Recommedation Letters for EB2(NIW) and EB-1 OR

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gvswisconsin

Registered Users (C)
Dear Friends,

I wanted to discuss the topic of Recommedation Letters for EB2(NIW) and EB-1 OR.

My interaction with lawyers estimates that 6-8 letters are needed in the petition. My lawyer insists that atleast 50% (3-4) come from "independent" authorities, people who have no personal and professional collaborations with me.

I have been having a very tough time soliciting these letters, seems to be the rate limiting step in the application. Most of the investigators whom I have approached do not reply at all.

I wanted know the experience of people in this forum.

Regards,

GVS
 
gvswisconsin said:
Dear Friends,

I wanted to discuss the topic of Recommedation Letters for EB2(NIW) and EB-1 OR.

My interaction with lawyers estimates that 6-8 letters are needed in the petition. My lawyer insists that atleast 50% (3-4) come from "independent" authorities, people who have no personal and professional collaborations with me.

I have been having a very tough time soliciting these letters, seems to be the rate limiting step in the application. Most of the investigators whom I have approached do not reply at all.

I wanted know the experience of people in this forum.

Regards,

GVS
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In my case (EB2/NIW self filed), I used 8 letters, all of them were within the loop, no international either (except the letter from my Ph.D. supervisor in my home country). One of the letter writers didn't have a Ph.D. (but a very experienced person and had lot of publications/citations). My I-140 got approved (no RFE). What I found is that, in my field, people refuse to give you letters if you haven't collaborated/worked with them. Even though certainly it is better to have maximum `out of loop' letters, I wouldn't worry too much about it, if your petition is very strong otherwise.

Another route you might want to explore is: try getting letter from your former colleague (who worked with you in the same group, but in a different project). Let the writer states somewhere that `even though we did not work on the same project...'. That is kind of (semi) `out-of-loop' letter.
 
That's a very good point! However, it is customary to attach the CV of the person that writes the letter and if the IO wants to, he/she can easily identify if the person is an acquaintance of the petitioner.
 
for NIW, letters from 'out-of-loop' reviewers may not be that important as for EB1-OR. but in both cases, these letters carry quite a weightage.
 
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