Interview - Dec'05
I was naturalized yesterday at Newark. PD: end of April'05, FP: first week of July'05, Interview: Mid - Dec'05. Almost 8 months from start to finish.
Driving directions from AmyJar was quite helpful from 21N. Parked in the back of the building for $12 all day. Just as she mentioned, it was a really long freezing wait outside the building. My interview was at 9.30. I joined the long line (there was only one line) at 9 a.m. but wasn't let in until 9.45. Even though I thought I dressed warm, it just wasn't enough. It was really awfully cold. Don't have too much water/liquid to drink before you get there. Get the point?
It was a really long day for me. I was there from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. My interview experience is here:
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=198599
I just wanted to add a few comments specific to Newark D.O. I saw quite a few people were not approved. They were going back without waiting for the oath. I asked some of them why - they didn't converse well in English, documents not appropriate, possible name check etc., were the reasons. The whole day (both the morning and evening sessions of the interview) there were atleast 250 waiting to be interviewed. Out of them, possibly only about 120 were taking the oath, that's about 50% getting approved. I got the statistics from the oath officer, who was such a nice guy. Newark officers and clerks are friendly, nice people. The woman who was sitting next to me came in at 11.30 for her interview that was scheduled for 8 a.m. She didn't have a problem - she was called around 12.15. Also I saw someone who was so careless that he came in at 3.30 p.m. for his interview in the morning. The officers were quite accommodative and he had his interview at 4 and even got approved. I was surprised to find this person dressed in sweat pants and sweat shirt and a baseball cap. Even though it says proper attire is required for oath, no one at the office or even the applicants seem to care. A number of people wore t-shirts and jeans.
I also met 2 young girls probably 18 or 19, who forgot to attend their interview the previous friday and who just walked in the next tuesday(yesterday) to re-schedule theirs. They were so happy when the clerks re-scheduled it for next week. I would've never known, it would be so easy to miss an interview and have it re-scheduled just like that.
The cafetaria on the 2nd floor has very few things, if you are a vegetarian, you'll have a hard time finding anything good to eat. So, I didn't eat anything during lunch time and found myself almost fainting by the end of the day. They don't even have vending machines after the cafetaria closes around 2.30 or so. It was only me and three other people that were in the morning batch taking the evening oath - otherwise the whole process should take no longer than 4 hours. People who get afternoon interview are very lucky - they never seem to have a line after 11 to wait outside the building.
It got so late for the evening oath - we had the 5 p.m. oath starting at 5.50 p.m. and everyone was tired, hungry and impatient. The oath officer cut it short by asking us to vote if we wanted to see the videos or not - guess what - all of us said "No". He said good choice and quickly briefed us on who you can petition for and so on. The ceremony was done in 10 minutes. It was tiring, but at the end of the day, it was all worth it
I want to thank Melany (a very nice girl on this thread) who helped me recently with her interview experience. Melany, I will never forget your help, but somehow missed to include your name in my other post.
