 We went over 100 interview experiences from fall 22 to find reasons for rejection of F1 visa and in this video we are covering the number one reason for rejection. So if you are wondering why your visa was rejected or what are the things you can do to avoid it, keep on watching. Hi guys, my name is Shachi and I'm a travel and visa coach. On this channel you will find a dedicated playlist for F1 visa and we have a brand new playlist for the spring 23 intake so make sure to check out all of these videos. Can you guess the number one reason for rejection for fall 22? Well it was inability to answer the question why this university convincingly. When a visa officer asks you why this university, they are looking at well researched unique points that you can bring out about the university and they use this as a parameter to see your genuineness as a student and to see how serious you are about the program in the US. And to be honest, this is not easy. Lot of universities in the US are very similar so bringing out these unique points does take time and effort. So in this video we have gone through lot of interview experiences particularly focusing on the question why this university and we have classified the mistakes that students have made into four categories. So I'm going to deep dive into these interview experiences and show you all these details and with this we hope that you are able to understand how you need to structure your answer and what you need to avoid. So this video has a lot of details so make sure to watch it a couple of times and also keep your notes handy. Let's get started. So let's start with the first reason for rejection for why this university. Now it's a great idea to include details about the curriculum that a university offers into your answer but if you're going to talk about subjects which are really common which are going to be offered in almost all universities it's not going to add value and probably not cut it with the visa officer. So if you're talking about the curriculum make sure to include subjects which are unique which are more advanced you can even talk about certain combination of subjects that is offered by your particular university and probably not offered by the others. So let's look at a real interview experience to understand this better. So on this screen what you can see is a real interview where the officer starts by asking why DBU why Dallas Baptist University and you can see that the student answers by talking about diverse subjects such as data analytics and project management. Now honestly data analytics and project management are probably the most common courses that are offered in US universities so this will not make any impact if you're going to justify a university by mentioning these subjects. Another example that you can see on the screen is an interview experience where again the student starts by talking about the curriculum and talks about analytics and data science and you can see that immediately the visa officer is counter questioning by saying that these are common and are they not offered by other universities. So do remember that if you're including points about a curriculum the subjects need to be unique, advanced and something which stands apart. The second reason for rejection is not using the research point properly. Now the research going on in the university is a great value add and a great point that you can include in your answer why this university. But the problem appears when we just mentioned that particular research is going on and you don't connect it to our background. So if you're going to be talking about the research going on in a particular university that research area or topic needs to be connected to your background and when I say background it means your work experience or your academics. Simply mentioning about some research topic or some research area in the university is not really going to cut it. To understand this better let's look at a real interview experience. So if you see this interview experience the student initially starts by answering about the course curriculum and then he goes on to talk about the research and when talking about the research he says that he recently attended a webinar conducted by Professor XYZ who inspired him with his research going on in so and so topic. Now just mentioning the professor name and the topic is not going to be sufficient. Why is this topic of interest to you or why is it connected to your profile is an important detail that is missing here and which you need to include when you use the research point in your answer for why this university. So the third reason for rejection for why this university is having a very long intro. Now the beginning of the answer is when you have maximum attention of the visa officer. The first 10 to 15 seconds is when he is really listening to what you have to say. So don't waste this time in giving long introductions or too many factual details such as number of subjects, number of credits and so on. Once you have framed your answer for why this university figure out which is the best and the strongest point that you have and start the answer with that. Everything else can come after it. Let's look at a real interview experience to see how to implement it. So if you look at this interview experience, the student has asked why University of Pacific and he talks about the course curriculum in which he says that there are 30 credits out of 30, 12 credits are for electives, 18 are for core courses and within electives you can choose subjects like data science, AI which are the area of interest. So as you can see a lot of time in the beginning of the answer is gone on just explaining the number of credits, how many are for core, how many are for electives which again not really adding any value for the question why this university. So do double check your answer and make sure that the beginning is where you are putting your best foot forward. So if you're still here still watching this video do give this video a thumbs up and comment below the name of the university. So put a comment below and tell us the name of the university you're going to and also tell us which intake you're going for whether it is for spring 23 or for fall 23. And before I move on to the fourth point here is a bonus tip for you. So I also see a lot of students making this mistake of mentioning about admits that they have from other countries such as Canada, Europe, UK and so on. When the visa officer is asking you which all universities you have applied for you just need to stick to the universities in the US and that's it. You're not required to give information about the other countries or other places that you've applied to and it's just going to complicate your profile. So keep the answer simple and just stick to the universities that you have applied to within US. Now let's move to the fourth category of rejection for why this university and this was the most common type of answers we saw and these are answers which are long. They have a lot of details but they just don't have anything specific or unique about the university. In fact, these are the type of answers where I could pick it from here and put it in any other university and it would still work and this is exactly what you need to avoid. So if your answers are going to be generic very broad based with no details about what the university has to offer about you it's definitely not going to work in the visa interview. So let's look at an example to understand this better. So the student here has asked why did you choose this university and as you can see it's a pretty long detailed answer but if you really read it and go into it you will see that there is again no specific detail about the university he's going for. So he's talking about a course program that fits his profile makes him acquire desirable skills practical knowledge gives him opportunities also talks about it's a reputed public research university it has good lab facilities and he's interacted with the alumni seniors who've given him positive feedback and also there is research in data analytics. So there are a lot of areas which are covered what would have been really great is the student had picked just one or two of these areas and pointed out specific details about this university for example when talking about the course talk about specific advanced courses when talking about research figure out one research topic and mention how it is connected to your profile. We also have another example to make this point more clear. So here again he is asked the first question why have you chosen this university and he says that the university has a practical way of teaching and they have research facility like cyber innovation lab cyber attack lab now I do agree that the lab part is a little bit unique but still start studying the answer by saying that a practical way of teaching sort of gives it a very generic feel and this is something that you need to avoid. So like I said earlier preparing answers for why this university is not an easy task and will take some time and effort if you're looking for an end-to-end prep where everything is taken care of with respect to your visa interview do check out our seven day course this is a detailed program wherein we start with analyzing your profile looking at what are your strengths your weaknesses then it goes to fill your DS160 form structuring the answers and then we have multiple mock sessions to get your interview ready so some of you here have already enrolled for this program and if you are looking to smash your spring 23 interview do check out this program the link for this in the description box below. So to summarize here are the checks that you need to do for your answer why this university once you have framed it. Number one if you're including details about the course curriculum double check to ensure that you don't talk about subjects which are too common and which are offered in almost every university in the US your curriculum should be speaking about some unique advanced subjects or a unique combination of subjects. Number two if you're including the research point in your answer then you have to include how this research area or research point is connected to your profile or your background. Number three the first few words are the most important so once you frame your answer double check the first sentence and make sure that the strongest point that you have about the university is included in the first sentence. And number four do not give generic broad based answer if your answer is something which looks like it could be taken from one university and put into another university then it's not the right way to do it you need to have unique specific points about your university. So I really hope that this video has given you an idea of how to prove freed and double check your answer for why this university. For more detailed prep do check out this video and this is where we show you sample answers with certain do's and don'ts and this will help you further in framing an answer for why this university. For detailed prep do get in touch with me for one to one sessions or for mocks. The link for all that is in the description box below. We also have a ton of free resources to help you in your preparation so do check them out as well. If you have any more questions feel free to leave it in the comment section you can also DM me on Instagram my Instagram handle is at Shachi.mull and stay tuned for the next video in this series because in the next video we are covering the second most common reason for rejection and that is inability to answer the question why this course why this master's why this bachelor's so make sure that you subscribe and stay tuned for that signing off for now I'll see you in the next one. Bye.