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Ask HN: Have you gotten an O-1 work visa? What was the experience like?

21 points by marymkearney ↗ HN
Hi, I'm interested in hearing stories of how people got their O-1 "extraordinary ability" work visas. (1) Did you find the O-1 option yourself, by researching it, or was it suggested to you by an immigration lawyer or a friend? (2) Did you rely on past accomplishments, or did you seek media coverage, enter contests, etc., to build your evidence portfolio? (3) What was the process like for you - easy, difficult, frustrating, confusing, scary, exciting?

I'm a (former) immigration lawyer working on doing a brain dump of all my knowledge about O-1 visas. The idea is to demystify the process, and create a public resource for individuals to build their own O-1 evidence packages.

Would love to know what has worked and not worked, for folks who have been through the O-1 process, so I can build better tools. Thanks!

5 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 25.4 ms ] thread
achalkley
1) Suggested by a lawyer. 2) Had enough already because have extraordinary abilities :) 3) I would say, long and arduous - even having all the evidence first. Collecting it and collecting references from basically everyone with a professional connection.
ddorian43
I'm curious what the abilities are in your case ?
marymkearney
Thanks - I can see your halo of extraordinariness from here! :) Seriously, I looked at your stuff and I can see why you qualified.

Can I ask how many categories you had? And also, how did you approach explaining "what you do" and why it's cool, in language the examiner could understand? Thanks so much.

tlubinski
1.) found several options, discussed with lawyer, and went with O-1. 2.) According to the lawyer I already had enough proof of my "extraordinary abilities" 3.) My advice: don't try this without a lawyer specialized in O-1. It took me 4-6 weeks to gather all the data + some extra weeks to get recommendation letters. My application had several hundred pages in the end (compiled by the lawyer).
marymkearney
Hi, thanks so much for the reply and sharing your experience. Totally agree about the lawyer.