AOS interview experience (good?)

[kayleexdavid 16]

Hello! I just did my AOS interview yesterday and here's how it went!

So we showed up 30 mins early (and spent 5 mins to walk around the whole building because we couldn't find the door >U<) The security officer asked for our interview notice and both our photo IDs, checked them and informed us about the security procedures like how they are authorized to search us in this building. We put our stuff in these trays and sent it through the scanner. My husband and some other people had to take their shoes off (seemed to be pointy shoes with extra space in the front?) I thought they might check our phones and belongings, but they sent us straight to the elevator to go to the second floor waiting room, where they took my photo and fingerprints. 

The wait was so long! Every interview seemed like it took way longer than 30 mins. We were there for probably 2 hours in total before we were called. People were allowed to be on their phones I think but not allowed to take phone calls. It was also kind of hard to to hear when they call out your name. We were dressed up smart casual but people were mostly dressed in casual wear but there were some people wearing very formal wear too!

The actual interview went okay! The officer was pretty friendly. She kind of alternated between being friendly and professional. She wanted our photo IDs, our marriage certificate and our birth certificates. My husband actually lost his birth certificate and we couldn't order another one in time so we explained and showed his social security card and a printed copy of his birth certificate. She said "Oh it's in color?" And seemed to accept it? She asked a lot of questions, it was half conversational, half basic questions but I was so nervous. She asked "What day did you arrive in America?" And my brain was completely empty, I was like "Was it December?" to my husband and he was like "noo it was November. it's in your passport" Luckily the officer took it with good humor when I said 'I'm so bad with dates'. She asked my husband a few questions too like what work he did, for what company and where we lived now. She also asked him if he's travelled out of the country since we got married. But she definitely asked me most of the questions like-

 

• Did you two meet in college? (We met online so this threw me off a bit haha!)
• What's your full name? Did you take your husband's last name?
• What did you study in college? Your job?
• Do you plan to continue working in that field in America?
• Where did you live together?
• Did you live together the whole time since coming to America?
• Does anyone else live in your house?
• Who was at your wedding?
• Were you inspected by US immigration officer at the point of entry?

 

She was typing away at her computer while asking the questions. At one point, she mentioned, "Oh I see an application for a joint account here?" and we said, 'Yes, we have copies of some transaction records, too, if you want to see them.'" She said yes and she also wanted to see our health insurance cards. She scanned the extra evidence in and I commented on how fast the scanner was. The officer laughed and said "Sometimes" and shared that earlier there had been a family with a huge stack of hundreds of extra evidence documents and had it all nicely organized and stapled for her and she had to explain to them that she couldn't keep the paper documents and had to unstaple them and scan it all in. (so remember to scan and upload all your evidence in if you want to save some interview time haha!)

She finished it off by asking the eligibility questions, they were all no's  from me except for being denied a B2 tourist visa once. Then she had us read over the questions and answers on a screen and I signed it.

She said she will review all the cases at the end of the day and if everything looks good we'll get the green card in the mail in about 4 weeks? Then she printed out a notice saying we made it to the interview and they don't need anything else from us. The whole interview lasted about 35 mins and seemed pretty thorough and detailed!😇

 

So I think it went well! I'm a bit nervous about maybe needing to go back to show my husband's birth certificate but the officer sounded pretty satisfied from what I could tell. I also brought evidence that I continued my vaccination doses in America (I needed to take a few initial doses for my medical, but the medical was marked as complete!) but the officer didn't ask to see that. Oh well, at least I don't need to redo the medical!

 

I hope my post is helpful to someone! Good luck with your interviews!!

[Edward and Jaycel 2,072]

Thank you for sharing this detailed account of your experience with us!  This sounds very similar to our experience and our officer said the same thing about reviewing it at the end of the day and she also mentioned that when they take an action on their system (such as approval) that it takes 24 hours to show up in the my.uscis.gov portal. About 25 hours after we left the interview we got Jaycel's approval. I hope your officer follows through for you like ours did for us!  

[kayleexdavid 16]

1 hour ago, Edward and Jaycel said:

Thank you for sharing this detailed account of your experience with us!  This sounds very similar to our experience and our officer said the same thing about reviewing it at the end of the day and she also mentioned that when they take an action on their system (such as approval) that it takes 24 hours to show up in the my.uscis.gov portal. About 25 hours after we left the interview we got Jaycel's approval. I hope your officer follows through for you like ours did for us!  

 

Thank you for letting me know that! It's a bit of a relief to hear 😅I'm glad everything went well for you too!

[TBoneTX 47,790]

Thank you for taking the time to so thoroughly relate your experience -- it's educational for others.

It does sound good.  We look forward to hearing confirmation of good news from you.