Is this coincidence or a lie?

[John&Lena 17]

I hope so too. I will call them again next monday!

[MFC87 2]

I hope so too. I will call them again next monday!

Many people who applied after me at VSC have already gotten approved. I am happy for them but also wish that I had my turn somewhere in between them.

[John&Lena 17]

I know, I feel the same!

[Anna Grant 169]

Your time will come soon. Just be glad you applied this year and not last year! It took us 9 months to be approved.

It is difficult to be apart from the person you love but it will be so worth it in the end. It took 11 months from our NOA1 date to me entering the US with the precious K1 visa in my passport. But we are married now and we couldn't be happier and the time apart is starting to be a distant memory. This will happen to you too.

Just make sure that you have done as much preparatory work as you can so that when you get your NOA2 you are 'ahead of the game' based on your country. Once your file is in your country, things will start to speed up.

BTW - my two-pennyworth is that it's a coincidence. When you think of how many petitions they have to work on, they are probably working on those batches at the moment.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Anna Grant

[MFC87 2]

Your time will come soon. Just be glad you applied this year and not last year! It took us 9 months to be approved.

It is difficult to be apart from the person you love but it will be so worth it in the end. It took 11 months from our NOA1 date to me entering the US with the precious K1 visa in my passport. But we are married now and we couldn't be happier and the time apart is starting to be a distant memory. This will happen to you too.

Just make sure that you have done as much preparatory work as you can so that when you get your NOA2 you are 'ahead of the game' based on your country. Once your file is in your country, things will start to speed up.

BTW - my two-pennyworth is that it's a coincidence. When you think of how many petitions they have to work on, they are probably working on those batches at the moment.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and given some encouragement. It is just my mom wants us to have a nice big wedding (she is willing to chip in or pay all of it) and I have to plan everything since my fiancee is overseas and she won't have much idea what to do here.

[John&Lena 17]

I hope you're right about the coincidence, Anna, I really do.

Sorry to hear that it took you so long, that makes me feel bad for nagging about my 5ish months.. but I guess we just all want to be with our loved ones asap. It's just so hard to know that your whole life is put on hold which makes you miss out on a lot of things..

But thank you for the encouragement!

[MFC87 2]

One of my friends' sister applied for her fiance in May and she already got an approval last week. Her fiance is also a Pakistani national but lives in London. I guess they process faster for london consulate. I will call them middle of next week to see what is going on ( I don't think it will help but I guess it can't hurt).

[Anna Grant 169]

One of my friends' sister applied for her fiance in May and she already got an approval last week. Her fiance is also a Pakistani national but lives in London. I guess they process faster for london consulate. I will call them middle of next week to see what is going on ( I don't think it will help but I guess it can't hurt).

Whilst your file is in USCIS, there is no difference in how quickly a case is processed dependent on what consulate your file will eventually go to. So London cases are not processed faster than any other country. The only exception to that is that occasionally certain countries might be expedited - in recent memory, Haiti was expedited.

Most officers at USCIS will take a pile of cases to work on and it can just depend if you are at the top of that pile or bottom and how quickly your case worker works. It would be great if cases were approved in complete chronological order but it doesn't work like that.

Have you checked cases with receipts numbers around yours? That would give you some indication if people in your batch were being approved at the moment?

Edited August 16, 2013 by Anna Grant

[MFC87 2]

Whilst your file is in USCIS, there is no difference in how quickly a case is processed dependent on what consulate your file will eventually go to. So London cases are not processed faster than any other country. The only exception to that is that occasionally certain countries might be expedited - in recent memory, Haiti was expedited.

Most officers at USCIS will take a pile of cases to work on and it can just depend if you are at the top of that pile or bottom and how quickly your case worker works. It would be great if cases were approved in complete chronological order but it doesn't work like that.

Have you checked cases with receipts numbers around yours? That would give you some indication if people in your batch were being approved at the moment?

I want to believe it is completely random but I see majority of the ppl here with canadian and london consulate (with a few exceptions) are approved rather quickly whereas ppl from certain countries take longer.

[John&Lena 17]

I've checked cases before & after me, like you said Anna, and they've all been approved besides one that had an RFE.
It's just depressing!

Edited August 16, 2013 by John&Lena

[MFC87 2]

I've checked cases before & after me, like you said Anna, and they've all been approved besides one that had an RFE.

It's just depressing!

I m gonna give another week before I contact my senator and/or congressman.

[John&Lena 17]

Okay. Do post about it!