I still remember the days (nearly 10 years back) when I was first applying for my H1B visa, it still gives me creeps to think of the whole process – from filling up the form to going for an interview at the Consulate for that one small sticker on your passport called Visa. It felt bigger than giving your Final Engineering Exams – at least I felt so back then.
Things have got much better over the years, but still the process of filing for American Visa had not gone online. Sure you filled up your Visa Application process online, but rest everything is very much manual – Taking print-outs of various forms, sending it to consulate etc etc.
But now, things are going to change for good. The US Consulate has announced that a visa application process will go online starting from February 1, wherein non-immigrant visa applications will be submitted using an electronic form. The DS-160, a web-based non-immigrant visa application, incorporates all existing NIV applications into one interactive, online form.
I am sure this announcement will come as a relief to many applicants, as many Visa applications were rejected due to manual errors.
Its interesting to note that US consulate is making efforts to make the Visa application process easier, especially because in recent years, increasingly, fewer Indians are interested in going to US (compared to mad rush that we witnessed a few years back). Infact, currently more people are coming back home, rather than leaving Indian shores.
This is great news. I’ll be leaving the shores for my Graduation…. and this is definitely, to many other students and likewise applicants like me, a huge relief :)