The J1 Visa Interview Experience

[LondonK 0]

Since I'd spent the past few weeks worried about everything and anything to do with this interview I thought I'd write up my experience and hopefully answer some questions that others might have.

This might be long so grab a cuppa

Pre Settings: I do suffer from anxiety but have so far always just dealt with it however unpleasant, that's not to say it doesn't feel awful though. My biggest trigger is queues the second would be being stuck in a waiting room and third would be not being able to keep my sugar levels up (they drop with anxiety... not sure why).

So with the above said and quite a few online reviews read I had it in my head that I would be queued up 3 hours + before my appointment with no food, stuck in a hot room for hours with people for another few hours and interrogated in a room... Needless to say I felt quite nauseous the morning of my interview which was at 11:30am.

*Here's what really happened:

I booked a room in the Millennium Mayfair hotel and had a room that over looked Grosvenor Square and the Embassy. I woke up at 8am and had my breakfast delivered to my room which was far too greasy for a stressful day but I tried my best to stomach as much as I could (remember there's no food allowed so I wanted to eat something)... I kept an eye out of the window to watch the queue and there didn't seem to be any more than 20 people in the queue whenever I looked it was however snowing, I'm a big fan of rain so quite liked this fact.

I decided rather than go over really early I'd take my time so I eventually went over at 10:30 am and joined the queue outside the embassy of about 12 people which runs along the park side, a lady in a blue jacket walked along and checked if everyone had their DS160 forms and that we had our interview letters and passports out. The queue took about 10 minutes to get through, my letter was scanned and I was then directed to stand by the security hut and wait to be let in.

Myself and the two girls in front were let into the hut, I put my papers through the scanner I asked if they wanted me to take my coat off but they said it was fine and that I could just walk through with it on, I also had a packet of polo's in my pocket and a bottle of water which I was drinking in the queue. I mentioned the water to them and asked if I should leave it somewhere, the security guy was really nice and just said I could keep hold of it and walk it through the scanner... so far so good

I might add the fact that the queues outside helped me, nothing better than fresh air.

After security I made my way around the side of the building and inside to reception, the two girls from the security hut were in front of me but that's all... the lady on reception scanned my documents and handed me a number let's go with 333 for review sake.

It was now approx 10:45am. Admittedly my insides were doing somersaults walking in, I was expecting a hot stuffy room, no windows and lots of shouting tannoys... well first of all there are windows and they over look the park so that was one good thing, the second was that whenever someone opened the door into the room it let a little draft in so allowed for fresh air which was nice and overall the room temp was normal, not hot not cold.

There were rows of chairs all facing a big screen much like Argos as many have previously said and windows 1 - 11 were situated in the same room.

I spotted the snack bar over the opposite side of the room and purchased a couple of items, they had a couple of sandwich's including egg cress, veg and humous and a couple of other fillings, they had a few veggie options. They also had a variety of crisps, cold and hot drinks, biscuits, chocolate, nuts, health bars and a bowl of fruit with oranges, apples and bananas in... it was nice to see they had quite a nice variety of food.

By the time I'd got my snacks and headed back over to the other side of the room it was around 10:50 am. I still wasn't overly keen on sitting in between all the people in the room but noticed seats in the corridor which lead to windows 12 - 24 there are about 8 seats here and it's a little out of the way so I parked myself there, also noted the toilets were just opposite and a photo booth was next to these seats.

I did my photo's before as I thought there'd be huge queues for the photo booth but in reality the only people I saw use it was one guy and two babies being kept occupied in there.

As I was sat down they were calling number 310 to the first windows, the numbers were going down quite quickly for the N- ticket numbers, they were calling between 3 and 5 at a time. 11am came and my number was called (queue butterflies)... I made my way to window 8 were the lady checked all my documents, I'd labelled all my documents so they were easy to find but she seemed to skim through them in no time, I then did my digital fingerprinting both four fingers and two thumbs, she handed back a form to fill out for the secure shipping with my ticket number and told me to read it while I waited to be called for the interview.

When I went back to sit down the corridor the seats were all taken so I took to checking out the paintings they have on the walls, actually really enjoyed looking at the paintings and the stories behind them, in fact it actually took my mind of the interview for a while.

I won't bore you with how I sat down, stood up, read things, looked at things next so we'll skip ahead a little bit.

After waiting around 2 hours they started calling the numbers near mine, 331 to window 19 please, 332 to window 22 please.... ticket number ........ 334 to window number.. noooooooooooo where's my number I was literally on edge ready to leap up to get this interview done but nope so I relaxed back into my seat again... and they began calling ticket number 274 to window 19, ticket number 310 to window.... so now there's clearly no pattern to the numbers being called and I had no idea if I was soon or not.

Whilst I waited it's now around 13:10pm I noticed the seats in the larger seating area were beginning to empty, not sure if they stop doing interview around lunch ? It did feel good though it was a slight indication that soon all this stress would be over with.

13:40 my number was called to the interview window EAK! A friendly face said hello, took my fingerprints and when doing so asked how I would be using my new skills when I returned back to the UK, I explained how I worked with record producers in the UK and wanted to expand my own company to include them and my newly learnt skills. I wasn't expecting that question but luckily it was something that I am looking forward to in the future so I felt really excited inside at this point at the prospect of what this opportunity could give me. He then just said 'you'll be working at xxx yeah ?" to which I replied yes, he then asked if I'd read the pamphlet, I said I'd read it and mentioned it was about working rights etc just to confirm I really had... less than 2 minutes letter he said "You're visa is approved" make your way over to the shipping desk .

I said thank you and walked away with a gigantic grin on my face paid my shipping and walked out of the embassy wanting to hug everyone on the way out, I didn't by the way not sure how security would appreciate me hugging them ?

Such an elating feeling when I walked out for lots of reasons but having pushed myself through the process knowing this is something I really wanted to do, I felt a little proud of myself for going through with it and not letting the anxiety get to me

Afterwards I made my way down Oxford Street and treated myself to a proper lunch and some goodies .

So now I'm off to the 'moving to US' forum to begin my journey xx

[Cathi 5,755]

Congrats..Yay!

[LondonK 0]

Congrats..Yay!

Thanks

[honsmos 0]

Congrats . Thanks for sharing your experience.