Randomly selected? hhhhhh

[Enzo]

For many years I've read and studied a lot of sources of information about the whole process of diversity lottery and I always wonder if selection of winners is really by random. The vast majority of people that have won this lottery in my country are single or divorced, with no children or at least with just one and according to sex only for men, rarely you see the case of a winner female.
In DV 2008 two questions were added to the traditional entry form:
What is the highest level of education you have achieved? and
Country where you live today? What are the purposes of those questions?
Is it casual that majority of people who received their notification letter early this year (since late march and even april) were living in United States under other types os status?
I would like to know your point of view. Do you really think is it by random selection, a cold and impersonal computer decides who goes to visa issuance? I want to know if I am the only one who thinks in that way.

 

[alemitmee]

For many years I've read and studied a lot of sources of information about the whole process of diversity lottery and I always wonder if selection of winners is really by random. The vast majority of people that have won this lottery in my country are single or divorced, with no children or at least with just one and according to sex only for men, rarely you see the case of a winner female.
In DV 2008 two questions were added to the traditional entry form:
What is the highest level of education you have achieved? and
Country where you live today? What are the purposes of those questions?
Is it casual that majority of people who received their notification letter early this year (since late march and even april) were living in United States under other types os status?
I would like to know your point of view. Do you really think is it by random selection, a cold and impersonal computer decides who goes to visa issuance? I want to know if I am the only one who thinks in that way.

Well its an interesting point. Now I am going put my blind faith in the US government, and assume that they follow the letter of the law and do randomly select the entries. However as I mentioned before, true randomness is particularly hard to replicate in computer systems, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generator
Anyway that is really nit picking! That’s what I do best.

I reckon they asked about what country you are in now purely for statistics. Just to get an idea of the demographics of people who are applying. I mean at the end of the day you can claim any country of birth and residence, but its up to you to prove these it at the time of your interview.
As for the level of education, I think that maybe some people don’t understand what the qualification guidelines are, and this just helps to clarify that. Maybe they process all the entrants before they select the winners and remove people that have not got the relevant education/work exp and then do the draw??
Although...., and this is really cynical of me, I won DV 2008 it’s the first one that I have entered that I have been able to add my college qualification too and then I won, after trying for years??? Maybe there is an element of cherry picking! I am not sure we will ever know the answers to these questions!

 

[LucyMO]

I think it's random. My parents won (married, 55 and 57, bachelor's degrees for both). My friend's parents have won as well (in their early fifties, bachelor's degrees).

I am an active participant on a Russian (former USSR) DV-specific forum, and I see a great variety of people who won. Singles, married, married with 5(!) children, those with education and without, all ages from 18 to 60+, and all of them seem pretty random.

 

[dragoman]

vi ne mogli bi skazat' adres etova russkovo foruma?

I think it's random. My parents won (married, 55 and 57, bachelor's degrees for both). My friend's parents have won as well (in their early fifties, bachelor's degrees).

I am an active participant on a Russian (former USSR) DV-specific forum, and I see a great variety of people who won. Singles, married, married with 5(!) children, those with education and without, all ages from 18 to 60+, and all of them seem pretty random.

 

[Tazmania]

I asked the same question many times and it's like alemitmee said. For DV-2008 they asked the first time for the highest degree and my wife won (University degree Computer Science). Maybe it was by chance, maybe not. Nobody knows anything about the internal processes at KCC ...

 

[ruxy]

...and if we know how this can help us? we both have PhD's but we played for 4 years now and only now we won...so I think is totally random

 

[dragoman]

dear ruxy
How come you quickly received 2.letter because you will do AOS, right..?

'April 19: received KCC letter, CN 97XX (EU)
April 20: sent letter to KCC asking for AOS
June 5: received a 2nd letter from KCC; from now on contact USCIS'

...and if we know how this can help us? we both have PhD's but we played for 4 years now and only now we won...so I think is totally random

 

[alemitmee]

I think it's random. My parents won (married, 55 and 57, bachelor's degrees for both). My friend's parents have won as well (in their early fifties, bachelor's degrees).

I am an active participant on a Russian (former USSR) DV-specific forum, and I see a great variety of people who won. Singles, married, married with 5(!) children, those with education and without, all ages from 18 to 60+, and all of them seem pretty random.

Yea, I am inclined to believe that people are randomly selected. That is what the law states with regard to the DV. So if they selected people in any way other then randomly then technically they would be breaking the law!

 

[LucyMO]

www.govorimpro.us

 

[ruxy]

dear ruxy
How come you quickly received 2.letter because you will do AOS, right..?

'April 19: received KCC letter, CN 97XX (EU)
April 20: sent letter to KCC asking for AOS
June 5: received a 2nd letter from KCC; from now on contact USCIS'

yes, because I do AoS