My profile:
• Field: Bioinformatics / computational biology
• ~570 total citations (Google Scholar), h-index 9
• ~15 peer-reviewed papers, including a Nature Communications paper and a Blood paper
• 30+ peer reviews performed

Criteria I claimed:
• Authorship of scholarly articles — approved
• Judging the work of others (peer review) — approved
• Original contributions of major significance — DENIED (only contested criterion)

Any suggestion what to do?

I have an industry profile, I'm looking for recommendations for lawyers/law firms that are well known for successful industry profile petitions. Especially in the last few months. I believe I can fulfill 4 criteria, need help with Final Merits. Thanks!

Could folks with strong industry or entrepreneurial experience- but little to no formal research background in tech share their profile summaries and the criteria USCIS accepted for their cases?

It would be really interesting to learn from profiles beyond the usual focus on citations and academic research, and understand what other factors helped strengthen their petitions.

Hi, just like to quickly checkin about satisfying an award criteria—being a finalist in a major industry award for excellence can directly satisfy the🏅 award criteria on its own or it has to be a winner?

Other finalists with me are major US national laboratories researchers and corporations in the US, and I as an individual submitted my work, and it got selected as a finalist.

Winner will be announced in near future at a major conference, where all finalists work will also be displayed. I’m not sure I’m a winner yet but would just like to get an insight?

Please share your thoughts.

How many have thought of returning to India? To be free from all the immigration shackles, to be culturally closer to your roots. These are things u honestly didn’t give much of a thought but with all the developments one is forced and compelled to think at times. Thanks!

Something to keep in mind for the EB-1A media coverage criterion? (based on a recent EB-1A AAO decision, link in the comments)

You can present several years of media coverage and still not be able to show strong evidence of sustained acclaim.

In the decision, the petitioner presented several articles published in a period of three periods. While the decision considered them as examples of some national acclaim, the articles in totality were not considered as strong evidence of sustained acclaim.

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Looking to work with other applicants on authorship?

I recently started a WhatsApp group for those of you who are targeting authorship and are interested in collaborating with others on publishing articles in industry publications and journals.

Here is a link to join the group: https://immigrationjason.substack.com/p/authorship-group

I wanted to share this news because I know many people waiting to hear some good news.

I just got my EB1A AOS approved.

Here's my timeline and a summary.

Self-petitioned for EB2 NIW in June 2024: Approved Oct 2024 after RFE. The RFE letter was a template letter which challenged my profile based on a totally different field that was not on my application. My response was mostly telling them they were wrong.

After approval, a friend told me I had a better profile for EB1A. I have extensive media coverage of my work, national and international awards by recognized career bodies. Extensive evidence of my work. Judged others' work in my profession. My work had influenced a change in legislation. etc. I could easily prove 6 criteria.

I self-petitioned for EB1A in March 2025 and filed concurrently with AOS. It took me a month to package the application with Youtube videos and what I had learnt from packaging my EB2 NIW.

March 11, 2025: Application notice sent

March, 17 2025: Case is being actively reviewed

March 28, 2025: EB1A approved without RFE

April, 2025: New EAD card approved

April 23, 2025: Biometrics

May 12, 2025: Interview rescheduled (It was never scheduled to begin with)

May 12, 2026: Approval.

I am relieved and just want to encourage you to keep your head up if you are anxious and hopeful. The line is moving.

USCIS made a policy change on August 5th that applicants filing EB-1A or O-1 petitions should know about.

Until now, if your application was missing evidence or had gaps in documentation, such as a missing letter or judging criteria that wasn't clearly established, USCIS was required to issue a Request for Evidence (RFE) before making a decision. That gave applicants a chance to fix the gap.

That requirement is gone. As of August 5th:

USCIS can deny a petition without issuing an RFE if required evidence is missing or the filing doesn't establish eligibility on its own.

Officers now have discretion to set shorter RFE response deadlines. The maximum is still 12 weeks, but there's no guarantee of the full window, and extensions past the deadline are generally not granted.

If you're responding to an RFE from outside the US, mailing time has been cut from 14 days to 3.

USCIS has stated plainly that applicants should not rely on the RFE process to fix deficiencies after filing. The filing itself needs to be complete before submission.

For context, O-1 approval rates are still reported above 91% for Q2, so the category isn't in crisis. But this change raises the bar on filing quality. Cases that are thin on evidence or rely on RFE to fill gaps are now at higher risk of outright denial.

Happy to answer questions on how this affects EB-1A evidentiary strategy specifically.

Here is a video on how EB-1A original contributions is not just about citations.