Student Visa (F1, F2, M1, M2)

Hi all,

I'm a continuing PhD student. I did my interview on Nov 17th and had the visa approved. I waited for 10 days before having to take my passport for urgent travel. The embassy then emailed me to return the passport via mail. Passport was delivered to them on Dec 22nd. There were no further communication from the embassy until Jan 18th. On that day, they emailed me to bring my passport as soon as possible because my school deadline is Jan 25th. This was disturbing because they are supposed to have the passport with them for the past month. I went to the embassy and they said the passport wasn't delivered and I should check with the mailing company. I went to the mailing company and they said the passport has beeb delivered on Dec 22nd. They also gave me documents showing the embassy has received it (embassy staff signature was there). On my way back to the embassy, they called insisting that the passport wasn't delivered. I told them I have documents from the mailing company showing your signature upon receiving the package. They said we will check and call you again. After 30 mins, they called and said we found your passport, and you should bring a new I-20. I told them I'm a continuing student and don't need to submit a new I-20. They said okay, we will call you back and you don't need a new I-20. They never called, and the only update I got from them was an email saying: we received your passport and it is continuing under administrative processing.

Because of this mishandling, I had to withdraw from the spring semester and take a leave of absence to avoid being discontinued from the program.

I hope administrative processing doesn't take forever 😔 since I need to be back and continue working on my research as soon as possible ( which is now April 15th).

This is in US embassy in Riyadh.