CSC I-129F Processing Delay Calculator...

[I & B 273]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell your Congressman or Senator exactly how many days you can expect your petition to be delayed according to the USCIS's own published figures on the CSC slowdown? Well, now you can!

In part of my never ending quest to get to analyze the USCIS's published data and interpret it in meaningful ways, I have created a spreadsheet that can calculate one's expected NOA2 date based on seven different hypothetical scenarios. I believe this is a very useful tool for those who are working with congressional offices, as I recommended in my previous post. Though the hypothetical scenarios are somewhat crude, they should give you a sense of why we need to fight to get the CSC back-on-track in terms of processing I-129Fs.

Directions:

1. Download the excel spreadsheet I have prepared here. (Note: this spreadsheet also includes all the data I prepared for my CSC data analysis thread)

2. Make sure it is open to the "projected delays" tab.

3. Enter the date of your NOA1 in the yellow box at the top. (Note: this will only work through NOA1s issued through December, 2012)

4. Look in awe at the potentially catastrophic effects on our petitions if this slowdown continues.

How It Works:

I've left all of my calculations plainly visible for those who are interested. But for those who do not want to reverse engineer it, the spreadsheet works as follows: It simply takes the date you input and assumes that your petition submitted on that date will be completed once all other applications still pending at the time of your submission have been completed. For each of the seven scenarios provided, it then counts down completions per day (using the USCIS's published rates through January, 2013 and then my hypothetical rates thereafter) until the app has been completed and then reports the completion dates to the top grid for your viewing pleasure.

Limitations:

1. This spreadsheet assumes that, on average, petitions will be processed serially in the order they are received. Obviously that assumption still leaves room for error with any individual petition, so the date provided is a rough estimate.

2. For simplicity's sake, this spreadsheet does not distinguish between weekends and weekdays as far as the service center's completions per day is concerned. This shouldn't drastically effect the estimated completion date, but it may slightly (+/- 2-3 days) in certain cases.

3. The estimated completion scenarios are deliberately crude. They start by assuming that the 537 completions per month rate of January 2013 continued through February and March (in truth, I suspect the February and March rates were likely even lower based on Igor's list data, but I'm using only published data for the spreadsheet). They then assume a flat rate (either the median or fast rate) begins at the specified month and continues indefinitely without change. For now, they do not try to capture the undulating nature of the processing rates over time (though I will have an updated version that does so in the near future); rather, they just provide baselines for worst-case, best-case, and middle-ground scenarios.

4. I'm not perfect and there may be errors somewhere in there. I didn't test every date myself. Please report any errors you find.

5. Note that some July filers may see that they should have been processed by now according to the worst-case scenario data. Yes, I know. That's not an error. It just means that February and March completion rates were likely much worse than we know as of yet and that even the worst case scenarios here are optimistic in a sense.

My next project will be to make some graphs that extrapolate these calculations to truly show the devastating effect of the slowdown on the expected completion dates of those who filed in the fall. So if you find any mistakes in this version, please let me know before I build upon it further.

Edited April 7, 2013 by I & B

[I & B 273]

One more note: The topic should actually read "CSC I-129F Processing Delay Calculator..." Apologies to those mislead by my imprecise use of language. Yes, I do know the difference.

[Jeffrey S 5]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell your Congressman or Senator exactly how many days you can expect your petition to be delayed according to the USCIS's own published figures on the CSC slowdown? Well, now you can!

In part of my never ending quest to get to analyze the USCIS's published data and interpret it in meaningful ways, I have created a spreadsheet that can calculate one's expected NOA2 date based on seven different hypothetical scenarios. I believe this is a very useful tool for those who are working with congressional offices, as I recommended in my previous post. Though the hypothetical scenarios are somewhat crude, they should give you a sense of why we need to fight to get the CSC back-on-track in terms of processing I-129Fs.

Directions:

1. Download the excel spreadsheet I have prepared here. (Note: this spreadsheet also includes all the data I prepared for my CSC data analysis thread)

2. Make sure it is open to the "projected delays" tab.

3. Enter the date of your NOA1 in the yellow box at the top. (Note: this will only work through NOA1s issued through December, 2012)

4. Look in awe at the potentially catastrophic effects on our petitions if this slowdown continues.

How It Works:

I've left all of my calculations plainly visible for those who are interested. But for those who do not want to reverse engineer it, the spreadsheet works as follows: It simply takes the date you input and assumes that your petition submitted on that date will be completed once all other applications still pending at the time of your submission have been completed. For each of the seven scenarios provided, it then counts down completions per day (using the USCIS's published rates through January, 2013 and then my hypothetical rates thereafter) until the app has been completed and then reports the completion dates to the top grid for your viewing pleasure.

Limitations:

1. This spreadsheet assumes that, on average, petitions will be processed serially in the order they are received. Obviously that assumption still leaves room for error with any individual petition, so the date provided is a rough estimate.

2. For simplicity's sake, this spreadsheet does not distinguish between weekends and weekdays as far as the service center's completions per day is concerned. This shouldn't drastically effect the estimated completion date, but it may slightly (+/- 2-3 days) in certain cases.

3. The estimated completion scenarios are deliberately crude. They start by assuming that the 537 completions per month rate of January 2013 continued through February and March (in truth, I suspect the February and March rates were likely even lower based on Igor's list data, but I'm using only published data for the spreadsheet). They then assume a flat rate (either the median or fast rate) begins at the specified month and continues indefinitely without change. For now, they do not try to capture the undulating nature of the processing rates over time (though I will have an updated version that does so in the near future); rather, they just provide baselines for worst-case, best-case, and middle-ground scenarios.

4. I'm not perfect and there may be errors somewhere in there. I didn't test every date myself. Please report any errors you find.

5. Note that some July filers may see that they should have been processed by now according to the worst-case scenario data. Yes, I know. That's not an error. It just means that February and March completion rates were likely much worse than we know as of yet and that even the worst case scenarios here are optimistic in a sense.

My next project will be to make some graphs that extrapolate these calculations to truly show the devastating effect of the slowdown on the expected completion dates of those who filed in the fall. So if you find any mistakes in this version, please let me know before I build upon it further.

All I can say is that you never cease to amaze me with all your fact and figures! And thank you for sharing!

[narnia 24]

wow. it's looking grim, no matter how you look at it...

thanks a lot for sharing this!! it provides some solid ground to stand on when approaching congresspeople or senators.

[I & B 273]

And one more note: I realize now that it should provide answers for NOA1 dates through January, 2013, as well. So go ahead and try. But please note that the projections for those dates are based solely on the hypothetical figures.

[Penguin_ie 5,995]

*** title changed per OP request ****

[I & B 273]

*** title changed per OP request ****

Many thanks!

[Lynkali 163]

Amazing work, thank you so much for this, even if it is horribly depressing. If things don't pick up, looks like I'll be waiting until January 2014 -- 511 days from filing. Has anyone ever waited 500+ days? There might be a lot of us if this situation doesn't change.

Even the best case scenarios are longer than I like to see, but at this point I still am holding out hope for a July approval.

Again, thank you for all your hard work!

[Zipline 23]

Good job I&B. I've only had a time to quick look it over and enter my NOA1 date, but these seem to be pretty good projections.

[I & B 273]

Update: I fixed one very, very small error in the spreadsheet (would only have affected NOA1s before July, 2012 by a miniscule amount), included a number of months column (I know some people prefer to think of their dates in terms of months), and perked up the interface color scheme a tad. The improved file has replaced the old file at the same link in the OP.

[I & B 273]

Good job I&B. I've only had a time to quick look it over and enter my NOA1 date, but these seem to be pretty good projections.

Thanks, Zipline. Actually, your thread on projections gave me the "ah ha!" moment necessary to figure out how to reconcile the projections with the inconsistent data provided by the USCIS. I ultimately ended up introducing a fourth variable to the completions, pending, and receipts in order to calculate an adjusted number of receipts that accounts for the disparity we talked about there, which then lets me prorate the number of pending petitions consistently between months.

Edited April 8, 2013 by I & B

[dreed 4]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell your Congressman or Senator exactly how many days you can expect your petition to be delayed according to the USCIS's own published figures on the CSC slowdown? Well, now you can!

I still don't get it. I plugged my timeline into your spreadsheet and it's predictive ability just isn't working out for me.

[I & B 273]

I still don't get it. I plugged my timeline into your spreadsheet and it's predictive ability just isn't working out for me.

That's because your petition was approved far faster than the average petition for some reason. If you are not in the military, then the fast processing of your petition is truly a mysterious gift that you should feel very fortunate for having received. But, in any case, the point is not to predict craziest outlier processing time; it is to predict the processing time for the average case. And I believe it does that well enough, given the limitations I explicitly enumerated in the OP.

Edited April 8, 2013 by I & B

[glenmar 34]

Thanks for sharing the calculator with us. IMO it's much more useful than the vj processing estimates. Since the calculator assumes petitions are processed in order how does it account for the remaining July filers? Is there no way the calculator can provide lets say an April, May, etc date corresponding to the month completions start to pick up? I have been tracking vj approvals against actual CSC competions. My data goes back to June of 2012 up to present. I don't have February and March actual completions but February completions should be worse than January and March completions should actualy be better than January. In fact March completions were on pace to better November completions until the CSC "crapper" overflowed!

[I & B 273]

Thanks for sharing the calculator with us. IMO it's much more useful than the vj processing estimates. Since the calculator assumes petitions are processed in order how does it account for the remaining July filers? Is there no way the calculator can provide lets say an April, May, etc date corresponding to the month completions start to pick up? I have been tracking vj approvals against actual CSC competions. My data goes back to June of 2012 up to present. I don't have February and March actual completions but February completions should be worse than January and March completions should actualy be better than January. In fact March completions were on pace to better November completions until the CSC "crapper" overflowed!

The July filers can be remaining under either one or a combination of the following two scenarios:

1. The completion per month in February and/or March were lower than that of January. I assume that the January rate continued because that seems like a "safe" assumption given how low it already is compared to the 2 year average rate, but I believe I am being conservative on that front. I assume at least one of those two months (if not both) was significantly slower than January, which would mean that many July petitions would still be pending if I could reliably factor that into my model. Unfortunately, however, I do not really have a solid basis for any other number in particular, so I've just conservatively stayed with the January rate.

2. Many of the remaining July petitions are outliers that are taking, on average, longer that the typical petition. Given the volume that appears to be remaining from July, however, I would discount this is as being a terribly persuasive explanation over all, but it does likely explain a few of the outstanding July petitions.

Edited April 8, 2013 by I & B