 This is the first video in the fall 22 F1 visa series and in this video I'm going to be talking about three really important basics that needs to be in place much before you even think of interview preparation. So keep on watching. Hi guys my name is Shachi and I'm a travel and visa coach. On this channel you will find lots of useful videos on the US visa process. There is an entire playlist for F1 visas so make sure that you check it out. Today's video is going to be about three really important basics which I believe are the three pillars or three cornerstones of your F1 visa journey and many times I feel that small mistakes or errors in these basics can even lead to visa attraction. So today's video we're going to go into detail of these three topics and make sure that in your case you're fully sorted and you don't make any errors or any mistakes when it comes to these. Before I start let me just tell you that in the description box below you will see a lot of free resources and these are PDFs which have been prepared to help you in your F1 visa journey. So you will find a F1 question bag, a document checklist, a financial document checklist and few other things. So once you're done watching the video make sure that you click on these links and get your free PDF. With all of this said now let's get into the main video. The first basic that I want to talk about is your I-20. Your I-20 is the single most important document in your entire F1 visa journey. In fact everything begins once you have your I-20 in place. So let's start by understanding how to get your I-20. So once you have the admission letter or the admission proof from the university you will need to log into the university portal, fill out a few basic details, attach proof of your funding, fill out maybe a few extra forms and then once you're submitted the university will process and issue you your I-20. Now an important point to note here is that the time taken to get your I-20 varies a lot and it varies from university to university. Some can issue your I-20 within a week or couple of weeks, some can take even up to two months. So you really need to factor in this timeline when you're planning for your F1 visa interview because many times I get messages and DMs from students saying that they're all set, they are all set to book their slots but they still haven't received their I-20. So if you are still waiting for your I-20 make sure to be really proactive, follow up regularly with your school official or the admissions coordinator and let them know that you're waiting, you're really interested and you're just here to get that I-20 and begin your process. Next let's look into an I-20 form and see what are the main fields that you really need to be careful about. So once you get your I-20 you need to do a thorough check of your I-20. There are many times where universities and colleges do make mistakes in the I-20 so once you have your I-20 do a line wise check and I'm going to walk you through a typical I-20 and show you what are the main fields that you really need to be careful about. So first is the name. Now you will see that there is a given name as well as a surname and this needs to match exactly the way it's written in your passport. Same thing with the date of birth. The date of birth needs to be accurate and needs to match with your passport details. Then comes the school name. Now this is usually correct. Usually universities don't make mistakes here so we are okay there. Then the program of study. So here is where your actual course is mentioned. So do a check here and make sure that the correct course is listed. Now it's okay here if the course name or the master's name is not exactly what is mentioned in your I-20 letter because when it comes to I-20 universities do tend to follow a very standard naming structure. For example a master's in business analytics could be mentioned in your I-20 as quant and financial methods and this is completely fine but the overall course should be the area in which you are going for. And here and next comes the financials and again this is a really important section. So do a thorough check of the financials. So you will see that it is usually broken down into different fields so make sure that all these details are fine. Sometimes universities by mistake do even put expenses of dependence so make sure that no such thing is happening for your case that is of course you don't have any dependence. And then on the other side we have funding. Funding is also a really important part of the I-20. So here what you need to be careful about is that if you have a scholarship right or any kind of assistantship make sure that it is mentioned in the I-20 because the V.O. would consider it in the interview only if it's there in your I-20. And if we go further down the I-20 there is the signature so you need to sign the signature so you would see there's a school attestation as well as signature of the student. So the student needs to put their signature right here and this can be done any day before your visa interview. There is no specific date for this and only if you're below 18 you would need the signature of your parent. So if you're still here you're still watching the video give this video a thumbs up let me know and if you have your I-20 in place let me know which university you're going to. So comment below the name of your university and let me know where you're headed. The second basic that I want to talk about is the service fee. So service ID is a unique ID which you will see on your I-20 and this is an ID issued to every international student who wants to enter the US for education. So if you have multiple I-20s you will have multiple service IDs and that's completely fine. You just need to figure out which one is your final I-20 the one which you're going to go for the visa interview and use that service ID to make your service fee payment and this service fee receipt is one of the most important documents and this is a mandatory document that you need to take with you for both your biometric as well as for your visa interview. There are so many times when students come and tell me that they did the entire process they went to the interview but they did not pay the service fee they just forgot or they were unaware of it and just because of this one factor it resulted in a visa rejection. So be really careful bookmark it that you need to pay the service fee. Also if you're applying to apply for an emergency or an expedited appointment paying the service fee also really helps. So make sure that before you apply for your EA you pay the service fee and attach this fee receipt as one of the documents along with your EA application. So let's see how to pay the service fee and how to do this entire process. So to pay the service fee you need to go to the website fmgfee.com right this is a website and when you're here you will see very clearly there is an option to pay I-901 fee and this is your service fee. So click on this and you would see that it asks you to enter details. So there is service ID, last name, given name, date of birth, enter all of this exactly the way it's mentioned in your I-20 and once you hit submit it'll ask you to pay a fee of 350 dollars that is the current fee for FN visa service fee so you need to pay this and once you pay it'll give you the confirmation the service fee confirmation and this is a really important document that you need to carry with you to the visa interview. So another tip here that I would like to share about the service fee is that even if you have paid the service fee for one particular university but let's say that you get a better admit a better I-20 and you want to shift to that university then you don't need to pay the service fee again service fee can be transferred. So this transfer can be done very easily by just writing a mail to the support ID so the support ID mail is right here on the screen you can take note of this and write a mail to them explaining that you would like to transfer your service fee and give details of what the university is that you would like to transfer to. Now here keep in mind that this entire transfer process usually takes about three working days and this needs to be completed before you go for your biometric and your visa interview so if you are planning to transfer your service fee do take note of this three working day time and the third basic that you really need to take care of is your DS160 form. There is so much I can talk about the DS160 form I can I think make an entire playlist on it and that's because this is really really important. The US visa process does not ask you to submit any documents except the DS160 form so filling this accurately and properly is really important. So make sure that all the factual details that you put in the DS160 form are correct and do take extra care when you fill the work and the education section because this is one of the main sections that is read and noticed by the video. So the DS160 form is a six page of form and like I was telling you make sure that you fill often really carefully and the most important part of the DS160 form is your work and education section. So the work details needs to be filled really carefully if you're not working currently you're not employed then the box that's the description box should explain what you have done in the gap or if there's anything else that you're doing while not being employed that should be listed there and same thing for your work information so this is a part of the form that the BO is going to pay attention to. So when he reads your work part he should get a clear idea of what exactly are your roles and responsibilities many times I see that the work section is written extremely lengthy right and the way the DS160 form is it doesn't really allow you to format it so everything just comes you know together and on top of it when you make a really lengthy explanation it's almost impossible for the BO to read it or to make any sense of it. So structure your work description really carefully split it into three to four bullet points and use concise exact terms so that when the BO reads it he gets a really clear understanding of what exactly you do. Same thing for your education section start from the highest education qualification and go on and mention everything till your 10th so your highest education your 12th 10th all of this seems to be mentioned. So if you want my help in reviewing or filling your DS160 form do reach out we have a DS160 toolkit and this is a 40-minute video guide using which you can very easily fill your DS160 form the link for the DS160 toolkit is right below in the description box. Now before I move to the next part an insider tip about the DS160 form is that you don't need to really fill the complete form and submit it to book an appointment all you need is a DS160 confirmation number so if you're waiting to book an appointment don't wait till you finish submit your DS160 because that can take some amount of time start the DS160 form get the confirmation number and use this number to book your appointment this is because right now availability of slots is not that easy it will take you some amount of time some amount of tries to get a slot so don't wait till you complete your DS160 form get the confirmation number and immediately start the process of booking your appointment. So guys these were the three important basics which I want all of you to be really thorough about and make sure that you don't make any mistakes I really hope this video has helped you and if you have any more doubts and questions feel free to leave them in the comment section below or DM me on Instagram my Instagram handle is at shachi.mall like I said this is the first video in the fall 22 series so a whole lot of useful content coming your way so subscribe press the bell icon make sure that you don't miss out on any of these videos for a more in-depth prep I have a lot more useful resources so you can go for one-to-one consultation session with me you can take a mock interview both of these are going to be extremely helpful the consultation session helps in structuring your answers preparing your profile and the mock interview is there to give you a real feel of the actual user interview and help you structure your answers and build your confidence. Apart from this for the fall 22 intake we also have a seven-day prep course and this is an intense comprehensive course which is going to be an end-to-end solution for all your F1 user requirement so the details of all of these resources are there in the description box do take a look. So that's all for today's video thank you so much for watching wishing you all the best for your FN visa journey ahead and I'll see you super soon bye.