San Jose, CA filers?

[85n280 0]

Dear all,

Any San Jose, CA naturalization filers out there?

Just wanted to see if anyone out there in 2008 or 2009 have any first hand experience on the gap between interview and oath ceremony...

Thanks!

[stlouis 3]

I had my interview February 3rd, 2009 and oath ceremony March 19th. I received the letter with the oath ceremony date about a month after the interview.

[85n280 0]

I had my interview February 3rd, 2009 and oath ceremony March 19th. I received the letter with the oath ceremony date about a month after the interview.

Was your ceremony at the Heritage Theater in Campbell, CA?

That's very helpful... I found the link for the calendar of events at http://www.ci.campbell.ca.us/heritagetheatre/events.htm

I do hope I can get the same timing as you, that is, by mid-late July...

It seems like a lot of people get sworn in each ceremony, like a 1,000 per sitting?

[stlouis 3]

I had my interview February 3rd, 2009 and oath ceremony March 19th. I received the letter with the oath ceremony date about a month after the interview.

Was your ceremony at the Heritage Theater in Campbell, CA?

That's very helpful... I found the link for the calendar of events at http://www.ci.campbell.ca.us/heritagetheatre/events.htm

I do hope I can get the same timing as you, that is, by mid-late July...

It seems like a lot of people get sworn in each ceremony, like a 1,000 per sitting?

Yes it was in Campbell, CA.

That's an interesting link, and it looks about right --- that they have a ceremony (or 2) once a month. On the day I was there, it was one ceremony at 10am and another one in the afternoon. It looked like lots of people, don't know how many, but remember they said there were people from 60 countries.

So, yes most likely you will get mid July oath date.

[mikeH 0]

my wife has her interview on july 6th. any suggestions.her english is poor. she is nervous.

[riosling 0]

my wife has her interview on july 6th. any suggestions.her english is poor. she is nervous.

I had my interview 2 weeks ago, and it really is just a straightforward interview. You are basically asked questions from the application form. If there are no changes in the application form like travel since the application filing or moving violations and speeding tickets, it's mostly NO and the last part YES of the application form. No need then to explain with more words. As for the history exam, my suggestion is that she study all the interview postings of the VJfilers during the last year, and she will notice that most of the interview questions come from a pool of 20 -30 questions. So I would put particular emphasis on these often repeated questions. As for the English written and reading, it's so simple. Same thing, have her look at all the interview postings. Again the pattern seems to be most around 10 or less of the same test questions, like writing "the President lives in the White House" and reading " Who lives in the White House?" , etc. Good luck to her!

[85n280 0]

Yes, the interview was straightforward, a really straightforward but cordial man was the interviewer. It really is subjective who you get.

There are, statistically, average of two thousand interviewees each month in the san jose region for the N-400 which makes it one of the top 5 regions (this is all publicly available at the homeland security site). Statistically I think over 240,000 get approved each year from this specific office (Old Monterey Highway).

You may want to consider an attorney accompanying her if she can't overcome the butterflies. The 100 questions or so that are available for the new citizenship test are definitely the pool of questions, including those regionally specific ones (your congressman, your governor, etc.).

The actual English test (writing or reading a sentence) is silly but it seems the interview itself is the biggest gauge of the ability.

I was very nervous before the test even though I speak English fluently, but I realized afterwards that it was not nearly as bad as I had thought.

Having a really early appointment helped, there were not that many people there (7:45am).

Hope these thoughts are helpful!

my wife has her interview on july 6th. any suggestions.her english is poor. she is nervous.

I had my interview 2 weeks ago, and it really is just a straightforward interview. You are basically asked questions from the application form. If there are no changes in the application form like travel since the application filing or moving violations and speeding tickets, it's mostly NO and the last part YES of the application form. No need then to explain with more words. As for the history exam, my suggestion is that she study all the interview postings of the VJfilers during the last year, and she will notice that most of the interview questions come from a pool of 20 -30 questions. So I would put particular emphasis on these often repeated questions. As for the English written and reading, it's so simple. Same thing, have her look at all the interview postings. Again the pattern seems to be most around 10 or less of the same test questions, like writing "the President lives in the White House" and reading " Who lives in the White House?" , etc. Good luck to her!

[mikeH 0]

my wife has her interview on july 6th. any suggestions.her english is poor. she is nervous.

I had my interview 2 weeks ago, and it really is just a straightforward interview. You are basically asked questions from the application form. If there are no changes in the application form like travel since the application filing or moving violations and speeding tickets, it's mostly NO and the last part YES of the application form. No need then to explain with more words. As for the history exam, my suggestion is that she study all the interview postings of the VJfilers during the last year, and she will notice that most of the interview questions come from a pool of 20 -30 questions. So I would put particular emphasis on these often repeated questions. As for the English written and reading, it's so simple. Same thing, have her look at all the interview postings. Again the pattern seems to be most around 10 or less of the same test questions, like writing "the President lives in the White House" and reading " Who lives in the White House?" , etc. Good luck to her!

where i can get those 20-30 questions. please let me know. thanks

[riosling 0]

my wife has her interview on july 6th. any suggestions.her english is poor. she is nervous.

I had my interview 2 weeks ago, and it really is just a straightforward interview. You are basically asked questions from the application form. If there are no changes in the application form like travel since the application filing or moving violations and speeding tickets, it's mostly NO and the last part YES of the application form. No need then to explain with more words. As for the history exam, my suggestion is that she study all the interview postings of the VJfilers during the last year, and she will notice that most of the interview questions come from a pool of 20 -30 questions. So I would put particular emphasis on these often repeated questions. As for the English written and reading, it's so simple. Same thing, have her look at all the interview postings. Again the pattern seems to be most around 10 or less of the same test questions, like writing "the President lives in the White House" and reading " Who lives in the White House?" , etc. Good luck to her!

where i can get those 20-30 questions. please let me know. thanks

Mike H, what I did was to look at postings of citizenship interviews going back a year. Although the exam changed to a simpler exam , I think, beginning of the year, I noticed the similarity of the questions in more than half of the interviews. That's why I said 20 -30, but again you never know what they'll be asking. Having said that, go over the postings since January 2009 , and there were a lot of questions in the guide that were never asked in any of the posted interviews. Still the caveat, be prepared for everything. The exam isn't really that difficult, so I don't think you'll have problems passing the exam. Good luck!!!!

[mikeH 0]

My wife has oath ceremony on july 16,2009. at campbell. if any one has been there please let me know your expereinces. If relatives allowed. Children? applying for passport? How long it takes.

[mikeH 0]

my wife took oath ceromany on 7/16 at campbell. ca. @ campbell heritage theatre. it statrted at 3.pm an she was done at 4.30 pm. thanks for all your help .

[TBoneTX 45,498]

A recent post has been split from this 2009 thread (which is now locked), moved to the US Citizenship Case Progress subforum, and given this thread title: "Any San Jose (Calif.) Filers' Experiences? [split topic]."