 Want to get your F1 visa approved in 60 seconds or less? Well, there are certain things you need to do, not only on the day of the interview, but also before. And in this video, I'm going to explain those exact steps. Keep on watching. Hi guys, my name is Shachi and I'm a travel and visa coach. On this channel, you'll find lots of useful videos on the US visa process. We have an entire playlist for fall 2023. So make sure to check it out. So you must have seen a lot of interview experiences like these, where students are getting their visas approved in 60 seconds, 45 seconds, sometimes 30 seconds. So what really goes into this? Well, the secret is, give the visa officer less things to question you in the interview. Which means that when he looks at you, looks at your documents, which is basically your I-20 and your DS-160 form and here's the first few answers, he should get all the relevant information and get a sense of confidence that everything is okay with your profile. In this video, we're going to deep dive into exactly this. I'm going to tell you the exact things to take care of in your documents, your answers and your presentation, so that you too can get your visa approved super fast. Let's get started. Let's start with the first part, the documents. Now the US visa process is not a document process and hardly any documents are checked. But there are two documents which the visa officer will look at for sure in your interview, your I-20 and your DS-164. And then a couple of things you can do to strengthen these documents, so let's look at that. Starting with I-20, the first thing that you can do is scholarship. So if you have any scholarship, an tuition waiver, any graduate assistantship that has been given to you by the university, make sure that it is mentioned in the I-20. Many universities offer this but don't update it in the I-20. Now in visa interviews, any type of funding that you've got from the university is given a lot of importance and it's a brownie point for your profile and in the duration of the interview itself, you might not get a chance to bring it up and highlight it to the visa officer. So getting it mentioned right in the I-20 will make it very clear, very visible to the visa officer and he will know that you do have some type of funding and support from the university. The second thing that you can do for your I-20 is the funding amount that you submit. When you submit funds to the university, try and submit all the funds that are available to you. That means the total personal, family and any loan if you have a weight. Don't limit yourself to showing funds for just one year of your education. The reason for this is that in the visa interview, visa officers look at how you're going to fund the entire duration of the education, not just the first year. So if the total funds are already mentioned in the I-20, then the visa officer will know that you are fully covered for the duration of the education and he might not ask you any funding related questions in the visa interview. To make this more clear, let's look at two I-20s. Now in the first I-20, the first year expense is about 35,000 and the exact amount 35,000 is mentioned as funding in the I-20. Now this means that the student is covered for the first year but we don't know whether he has enough funds for the second year or not, which means that the visa officer is going to ask him questions on funding to check this. Whereas in the second I-20, you can see that the first year expense is about 30,000 and total funds are 55,000 is mentioned in the I-20. Now this gives a better impression to the visa officer because the visa officer knows that the student is already covered for more than one year, so he probably doesn't need to ask him more funding related questions. Speaking of funding, we get a lot of messages like this, where students are wondering how to get a bank account and a credit card in the US. You too must be thinking of your transition to the US and let me tell you it's best to plan this in advance just like you're preparing for your visa interview ahead of time, plan for this entire transition ahead so that it'll save you a lot of hassle, a lot of running around when you reach US and you can focus on other important things like your academics and your accommodation. Now here I want to share with you a product which is going to help you in this transition and this product is called ZOL. ZOL will particularly help you with two really important things, a US bank account and a US credit card. Now with ZOL, you can apply for this in advance. That means you can apply for this right here while you are in India. It's a very simple online process. It'll take you three minutes. You need to upload your basic documents like your I-20, your passport, your visa copy and fill in some basic details. Now once this is done and it's approved, you will have a US bank account with you and this bank account does not need any social security number, it does not need any minimum balance or deposit and there are no hidden charges. Along with this bank account, you can also apply for a ZOL credit card and this credit card by ZOL again will be ready and waiting for you when you reach US. So basically when you reach your university, you'll have your bank account and your credit card waiting for you. And you can start using the credit card right from day one. Now let me tell you one thing that having a good credit history is really important while you're in the US and it's going to help you in a lot of things further along the way. So if you have a credit card, you can do all the spends right from day one using the credit card and this will really help in building up this credit history. So the ZOL credit card has a lot of benefits. It has a high credit limit. There's fraud protection. They also have rewards and cash packs up to 10% on all your spends. So the link for applying for the ZOL bank account and credit card is right below in the description box. Do check it out. In fact, they offer a lot of other services as well. You can get a SIM card insurance. You can also remit money from US to India using ZOL. So details of all of this is right below in the description box. Do check it out. Highly recommended. Now that we have seen the I-20, let's see how to strengthen your DS160 form. So the first thing that you need to take care in the DS160 form is your work education section. Now the DS160 form is the only resume that the visa officer is going to have in front of him. He's not going to ask you for any resume or any other document. So the work education section in the DS160 form is highly important. Now the mistake which happens here is that students write two less, just one or two lines, which doesn't give the visa officer any idea about your profile or what you're doing in India and he ends up asking more questions to understand this resulting in a lengthier interview. So structure your work experience well such that it has all the keywords which connect to the course that you're going for. This way the visa officer will understand that you have the relevant background and will not need to ask any questions about your profile in the visa interview. The same thing applies to those of you who are not employed. If you're recently graduated or if you're not working currently, then use the description box again to explain why you're on a break, what are the things you have done in this break and how these are going to be helpful for you in your program in the US. The second thing to take care of in the DS160 form is in the travel section who is sponsoring your trip. Now most times this is misunderstood as who is paying for the flight. But when they say who is sponsoring your trip it's not literally just the flight but it is your entire duration of stay in the US which essentially means your education expenses. So in this section of who is sponsoring your trip keep it same as your I-20. That means if you had a sponsor your parent in the I-20 mentioned the same in the DS160 form as well. This way there will be no contradiction between the I-20 and the DS160 form and again the visa officer will not have to ask you more questions to verify this. If you're still here still watching the video do give this a thumbs up and comment down below and let me know which university and which course you're going for. Now that we've taken care of the documents let's look at the second part of this video where we're going to discuss the interview hacks and here I'm going to share two tips with you. Number one get the first question right. US visa interviews are generally short so the first question is usually the most important question and in the recent trends the typical questions that are being asked are when did you graduate, why this course, tell me about your work experience and what has changed since your last rejection. I cannot stress enough how important it is to start the interview well because when you start the interview well it builds the rapport, builds the confidence with the visa officer and he will be inclined to give you the visa, he might not ask you too many questions, maybe he'll ask you just one or two more questions about funding future plan and then approve the visa. So you obviously need to prepare for the complete set of questions, you will find the question back in the description box but particularly focus on these four questions because this is likely how your interview will begin and getting this right can go a long way and getting your visa quicker. In fact we have detailed videos on this channel which explain how to frame answers for these questions and show you some sample answers as well so do check them out. The second tip I have for you is answer proactively. Now why is it that some people get asked just three to four questions while others are asked eight to nine questions? The difference is in the content of the answers in those three to four questions. In US visa interviews it's really important to answer proactively and include all relevant details in the question that is asked. So I'm going to take a few examples and explain this to you. So let's say that your answer question where are you headed? Now instead of just saying I'm headed to the US you can include the name of your university, the location of the university and in fact even the course that you're going for. The second question have you taken a loan? Instead of just answering yes I have a loan you can mention yes I have a loan this is a loan amount and additionally I also have savings of my parents I also have assets as backup. Third question who is your sponsor? Now here instead of just mentioning okay my sponsor is my parent or my sponsor is my father you can include numbers you can say that my parent is my sponsor whose annual income is XYZ total savings in assets is XYZ. Additionally I also have a loan and my loan amount is XYZ. Fourth example have you applied to any other university? Instead of just answering yes or no you can say that yes I did apply to other university but my preference is this particular university because you can include one main point which made you choose this particular university. And the fifth example are you working? Instead of just saying yes I'm working with XYZ company you can say yes I'm working and my main role is in this domain so you can clearly highlight the main domain or the main area of your work in such a way that it's going to connect to the program or the master that you're going for. So these are just examples to make you understand how to answer proactively so do follow this and especially follow this in the first couple of questions that are asked to you in the interview. Now a word of caution here remember that the end of the day it's a one-to-one interaction with another person another human being so you need to tweak and modify your responses to the way that person is reacting. If your visa officer is somebody who's okay with you talking with you giving details then of course please continue and be proactive but if the visa officer is constantly interrupting you cutting you off or categorically tells you that don't give me extra details only answer what I'm asking you then of course don't be too proactive you can try to include one or two extra words or one or two keywords but that's it don't give too many details and annoy them further. And now we come to the third part of this video which is also really really important that is your presentation. So we have looked at the documents the interview questions now let's focus on how you need to present yourself in the interview. End of the day it's an interaction and the other person is going to be looking at you and whether they want it or not they are subconsciously going to judge you going to form an opinion about you. So presenting yourself really well is highly critical now this starts right from what you wear please pay a lot of attention to what you wear we get a lot of messages saying that I can go in casual clothes I'm just a student why do I need to wear formals but the fact is end of the day the other person is in formals and it's a interaction so being well dressed is really important you don't really have to wear stripped formals but at least a semi formal attire for boys a crisp shirt in solid colors for girls either Indian or western formals which looks really neat is highly important. In fact when you're standing in the line even before the visa officer calls you forward many times you will see that do they do plans up they do look up and see who is next right so right from that point itself the visa officer is already forming his opinion about you and all he can see is what you're wearing and how you look so paying a lot of attention to what you're wearing your grooming is definitely going to help you to start the interview right and the second thing to start itself so when you reach the visa officer make sure that you agree to vision tell him good morning, good afternoon if you're really feeling up to it you can also ask him how are you doing how's your day going and then wait for him to ask you the questions also make sure that you are loud because it's a noisy environment there's a lot of noise around you so modulate your voice according to the environment if it's not noisy of course you can take it down a notch but if you feel that there's a lot of noise a lot of people are talking you do want to make sure that you are heard very very clearly so this is everything you can do to get your visa approved in 60 seconds I really hope that this video has helped you if you have any more questions feel free to leave them in the description box you can also reach out to me on instagram my instagram handle is at shashiv.mall and of course for a more detailed prep you can reach out to me our main program is our 7 day program which is our flagship program and this is an end to end preparation where we take care of your profile filling your ds160 form answer structuring and putting you through multiple moths we also have other programs we have the core package in which you can get a ds160 review done a one-to-one session with me to structure your answers and a mock and of course we have other single sessions and courses as well so the details of all of this is in the description box do take a look and we have a lot more useful content coming up in the FN visa series so make sure that you subscribe and you stay tuned signing off for now I'll see you in the next one bye