explained what it was for. They know all about GC applications, so they're mostly very helpful.)

Good luck!

Not a lawyer, etc. etc..
 
To niwseek

I did submit full copies of my publications as well as citations that highlight my work.

To tampaboy
I guess you are spot on. While I got recos from bigshots in the field who praised my work overall they did not emphasize on any particular aspect of the work except one letter from a CEO of a company, who said that my work helped them in going for clinical trials with their compound.

I have two questions regarding this.

Is it ok if I ask the same people to give me a modified letter? I also plan to get more letters from other people.

Do you think 2-3 letters emphasizing my work are enough?

Also,
what do you both think of my questions 2 and 3?

Thanks a lot.
 
For this, you have to be bold. You should explain to them clearly what the letter should say: namely, that you're an exceptional scientist, among the best, etc.; and that your work directly impacts their own and others. They have to be able to cite specific things. If you have good relationships with them, volunteer to rewrite their letters. You'd be surprised how happy they'd be to know they don't have to devote any more precious time on this. It won't hurt to remind them that this is only for the CIS eyes only, and no one else will see them (if you know what I mean).

Also, be careful to not dilute your set of letters with less than thoughtful letters. In this case, quality trumps quantity. I originally had 10 letters, but my lawyer convinced me to select the best 6. Be sure to only select big shots, and be careful to not include letters that may appear to be from friends (i.e., same nationality, age bracket, etc.). The goal of the reviewing officer is to find weaknesses in your application, and if you give them a run-of-the-mill letter from some mid-range scientist saying you have "potential", then that's an automatic RFE.

I would also just go back to all your references, if possible, and ask them to rewrite their letters to include specifics. Again, in your e-mail, you could perhaps write a sample paragraph for each, and tell them to include something like it in their letters. Chances are, they'll just copy and paste it to their original letters.

Regarding question 2: I also don't understand it myself. It seems whoever prepared your form RFE didn't really follow correct procedure. Who knows what it means. In your response to the RFE, of course, you ought to answer this "question" by just reiterating your credentials, and explaining to them that, indeed, you have those numbers of publications and citations.

Regarding question 3: same as question 2. Answer it by saying that you are enclosing 10 news articles, etc. etc.. It's really similar to responding to bad manuscript reviews-- pretend to answer their stupid questions cordially, even though the answers were already in the application to begin with.

Good luck!

(Not a lawyer, etc., etc..)
 
I have to agree with tampaboy, I also get a sense that IO was not satisfied with the contents of reco letters. Each referee should write a letter which specifically discusses one (or some) aspect of your contribution. In my case, lawyers drafted the letters in such a way that each letter has some emphasis on one aspect of my contribution and also matched the expertise of the referee.

Tampaboy is also right to suggest you draft the letters and forward them to referees. Most of the time, they are too busy.

6-8 well prepared letters should be enough and it should be OK to contact the old referees (that is a personal decision.)
 
Thank you very much tampaboy and mhush
I feel much more releived now as it looks very clea to me.

One more question,
When I send my response, do I send already send documents again or is it OK if I refer to them in the letter?

I want to make it as easy as possible for the IO to decide.
Thanks,
 
I've never had to send an RFE response, but I would think you should resubmit all documents, to make it easier for them to decide your case. I don't think it hurts to send everything again. (Ok, it hurts the environment, so make sure you offset it by doing something good ...)

This way, every document you need to refer to in your response letter is contained in the same packet.

Good luck!

(Not a lawyer, etc., etc..)
 
EB1Aaspirant said:
Hello all,
This is a great forum for a lot of people.
I have self-petitioned for EB1a at NSC on June 28th 2010 and got an RFE dated July 20th. It was a surprise as my online status still says initial review.
My credentials:
Post-doc working on Diabetes/ Obesity at a very well respected lab
5 Publications, one as a co-author in #1 journal published recently
45 citations overall
One book published as a sole author, available online all around the world
Several news articles about my work,
Reviewer for two journals

I have claimed four different criteria in my petition
1. Original scholarly contributions, 2. Publications 3. Judge of others work 4. News/ media coverage.
Request For Evidence questions
"1. The record contains several letters from your colleagues and mentors, as well as independent experts. While these letters praise your work, they do not constitute verifiable documentary evidence of contributions to the field. Please submit objective documentary evidence of the significance of your contributions to the field."

Ok what they are saying is that this is from your colleagues and not independent proof. Kinda retarded because they say independent experts. There also may be something wrong wit ur references. They may be unclear, or were too long so they did not bother reading it. While that may seem silly, it happens very often. When government/office workers have to read the same applications all day, if it is not clear or if it is long, they will just send it back and ask you to clarify so that they don't have to read the whole documents. Also realise they may have missed important parts of your document, so you should have highlighted the relevent material

(I do not understand this question. The letters clearly point to my contributions by referring to my publications and other presentations. Is this a very general kind of query? I am planning to submit a list of my contributions and get more letters for this question and highlight my contributions in them. Is this enough? )
After this statement the next paragraph states the following.

"2. The record contains evidence that you have authored peer reviewed articles and made several presentations at scientific conferences. The record also includes evidence that your work has been cited by other researchers on 45 occasions."
Seems they are satisfied by this

(That’s where the sentence ends. What does this mean? Are they satisfied by the evidence?)


"3. Please submit any news/ trade journal articles relating to your work in the field.
(This query clearly tells me that the officer did not look at the application carefully at all. I have submitted around 10 news articles and three of them talk about my work clearly and mention my name at least 3 times each."
Either the office never read it, it never made it to them, or it was unclear to them/never understood what they were reading. You have to understand that you might submit a journal but the officer has no clue what it is if you do not explain it
" How do I respond to this? Should I repeat what I said earlier and respectfully ask the officer to look at it again?)"
Resubmit and clarify

"4. Submit more evidence of being a judge of others work and clearly state the criteria."
I'm not so sure that a journal reviewer would count as a judge of the work of others from the uscis pov but I could see how it could more evidence is good

(I will submit more evidence as a journal reviewer. I have also reviewed many articles for my boss. Should I mentions this and get another letter from him stating the same? Is it worth it?)

Last question:
When I respond to the query, should I include all the documentary evidence again with the letter or is it OK if I refer to my previous submission?

Thank you all a lot.

Waiting for some words of wisdom

Also, looking at the RFE what do you think my chances are?
Click to expand...
good luck
 
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