F1 Visa Interview | Rejected | Hyderabad, India
For context, I was going to pursue MSCS at UMass Amherst.
VO: Good morning
Me: Good morning officer
VO: Pass me your passport and I-20
Me: Sure, here it is. (I gave my SEVIS receipt along with the I-20 as well by mistake)
VO: So amherst yeah?
Me: yep
VO: why amherst?
Me: (I got nervous and took a couple of seconds, also probably sounded nervous/befuddled ) Well, I’ve done my bachelor’s in CS and I want to further continue to gain advanced knowledge. Also, I worked on reinforcement learning and UMass is a pioneer of RL, and I am also interested in some professor’s work.
VO: Like who?
Me: (I fumbled a lot here pronouncing the name) [Name of the professor]. His work in meta reinforcement learning, which is something I’m interested in.
VO: What about funding?
Me: We have family savings. My parents are going to fund it. They have savings of about $X and we’ve taken a loan of about $X. The remaining can easily be covered as my dad has a steady income source. (total was about $130k)
VO: What was your gpa?
Me: Until 7th semester, 8.3/10.
I had planned proper answers, however, seeing the previous rejection made me nervous and I ended up giving a general answers and probably sounded nervous as well.