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| Philadelphia PA |  Review on January 14, 2010: |
RebeccaAndPhil
Rating:  | Review Topic: Adjustment of Status
Our interview was at the Philadelphia, PA office @ 8:30AM. We had stayed overnight at a hotel within walking distance the night before to ensure that we wouldn't hit traffic. We got up at 6AM this morning (neither of us are morning people so this was difficult lol) and started getting ready. We got to the office by 8AM and went through security (they move very fast but are generally nice). The office is on the third floor and once you go inside the waiting room you walk all the way across to get to the front desk. We handed our interview letter to the front desk, she took it, stamped it, and kept it. There were only a few other people there and most of them seemed to be for family petitions rather than marriage petitions. While we waited we did see one other couple who were called in before us. They were separated since I noticed the IO brought out the wife and called in the husband. While the wife was waiting behind us I asked her how it wwent. She said at first they were brought in together and since she was the USC, she was not grilled as much as her husband. After her husband came back out and they left we waited about 5 more minutes and then the same IO who had interviewed them came back and called us in. I just assumed he was going to separate us too but we both went back into his office and never got separated. He asked how we are doing and then dove right into the questions. He started with asking am I a USC? Was I born in the US? I said yes to both. Then he asked to see both of our birth certificates & passports and asked my husband what country he was from. He asked how we met and we said in a chat room. While he was looking through our forms (the ones we had mailed in--they put them in a file folder with hole punches at the top) he asked each of us if we have met the other' parents. Also he asked each of us to say their names. He asked to verify our address & phone numbers and if we have any kids?
Then he asked for pictures & evidence that we are married so we provided him with all of our evidence (we had join bank accounts, joint lease, joint cell phone plan, joint health insurance, joint car insurance, joint credit card). He seemed impressed with all the evidence and took copies of each to keep.
After all the questions he seemed to relax a bit and asked if we had any questions. I asked him (since I'm the beneficiary) if I'm allowed to change jobs and/or stop working when we have kids. He said "I don't really know but no one will check so you will be ok." He asked if we had been married for longer than 2 years and when we said no he said "You'll get a conditional GC in the mail within 1 month" so I said, "Does that mean we're approved?" and he said Yes! I asked if he was going to stamp my husband's passport and he said they were told they can't do that anymore. He didn't take the AP or EAD but said he would be entering the update into the computer by this afternoon or tomorrow.
In general, he was a nice guy (serious during the question asking but relaxed before and after) and it went really well!! I was so glad he looked at the documents I spent months preparing and he did mention "Thanks for being so prepared, it makes life easy."
If you have an interview at this office be prepared to go through security, don't bring in ANY electronics, and try to relax!! Everyone was courteous and each of the IOs have their own office where you will be interviewed in one. It's not as bad as you think- ours only lasted 10 minutes! 
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #5548