Bottle

I think mostly what you are entering for determines it,  most J visas holders I am aware of are not college students. But your university should have the detail of that I think, maybe ask their international students office?

From what I read/heard, it also has something to do with the funding sources. For F-1, the funding comes from personal or outside funds. For J-1, it's mostly outside funds (grants, etc.). 
 
I feel that unless you have dependants who intend to be employed, it is better to get F-1 because of no 2-year rule. 

From what I understand J is usually better if you have dependents, as they can apply for EAD (work permit) and can study any program, including full time. F dependents can’t work and are much more limited in what they can study. If you’re coming on your own and can choose, F is probably better for the reasons you describe.

haha, funny!
No EAD for me yet..  You can see my timeline if you click on the word timeline that shows up on the left of this post (is the last info/option under my country flag)
you should also fill out yours.. it helps visajourney create estimates on when everyone's EADs, approvals, etc will be processed.
 

First, I did the same thing.. went ahead and visisted my SSN office and received an updated SSN card.. and I am worried that it may slow down things with USCIS since I checked the "yes I want a new SSN card" in my form. But that is a risk I decided to take because I needed some proof of name change at the moment.
 
Second, I believe the mysocialsecurity account is not available for restricted SSNs.. once you get your green card and you become unrestricted, you will be able to create one of those accounts.. so you will need to find another way to verify what you need.
 
I've never tried the E-verify myself but one of my past employers did use it when I was in the US as a student, and they told me they had issues too.. I dont know how they were able to verify, but they did.  I even got an email telling me that someone was checking my employment eligibility.. 
 
Good luck!
 

When you respond you in five days, they will probably request to fax your job offer. They will give you a fax number.

First, you must reach customer service representative and request to expedite. They will tell expedite criteria categories, and option applicable is financial loss to company/person. You will summarize your situation, then representative will repeat that. After your approval, he/she will give a referral number(also you can see in online case status, next steps coloumn if you have an account). Then, you will just wait for response. They told me that i will get a response in five days. At the same time, i wrote my situation to my congressman as well. I requested on 8th, i am waiting for response. Hope that helps😊

If you have official job offer with company's letterhead and signature, etc. You can request to expedite your case in financial loss to company/person category, because if you do not have your card, you will lose your offer, and it will cause you severe financial loss. It can be expedited or not, you will never know, but you can request if you have a job offer.

If you were issued a card it’s valid from when it was issued. However, that’s not gonna do you any good because you can’t work until you received EAD. Getting a job offer is great but they won’t even process your application at your job until you have EAD in hand. Best you can do is get your future employer to put your offer on official paper and submit that to USCIS in hopes they can expedite your EAD.