processing time for NIW

jmxu said:
fightforfate1:

Can you let me know how you can get those strong recommendation letters from people who donot know you and governmnent agency?

My area is biochemistry/genetics of eye diseases, which could be a national interest area (because it is NIH funded). However, my research uses fly model instead of human directly. I donot whether Murthy thinks this is the problem. They simply told us that I'd better wait for two more years until what I did can impact the field more deeply. I just got my PhD a few months ago, had 2 first-author paper published, another one to be submitted this month, 1 invited talk at a national meeting and totally 10 papers and meeting abstracts.

I really appreciate if you can nicely provide some suggestions/advices for me.

Thank you very much!

fly
Click to expand...

To jmxu,

To get the strong reference letters from people who don't know you, simply find the contact info (I used their emails most of the time) of the experts in your field and ask them. Since they don't know you, be prepared that most of them will not respond or will reject you. But you only need a few of them to give you reference, so ask as many experts as you can and then be patient and be persistent. There are always a few very nice top-notch experts out there who will be willing to help you, you just need to work hard to find them by casting a wide web.

As for letters from governments, they are not addressed to the USCIS. I sent letters to those govs to introduce my work to them and ask for their feedback, and then they responded in nice words to acknowledge my work. They have very high response rate, in my case, 90%.

In the meantime, I want to remind you that each case is unique. You can learn from other people's success, but don't forget to take advantage of your strengths and don't get upset if you cannot get exactly what other people got. In my case, I got strong letters from people who don't know me because unlike you and many other people, I only have a master degree and I don't personally know any expert in my field, so I was forced to ask those who don't know me, which was very difficult. Since you have PhD, I assume you know some professors who are qualified to give you very good references. So don't overlook those resources available to you. And just because those letters from governmments helped my case doesn't mean you have to have them. You have higher degree than me, and more publications that I do. So don't forget how to make use of them. Good luck.
 
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fightforfate1:

Thanks a lot for your help and encouragement. I feel inspired. I will start to work on my case soon and hopefully I will be able to find some strong envidence to prove myself.

fly
 
to fightforfate

Did you file 140/485 concurrently? For that matter, is there now a consensus as to whether filing concurrently will accelerate the processing of 140?
Thanks
 
weakunix said:
Did you file 140/485 concurrently? For that matter, is there now a consensus as to whether filing concurrently will accelerate the processing of 140?
Thanks
Click to expand...

No, I filed them separately. Only my I140 was approved and I'm waiting for my turn of AOS :(

As far as I know, cocurrent filing may make the processing of your I-140 go either way: accelerate it or delay it. Here is why it may delay it: CIS stated that a cocurrent filed case will be processed when its I-485 is ready for abjudicated (fingerprinted, named cleared). When an applicant get his turn for I-140, but hasn't been fingerprinted yet, CIS may delay the processing of I-140 till he's fingerprinted, etc. And this would be true in my case if I had filed cocurrently. I filed I-140 in Nov 2003. If cocurrent filing, I would still be waiting for notice of fingerprint and hence no decision on my I-140 yet.

The above is my understanding based on my limited knowledge. And dont forget I filed to VSC. It may vary by service centers, too.
 
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