“Think ‘why do I want to study this discipline,’ ‘why this area of the country,’ and ‘what do I plan to do with this degree.’ And be ready to spit the answer out in a minute,” he said. Speaking to ThePrint, Don Heflin, the Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs at the US Embassy in New Delhi dispensed some useful advice for Indian students to secure approvals. Eliminating the need for a walk-in interview can greatly shorten the process of getting an approval stamp to greenlight students’ entry into the US. In January this year, the US Embassy in India temporarily closed all in-person appointments due to a surge in applications received in the Fall-Winter period. More slots for students to book a US visa appointment in India Over 3,000 Indian students were interviewed across different US consular offices throughout the country at the time of the announcement, including US Embassy in New Delhi, and the consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. The Embassy seeks to surpass last year’s record of 62,000 issuances to Indian nationals admitted to American universities, The Indian Express reports. The numbers are expected to soar further this summer as more slots are granted for students to get a US visa appointment in India. We’re hosting #StudentVisaDay today! #DYK, Indians are the second largest group of international students in the U.S.? Students are the heart of our people-to-people ties and we look forward to welcoming more Indian students this year. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Mission India issued more student visas in 2021 than ever before.” “Our consulate professionals are hard at work interviewing student visa applicants across India. “Student mobility and the people-to-people connections it forges have been a cornerstone of the US-India relationship for the past 75 years, and remains so today,” she added. Lacina pointed out the need to simplify and expedite the visa application process for Indian students, especially since they now make up the second-largest international student population in the US. This is just one of the many steps we are taking,” Patricia Lacina, Charge D’Affaires at the US Embassy, was quoted saying in The Indian Express. “Under new visa guidelines, students who have previously held any US visa can apply using the drop box service to bypass the in-person interview. The announcement was made on Tuesday at the sixth annual Student Visa Day event in India. Thanks to a new initiative, previous US visa holders will be able to skip the interview portion entirely to get their study visas, thereby shortening the overall application process. Good news for Indian students: you might not need to book a US visa appointment in India for an interview at all.

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