The info, up to date by the US authorities in July 2024, confirmed the longest visa appointment wait occasions of 361 days for college students from Accra, Ghana, whereas many Indian embassies have lower down wait occasions to lower than 4 weeks.
“The bottlenecks in South Asia are exceptional, the challenges in Africa have to be addressed quickly as demand is just going to extend, and in SE Asia there appears to be extra progress in Vietnam and Thailand to maintain up considerably with rising demand,” worldwide admissions professional Marty Bennett instructed The PIE Information.
Embassies in Kolkata and Mumbai have seen important enhancements in visa wait occasions, that are right down to 25 days as in comparison with 129 and 143 respectively in August 2022.
Estimated wait occasions on the US embassy in New Delhi, which had been an estimated 245 days this time two years in the past, are actually a mean of 23 days.
“There have been some attention-grabbing success tales, similar to in India the place a very motivated ambassador has made important PR and precise sensible advances in making an attempt to satisfy the gargantuan demand for a US larger schooling,” mentioned Bennett.
The sensible developments embody a brand new consulate constructing in Hyderabad and plans for 3 extra within the coming years, a change to the visa appointment system that stops “dodgy” brokers from reserving a whole lot of appointments and promoting them to “determined” college students, Bennett defined.
Whereas the information offers beneficial insights into the worldwide disparities, appointment wait occasions can fluctuate weekly primarily based on the supply of funding for extra consular officers, prioritisation by the ambassador and explicit native methods.
Lengthy wait occasions are typically brought about when excessive progress nations are underneath resourced and unable to maintain up with excessive demand for appointments, that is felt notably acutely in locations with elevated visa denials.
“Staffing post-pandemic continues to be the biggest single prohibiting issue from assembly the expanded demand for US embassies and consulates overseas,” mentioned Bennett.
When evaluating pupil visa purposes, consular officers should look at visa overstay charges and financial progress charges for various nations, founding father of Intead Ben Waxman instructed The PIE.
In response to Waxman, 2022 US Homeland Safety knowledge revealed visa overstay charges with Ghana at 18% and Nigeria at 20% compared to the Bahamas and Jamaica at 1% to five%. India’s overstay fee was 3%.
Regardless of delays in implementation, Bennett and Waxman agreed that the state is mostly aware of the adjustments in demand around the globe, with Bennett stating the significance of interview waivers and expedited interviews in easing the visa utility course of.
“Routinely waiving in-person interviews for these with a legitimate visa inside the final 5 years is huge, however to provide consular officers the power to waive interviews particularly instances, and expedited visa interviews obtainable for college students operating up in opposition to program begin dates – and publicising that it is a chance is a large step ahead”, mentioned Waxman.
Nevertheless, he famous that these measures are nonetheless depending on staffing to accommodate emergency appointments and the discretion powers of consular officers to waive interviews.
Staffing post-pandemic continues to be the biggest single prohibiting issue from assembly the expanded demand for US embassies
Marty Bennett, SMIE Consulting
Lengthy wait occasions in excessive progress nations have an apparent influence on potential college students who, unable to get appointments earlier than the beginning of the educational 12 months, are pressured to both defer and wait once more or select one other vacation spot nation.
“This prevents US faculties from rising their total worldwide populations as rapidly as they could like,” mentioned Bennett, who added that the US requirement for in-person interviews for first-time US visa candidates places it at a “aggressive drawback” amongst different research locations.
Lately, the Biden-Harris administration introduced actions to hurry up visa processing for school graduates who maintain job presents, in addition to updating the listing of STEM topics hat enable worldwide college students to qualify for a two-year extension of the one-year OPT work program.
