 Our inbox and DMs are flooded with messages like these. In this video, I'm going to give you my researched opinion on the entire USA FN visa slot availability scenario and what is it that you can do about it, 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 entire playlist for FN visa, so make sure to check out all of these videos. Now, let's start today's video by understanding a little bit about the background and what all has happened up till now. Before every major intake, that is before the fall and the spring intake, the US Embassy conducts an event, it's a Facebook live event, where they discuss their plans of the slot schedule, how they're going to handle the interviews and what is it that students can expect from the embassy. They had one such event for the spring 23 intake as well and in this Facebook event, the plan that they laid out was that they are planning two bulk openings of slots one sometime in October, one sometime in November and another opening towards the end of the intake. That means sometime around December for people with a previous refusal. Now, the reality, the situation as of now has been quite different from what was the original plan. We are almost end of December here and till now we have seen only one bulk opening of slots which also came quite late towards the end of October and post that I would say there have been two mini openings, one in November and one in December. Now, the problem with this situation is that the number of slots that have been opened up so far has covered about roughly I would say 60 to 65% of the people who wanted to go for the spring intake but there's a big chunk of 35 to 40% of the students who have an I-20, who haven't admit for the spring intake but they do not have a visa slot and many of them have a previous refusal that means that they have a refusal in 22 but they haven't been able to give their interview again for the spring 23 intake. So, cut to the present, the embassy has a visa Q&A event every Friday and in this event they answer questions regarding US visa interviews. The recent event that they had had most of the questions being asked about slots where students ask the embassy whether slots will be released, what should they do should they differ their intake and so on. Now, to a lot of these questions the reply that was given was a very standard reply which went along the lines of our capacity is limited, we are trying our best and most of our slots have been filled for December and January and this sort of set of a panic wave, our inbox, our DMs were flooded with students concluding that no more slots are going to be released and this is the end of the road for the spring 23 intake. Now, here is my take on this entire situation. So, cutting to the main question, are no more slots going to be released for spring 23 intake? Well, my answer is not necessarily, there is still hope, there is still a very good chance that slots might be released for spring 23 intake and here's why. Number one, if we look at all the replies that have been given by the embassy on that particular visa Q&A there are numerous screenshots floating around and in many of those replies we see that the embassy is telling the student that keep tracking the system, we do release slots in bulk and whenever we have a bulk opening you will be able to get it in the one or two days of that opening so make sure that you are tracking the system, you are logging in appropriate number of times and checking the availability of slots. So, from the embassy itself there is this communication, you can see the screenshot also right now it says that keep tracking the system. The second reason why I feel there is still chance for spring 23 intake is the historical data, the past events. So, if you look at the fall 22 intake something very similar happened. It was August and the embassy released a communication saying that we have filled up, we have processed most of the visas for fall intake and we are done for this intake and at that point of time there were still good number of students who hadn't given the interview, many of them had a previous refusal. So, towards 15th, 16th of August or somewhere around 15th, 16th August the embassy ended up releasing another bulk slot which sort of catered to all of those who were left which means that for this intake also there is a possibility of something similar happening and we can expect some slots to come into the system towards the end of December or Jan. It might not be a full-fledged bulk opening but you can expect some mini bulk slots to be released. And the third reason why I feel that there is still hope for spring 23 intake is what we see on a day to day basis. Every day we see students being able to book slots, being able to get an interview appointment and they are doing this by a combination of tracking the system on their own being part of telegram groups where they are able to get some information and taking help from a third party or taking help from an agent. Whatever are the methods that they are following the fact of the matter is that they are able to book an appointment and get an interview slot. So, which means that more slots are coming into the system it could be a combination of cancelled appointments it could be a combination of tiny slots here and there which are being released by the embassy. So, looking at all the three factors the replies given by the embassy, what happened in fall 22 intake and what we see on a day to day basis I strongly feel that there is still hope for spring 23 intake there is still hope of you giving an visa interview and going for the university for the spring 23 intake. Now, with this information here is what you should be doing right now. The first thing is to sit tight for the next 10 to 15 days the next 10 to 15 days are going to be really crucial and honestly this is not the time to give up or to feel dejected or to feel frustrated I totally understand how this situation might feel to you how the uncertainty and not really knowing whether you will be able to give the interview or not can get to you but the next 10 to 15 days are crucial so for the next 10 to 15 days really sit tight do not give up and whatever you are doing to get a slot whether it is tracking yourself, pulling up with your friends or getting help continue doing that and make sure that you are on top of your game when it comes to getting a slot. A lot of the slots that we are seeing recently are basically in Mumbai and Kolkata Embassy so you could also prioritize these locations when you are looking for the appointment. The second thing you could do right now is to try for an emergency appointment so emergency appointment is an option given by the embassy to you and it allows you to request for an expedited appointment and I would say that this is one option which literally costs nothing it does not harm you in any way and there is no harm essentially in applying for an emergency appointment so you have the option to apply for an emergency appointment from your CGI portal itself so do check out this video where we explain the exact step by step process of applying for an emergency appointment and if you need our help in drafting an emergency application reach out to us, the link for this is in the description box below A lot of you also ask us whether you should travel to a third country to give the visa interview and in my opinion honestly I have not seen much success through this route there are a lot of Indian students who go to countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore to give interviews many of them have gone for the spring 23 intake as well but do not see a very good visa approval rate when students go to a third country and a lot of communication released by the embassy earlier also states that they do not encourage people travelling to a third country just for the purpose of giving the visa interview so if you are thinking of applying from a third country might not be the best option right now I would suggest that you still try and get the slot from your home country itself the third thing that you should be doing right now is talking to your university so talk to university not about getting an extension but also about deferring to the next intake now when I say next intake I am not talking of fall 23 there is something which comes before that so many universities either have a summer intake or they have an early fall intake which means that the classes start sometime in March, April, May now this is just couple of months ahead from your spring intake so it's a very good option to have a very good fall back option to have so do check with your universities whether this is possible for you and the last thing I think the final but the most important one is that utilize this time to improve your profile right so for some reason if you are not getting a slot and you have time on your hand this is the time that you should be using to improve your profile in all the frustration, in all the rush of getting a slot I think the visa preparation sort of gets neglected and students end up getting an interview date but they are not prepared for the interview so if you feel that your profile needs a little bit of rework whether it is adding internship whether it's adding some experience or online courses or getting a better admit itself now is the time that you can utilize to do all of this so yes this is my entire opinion on the current situation I really hope that this brings some sense of clarity about what you should be doing right now and what are the steps that you can take to safeguard your education and your career plans in the US of course we will be tracking everything really really closely and any updates that we get about availability of slots will be coming right here on this channel so make sure that you stay tuned and do check out all the videos that we mentioned check out the video to draft the emergency appointment check out all the preparation playlists and also check the links in the description box where we have tons of resources for you we have free resources for you to prepare and also you can take one to one sessions with me you can take more sessions to get you ready for the visa interview if you have any more questions feel free to leave it in the comment section below you can also DM me on Instagram my Instagram handles as chachi.mull and I'll try my best to get back to you so that's all for today stay tuned we have more videos coming up particularly the next video is going to be about Mumbai Embassy and how to answer the questions being asked in Mumbai Embassy so stay tuned for that signing off for now I'll see you in the next one