Went through interview in Albany (actually, Latham), NY in June. I arrived promptly on time, but had to wait about an hour. There are chairs in the reception area. They don't allow cell phones equipped with camera into the building, so if your cell phone has a camera, leave it in your car.
The interview.
First, I was dragged through my personal details. Officer has asked every question from the application and compared my answers to what I wrote on the application. I made about twenty trips abroad that I listed on N-400 (half of them to Canada) in past years. Obviously I didn't recall exact dates of each trip. When I got confused on the dates, the IO got suspicious.
I had another sticky point.When I got my GC via EB-3, I left my employer six months after getting GC approved. IO picked up this from the employment history that I've put on N-400, and grilled me on that too. As if the fact that I worked for eight years for the company that sponsored the GC before getting the I-485 approved didn't count.
Then he begun the history and civic test, which I marginally passed. I didn't recall the year when the Constitution was signed (it's not 1776), the Rights amendments (there are four, you have to cite the exact ##'s), the first U.S. president (not John Hanson, mind you), the names of first 13 states (I only counted nine). We argued on who's the current N.Y. governor (Pataki's gone!)
An advice: when IO asks you to write something as part of testing your English, just do that, don't make a fuss about the substance or content. I got into argument because he asked to write some nonsense like "I like skiing" while in reality I hate skiing, snow, winter and such. Told him about that, got into an argument, and that was a mistake: he said "either you write what I say or get out of here". I had to shut up and write. What a humiliation.
Then he found that I don't have tax returns. I only had copies of the checks I sent with the returns, that's not enough.
Anyway, at the end he congratulated me with passing the interview, handed the oath letter and showed the way out.
P.S. Have had the oath taken in July. Nothing interesting in particular. I've been to my wife's oath, there was nothing new. We sent our N-400's together, but mine got stuck in name check for a year and half, while hers went through quickly.
