Green Card through Diversity Visa

[insaintjoy 0]

I have applied for DV Visa for three years in a row and I've never been selected. What are the chances of you getting selected? Is there any statistics that I can look at to see how many people from my country actually got it? If yes, please guide me there.  Also, I know that we can start checking since May of the current year, and they selected more than 50,000 selectees. So in this case, now it's July, is there a chance that I will somehow get selected? Or is it once you are not selected then you got no chance until the next round?

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by insaintjoy

[Penguin_ie 5,996]

There is usually only one draw, so if not selected in May, you didn;t get in this year.

 

This website has some official stats:  https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/diversity-visa/diversity-visa-program-statistics.html

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

Latest year stats are here https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bulletin/2017/visa-bulletin-for-july-2017.html (scroll to section E near the end; it also has the numbers by country). Note that there are 50000 visas available - this includes derivatives (family members). They always select more than 50000 as many will not pursue their cases or be disqualified. 

 

For the recently selected DV2018, they selected just under 116000 people (this number includes the derivatives listed on the entry forms) .There were 14,692,258 qualified entries (23,088,613 with derivatives).  So in other words, your chances of being selected in the latest lottery were about 0.5%. Put differently, that's a number that means you could only expect to be selected once every 200 years. Entering 3 years without winning is hardly a surprise....after all, if you entered any other lottery and didn't win after the third time, you surely wouldn't be surprised?

(of course DV lottery has much better chances than most money lotteries, but it's still a lottery with huge odds against you.)

Edited July 5, 2017 by SusieQQQ

[insaintjoy 0]

13 hours ago, SusieQQQ said:

Latest year stats are here https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bulletin/2017/visa-bulletin-for-july-2017.html (scroll to section E near the end; it also has the numbers by country). Note that there are 50000 visas available - this includes derivatives (family members). They always select more than 50000 as many will not pursue their cases or be disqualified. 

 

For the recently selected DV2018, they selected just under 116000 people (this number includes the derivatives listed on the entry forms) .There were 14,692,258 qualified entries (23,088,613 with derivatives).  So in other words, your chances of being selected in the latest lottery were about 0.5%. Put differently, that's a number that means you could only expect to be selected once every 200 years. Entering 3 years without winning is hardly a surprise....after all, if you entered any other lottery and didn't win after the third time, you surely wouldn't be surprised?

(of course DV lottery has much better chances than most money lotteries, but it's still a lottery with huge odds against you.)

Hi! Thanks for your links. However, under the July bulletin, I saw the chart on section E where they have the countries then the number next to it, so is that the number of people that actually won the lottery from each country? Because it mentioned something about the statistics based "foreign state of chargeability" which I am not too sure about. the bulletin also has charts of the rank number thing, do you know what that means? what is the difference between "current" and/or actual numbers to it?

 

Yeah, totally agree with you. After all, it is a lottery..

[insaintjoy 0]

14 hours ago, Penguin_ie said:

There is usually only one draw, so if not selected in May, you didn;t get in this year.

 

This website has some official stats:  https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/diversity-visa/diversity-visa-program-statistics.html

Ah I see. I thought they will have a few draws until they are done with the 50K visas. 

Thank you!

[SusieQQQ 11,587]

2 hours ago, insaintjoy said:

Hi! Thanks for your links. However, under the July bulletin, I saw the chart on section E where they have the countries then the number next to it, so is that the number of people that actually won the lottery from each country? Because it mentioned something about the statistics based "foreign state of chargeability" which I am not too sure about. the bulletin also has charts of the rank number thing, do you know what that means? what is the difference between "current" and/or actual numbers to it?

 

Yeah, totally agree with you. After all, it is a lottery..

The simple answer is yes re the country question. As you will know if you have entered, being "from" a country is not always the same thing as the country you are eligible to use to apply to DV, which is the country of chargeability. 

 

 

[insaintjoy 0]

1 hour ago, SusieQQQ said:

The simple answer is yes re the country question. As you will know if you have entered, being "from" a country is not always the same thing as the country you are eligible to use to apply to DV, which is the country of chargeability. 

 

 

I see what you mean now. Got it, thank you!