How to make a strong cover letter for EB1A RFE

[gc_er]

Dear Friends,

I am working on the RFE for my EB1A. SInce it only gives me 30 days to respond, I have to a make a very strong cover letter besides getting a few more letters (which will be very tough considering the short time).

I'd like to have your insights here,
1) how do you make a strong point for the part of Original Scientific Contributions of Major Significance? What I did in my initial petition was: explain my findings/achievements in projects I worked on, then use recommendation letters to further substantiate this point.

2) I claimed authorship of scholarly articles in professional publications, here I used reviewer's comments to show the significance of my work.

3) I also claimed published material in professional publications relating to my work in the field for which classification is sought, for this claim I used citations and evaluations from Faculty of 1000. I am not sure if I should emphasize this point since I do not have media report. Or should I combine this with my papers to make authorship part stronger?

4) I also claimed that I served as the judge of the work of others (requested by a journal to write review article, review manuscripts for several journals and serve on editorial board for one journal). I provided the email correspondence with editors who invited me to write a review paper, and emails inviting me to review manucripts and thank you emails after I finished the review. Maybe I should also request letters from editors stating the criteria of selecting reviewers and commenting my review work.

5) I used Sigma Xi Full membership, but according to some post in this forum, it may not be a good idea to claim as a major point, and better to use it after at least minimum criteria are satisfied. How do you think?

I am wondering what else I can do to make it look stronger.

PLease comment and I really appreciate your inputs!!!

Thanks a lot!!!!!

 

[Eclipse]

gc_er,

Generally speaking your strategies are good, but I suggest that you read some AAO decisions at http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-ext-templating/uscis/jspoverride/errFrameset.jsp
and also the adjudicator's manual available at uscis' website. Then you'll see many of your questions answered. For instance, what are the adjudicators looking for for "major contributions (quite specific in the adjudicator's manual)." Also, numerous AAO decisions have discounted sigma-Xi.

I learned these things from ioananv, who and whose husband have dug really deep. I replied to one of my previous posts to raise it to the beginning of the threads, you can read that one to get some information. Try to look up ioananv's posts as well. Remember, as a scientist your strong point is in looking up information and doing your own analysis. Clearly what makes sense is to find out what the immigration officials are looking for and try to satisfy them.

Don't panic just do a good job and things will come together for you.

Best of luck

 

[gc_er]

Eclipse,

I just read your posts on the case study of EB1A RFE, they are very informative. Yes, I will read the AAO decisions you recommended and get more sense on how to respond to the RFE.

Thanks a lot!

gc_er,

Generally speaking your strategies are good, but I suggest that you read some AAO decisions at http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-ext-templating/uscis/jspoverride/errFrameset.jsp
and also the adjudicator's manual available at uscis' website. Then you'll see many of your questions answered. For instance, what are the adjudicators looking for for "major contributions (quite specific in the adjudicator's manual)." Also, numerous AAO decisions have discounted sigma-Xi.

I learned these things from ioananv, who and whose husband have dug really deep. I replied to one of my previous posts to raise it to the beginning of the threads, you can read that one to get some information. Try to look up ioananv's posts as well. Remember, as a scientist your strong point is in looking up information and doing your own analysis. Clearly what makes sense is to find out what the immigration officials are looking for and try to satisfy them.

Don't panic just do a good job and things will come together for you.

Best of luck

 

[oneforjule]

4) I also claimed that I served as the judge of the work of others (requested by a journal to write review article, review manuscripts for several journals and serve on editorial board for one journal). I provided the email correspondence with editors who invited me to write a review paper, and emails inviting me to review manucripts and thank you emails after I finished the review. Maybe I should also request letters from editors stating the criteria of selecting reviewers and commenting my review work.

In my case the letter from editors apparently worked. Emails are not as good as letters for some people.

 

[gc_er]

I guess you mean the letter from editors exclusively stating the qualifications as reviewer and commenting your review work, not the recommendation letter, right?

Because I had a recommendation letter from an Editor-in-chief, where he mentioned that he invited me to review mansucripts for his journal.

Thanks!

In my case the letter from editors apparently worked. Emails are not as good as letters for some people.

 

[oneforjule]

I guess you mean the letter from editors exclusively stating the qualifications as reviewer and commenting your review work, not the recommendation letter, right?

Because I had a recommendation letter from an Editor-in-chief, where he mentioned that he invited me to review mansucripts for his journal.

Thanks!

A letter from the editor purely on the matter of reviewing. With information such as why you were invited to review the paper and how you did a fine job reviewing it, on top of that, what is the impact and reputation of the journal. My feeling is that the petition letter should be as objective as possible. Avoid using words overly enthusiastic.