Visa Approved

[hokiewhoo 0]

Super! I just found out our 129F was approved in Vermont today!

[Basty 5]

--HOW DID YOU GET IT SO QUICK??? YOU APPLIED A MONTH AFTER ME - AND I am still waiting for a NOA2.

I am happy for you and her though. May God bless you and hope you have a happy married life.

Looks like you're at the VSC. I was at the CSC. It's sad that they're so far apart in processing times, but hopefully you'll be getting your NOA2 any day now!

Thank you all for the well wishes, just thought I'd put a little update here now that I actually talked to my finance properly for a little bit about her experience:

She arrived at around 8:15 am, and the guards separated them outside by visa type. She said the Ukrainian guards were pretty rough/rude, which I had read from other reviews here. Ukrainian soldiers, though, so it's to be expected. Once inside she paid for the visa. She said this was the only person INSIDE the consulate that was kinda of rude to her. When trying to pay, the lady said that her bills were too old and wouldn't accept them (apparently in a very rude manner), but my fiance had another set that were slightly crisper, and the lady accepted those.

After that she waited for about 20 minutes and was called by another lady who asked for our paperwork. This lady was really nice, called my fiance by the familiar names (Nastya, Nastenka). After that she waited for about 2 hours before being called again. There were about 5 other K1 applicants at her time and a few others. One K3 in front of her was denied, but it sounds like the other K1s were accepted. When she was called to the window by a younger man (mid-late 20s) she said he was really friendly. He made comments about her ring, our pictures together and how nice we were. He asked:

How did we first meet?

When did we first meet?

When and where did we first meet in person?

What city did I work in/What is the name of the company?

Some information she kind of offered up during the questions, too. Like when she said the company name she also said what they do. Keep in mind that I generally agree in most cases you shouldn't offer up stuff not asked unless you feel comfortable with the material, and you are fairly certain that it won't lead them to get suspicious about something else.

The one thing we were worried about was the fact that last year I was a full time student and didn't work, so I had a 1040 that said $0 (worthless for these purposes) and no W2 obviously. I did have a letter from my current employer and about 4-5 months worth of pay stubs to show my income level. We did not have cosponsor paperwork prepared. I do not really recommend running into this without that safety net if you think there might be trouble with your financial situation, but we did. There were no problems for us in this regard. He did ask to see a 1040/W2, but she explained that I was a full time student last year/didn't work. She said he briefly looked at my pay stubs/letter of employment, but barely at all. I made sure to instruct her beforehand that when he asked for the I-134 she handed the letter of employment and pay stubs with it, to "front load" the evidence in our favor. So, this did work for us, but there's no guarantee that every consulate interviewer will feel the same, or that your outcome would be the same given the same amount of evidence.

She said that he paid very close attention to the police certificate, taking a look at it a few times, and that he had done that with all the previous people in front of her, too. So make sure that's in order. She said one person's certificate was incorrect somehow (she didn't hear how) and that they had to bring the corrected one before visa issuance. After that she had to raise her right hand, swear that all information presented was true, and congratulated her. She went off, paid for the visa mailing fee and was done.

I guess my overall advice from this whole process is that the petitioner really needs to do everything to educate their beneficiary on ALL parts of the process. My fiance said that at the medical interview there were so many girls going for a K1 that didn't know what a NOA was, I-134, DS156, etc. and really didn't have an understanding how the whole process worked. I assume most of these girls had fiances that weren't VJ members and probably used lawyers to process most/all of their paperwork. After having gone through it, filling out all the forms myself and together with my financee, I REALLY encourage everyone to do it themselves. With the guides here especially, it's pretty hard to screw up if you're paying attention. You'll save money, time, and you'll have a greater confidence of knowing exactly what is happening and what the government is expecting/requiring of you. The interview went pretty much exactly how I told her it would go, and I learned how it would go through reading Kiev embassy reviews here. Use the vast resource of collective knowledge here that was gained through real world experience. It is more valuable than any lawyer or instruction form.

With that, I'm going to bed! I again want to thank the community at large for providing this resource to me and everyone else. It made most of the process trivial and worry free for me (besides the waiting, which I can't complain about considering my time compared to some of my poor VSC counterparts). I might be forgetting stuff, but you can always PM me questions or ask here if you want to know something specific, and I'll try my best to get an answer.

Good luck to all of you!

Edited September 11, 2012 by Basty