 Planning for USA FN visa in 2023, whether it's for summer or fall intake, I truly believe that starting early is going to be the key this year. In this video, I'm going to cover the latest updates about the availability of slots and some interview preparation tips. So 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 two playlists for FN visa dedicated specifically for FN visa. So make sure to check out all of these videos. Today's video, I'm going to cover all the latest updates about availability of visa slots for FN students, what has changed this year, how should your strategy look like for this year. Followed by that, I'm going to cover three important points for interview preparation. So make sure that you have your notes handy and let's get started. So let's start by talking about the availability of slots for FN visa in 2023. And here is something exciting which is going to happen this year. The availability of slots for FN visa is expected to look very, very different in 2023 compared to the previous year. And here's why. This is because of a new rule by the US Embassy in India and it is called the 365 day rule. Now unlike earlier where you could book a FN visa appointment only 120 days in advance, now as for the new rule, you can book a visa appointment 365 days in advance. That means you can start appearing for a visa interview one year ahead of your program start date. Because of this new rule, things are expected to look a little different. And I predict that this year, FN visa slots will not have any bulk openings or just bunching of slots together. So if you've been following the FN visa trend for some time, you would know that in every intake, the slots have been opening up only in one or two bulk openings. That means for the entire intake, they're just one or two days where the entire list of slots or the entire bunch of slots come into the system and these are called bulk openings and you have to get a slot only on those days. Now that puts a lot of pressure on the Embassy and of course they have to handle huge volume of students giving interview at the same time. To ease this out is why they have introduced the 365 day rule and since you can now book for a visa slot 365 days in advance, I highly doubt there will be any bulk openings or bunching of slots this year. We can expect the slots to be released gradually into the system every 15 days or every one month and this would allow the Embassy to manage the volumes of students better. In fact, just last week we saw that a bunch of slots were released for the April month so I think somewhere between 12th to 17th April, they released quite a bit of slots for FN visa. By the way, a lot of you DMed and messaged us that you missed that April opening and you're really worried. Well, I think at this point of time, there's nothing much to worry about if they've started opening up the slots, it's expected that more and more slots are going to come into the system. So just stay on track, make sure you have paid your visa fees, make sure you're monitoring and tracking the system regularly. On this note, let's also discuss about people with a previous refusal. Again, for somebody with a prior refusal, the opening of slots is expected to look different this year and like the previous intakes where you had to wait till the end of the intake to get a slot. I don't think that is what is going to be followed this year. Even for people with a previous refusal, it's going to be a gradual process and you might seeing the slots into your system or into your account much sooner. In fact, even in the April opening that we just spoke about, even people with a previous refusal were able to book. So if you have a prior refusal, don't give up and think that I'm only going to get a slot at the end of the year, it might be much, much sooner. So again, pay your visa fees, start your preparation and keep tracking the system regularly. So given all these changes which are going to happen into the system, what we really need is a new strategy for approaching the FN visa interview. We need a new strategy as to when you should appear for the interview. It should neither be too soon, right? You don't appear for the interview so soon that you don't even have the I-20 players. You don't even have the admin from the university that you really want to go to and of course it should not be too late. So what we need is a just right in the middle strategy and this brings me to my second point. So let's talk about the second point, university selection. Now given the new rule that you can book a visa appointment 365 days in advance, special attention and care needs to be given to which university you select and which university you go for for the visa interview. Just because you can book a visa interview 365 days in advance does not mean you need to be in a rush and go for the interview with the first admin or the first I-20 have got. In fact, many of you who booked the slot for April 2023 DMed and told us that you don't even have the I-20 in place and that's because the visa slot might be available 365 days in advance but the universities are not going to issue I-20s 365 days in advance. Most universities take their time and they issue I-20 only three to four months before the start of the program. So what you need here is a calculated approach to ensure that you are going for the visa interview with the right university and the right course because if you get this right if you get the right university and the right course in place then this covers a significant portion of your interview preparation and can significantly improve your chances of getting a visa approval. So let's see what this approach should be. So for all the universities that you have applied to select the top two and if you feel that you have a good chance of getting an admin from these two universities then plan for the visa interview only once you have an I-20 in place or an admin in place from at least one of these universities. Do not be in a hurry and go for the visa interview with any I-20 that you have. Remember every rejection sets you back and makes the process one step harder. So special importance should be given to which university you go for with the visa interview. So if you're wondering which is the university I should go for with the visa interview and how do I know if it's the right university? Well in my opinion there are four to five parameters which you should be considering and some of them are the course curriculum. So look at the course and see what is the specialization that you're being offered. What are the unique subjects? Scholarships significantly improve your chance of getting a visa. So see if you're getting a scholarship from any university. Third of course the ranking how does a university rank in comparison to other universities in the US and fourth the industry exposure. What's the kind of exposure that you're going to get from this university? Does this give you a chance to study in a big city? Does it offer you a lot of industry projects? Does it offer you a lot of capstone projects and so on. For a more detailed explanation on how to justify a university to a visa officer do check out this video linking right here on the channel. So make sure to pay special importance to university selection and also remember that you always have the option to postpone your visa interview. So even if you want to go ahead and book the visa interview for now that's completely fine. But if you feel that closer to your interview date you don't have the right I-28 place you can always postpone it to the next available date which could be let's say a couple of weeks or even a month into the future. So if you're still here still watching this video give this video a thumbs up and comment down below which university and which course you're planning to go for 2023. This brings me to my third point which is super important but I think something which is also ignored quite a bit and that is building your profile. So over the last one year we have analyzed and studied FMEs interviews a lot in depth and in this we found that a lot of importance is being given to the profile of the students. What is their academic track record? What is their work experience? Do they have any gaps in their education right and this period that you have this lull period that you have right now where you're just waiting for the slots. This is a great time to build and boost up your profile. So if you feel that your profile needs anything maybe it needs an internship it needs some courses it needs some certification programs or maybe you need work experience itself. This is the right time to do that. Often in the rush for preparation somehow the course the university funding all that gets taken care of but it's the profile which gets neglected and this is something which we cannot fix at the last minute. So don't do that take a look at your academy and work background and if you feel there's anything you need to do to cover gaps to align yourself more with respect to the course that you're going for in the US or to just make your entire BS 160 and resume look much better this is the time to do that. So on this note let me tell you about a detailed way in which you can prepare for your F1 visa interview and this is the F1 7 day program. So this program consists of seven individual sessions with me and through all these sessions we cover everything right from understanding your profile filling your BS 160 form structuring your answers and putting you through multiple mocks. So this really ensures that you are 100% prepared for the visa interview and especially if you have a previous refusal this is going to be super beneficial. So starting early is the key here because we need time to schedule these sessions and plan out all of this for you some of you are already enrolled. So if you're looking for the comprehensive stress free way I would say to prepare for your F1 visa interview do check the 7 day program the link for this is in the description box below. So now coming to the next point and this I believe is a hygiene check or a hygiene factor for F1 visa approval and that is law of financials. So for F1 visa approval we need to have sufficient liquid funds in place when I say liquid funds it basically refers to the savings in the bank accounts, FDs, mutual funds and other savings like PF and PPF. So at this point of time you should do a quick check of the liquid funds of your sponsor and see if you're meeting the minimum cutoff. What is this cutoff? For Masters it is 1.5 times of your first year expense and for Bachelors it is 2 times the first year expense. So just total up the liquid funds of your sponsors and make sure that it is meeting this cutoff. If not you can think of adding other sources of funding such as applying for a loan, adding other sponsors and just seeing if there are any other sources of your sponsor that you could include. So do all of this right now so that the funding part is sorted and you also have enough time to prepare for the documentation. So these four points that we spoke about understanding when to apply for a visa interview, which university to select, building up your profile and planning your financials. I truly believe that these four should be the basic starting point of anybody looking to apply for an FN visa interview in 2023 be it for summer or fall intake and I really hope that this has given you a sense of how you need to prepare and plan ahead. If you have any more questions feel free to leave them in the comment section below. You could also DM me on Instagram, Instagram handles at shachi.mull and there are more ways in which you can prepare for me. Apart from the 7 day program we also offer short packages. This is called the core package which consists of the DS160 review, one session for answer structuring and a mock session. And we also have individual sessions that you can take. You can take a one-to-one consultation session to structure answers, clear all your doubts and you could also take a single mock session. We also have a self-preparation course. This is the FN prep course and this is a video course. You can watch it and prepare on your own at your own pace. So details of all the good stuff is in the description box below. We also have some study material for you. So we have a question bank, we have document checklist. So make sure that you are making use of all of this. Thank you so much for watching. I really, really hope that all of you succeed in your FN visa journey and more and more of you come to the US in 2023. Stay tuned. We are just getting started for the FN season and there will be a lot more useful content coming up. So make sure that you subscribe and stay tuned. See you in the next one. Signing off for now. Bye.