Hi I am kalingan
Recently laws have changed.
If you fail to get a waiver before 3 years you can not change your visa to any other visa. Getting a waiver is of vital importance for you to change it to H1 or F1 or even a tourist visa.
J1 visa can not be extended more than 3 years. Exceptionally another 6 months may be granted. Further to that you will have to change it to H1 visa. In the mean while you have to work towards getting a J1 waiver from USDOS.
To get a H1 visa some body should offer you a job which is very difficult to find for international students.
To get a F1 visa, First you should enroll in a state funded university for any degree program for which you will have to write a TOEFL exam, GRE or GMAT exam. If you get good scores they will accept you , provided you show them sufficient funding for 2 years.... say.....(35000$/ 2 years) Without this document you will not be given an admission letter and an I-20. Private universities will give admission and as well as an I-20 if you show them the money. Private universities will not ask for TOEFL or GMAT Scores but they will be lot more expensive.
After you get an I-20 the university international admission will guide you to wards the transformation of visa process. it will take 3 to 4 months for INS to transfer your J1 visa to F1 visa.
You can not work off campus while you are on J1 visa and F1 visa. At the same time if you are working in a hotel as a supervisor, INS will not blindly offer you a H1 VISA for you to work in a Hotel. Only certain categories of Professions are given H1 visas.you have to qualify under that classification to get a H1 visa. Say....... for an example...... a Nurse can get a H1 visa but not a school teacher or sociologist working in a community center.
Be careful before you choose to join a major in a school.
Kalingan