Canadianeh!

I’m EB-2.  The CO said I should get my visa in 2-3 weeks but the handout I got said it should be within 2 weeks.  Nobody said anything to me about a cap when I was there.

Congratulations to those who have interviewed already!  I am also happy to report that my IV has been approved!
 
HEL-Canada, we were in the same group this morning (I was #8).  I had a very similar experience to yours.  Originally, I had all of my documents in a briefcase but I wasn’t allowed to bring it inside the consulate so I had to carry a bunch of loose papers.  Please bring folders as this will make your life much easier when you are there!
 
The interview was strange from the start as you are standing up and speaking to someone on the other side of a window.  The officer was dressed in very casual work clothes which was a bit of a surprise.  It felt more like I was speaking to a cashier or administrative assistant.  I brought a tonne of supplentary documents but wasn’t asked for anything other than the mandatory items listed on the website.  That said, I’m still glad that I brought them and was over-prepared.  My questions were very basic:
 
1) What is your occupation
2) What is your field of specialization 
3) Where will you be working 
4) Where did you go to grad school
5) How long was your longest stay in the US in the last 5 years
6) Where have you travelled internationally over the past 5 years
 
It was very casual.  I am super happy that this is all finally over.  Thank you all for being such a great (cyber) support system.  It has been great bouncing ideas off of you all these past few months. Congrats to those who have already interviewed and best luck to everyone who is waiting to be assigned an interview or has one coming up.  Keep the faith!

Congratulations to those who have interviewed already!  I am also happy to report that my IV has been approved!
 
HEL-Canada, we were in the same group this morning (I was #8).  I had a very similar experience to yours.  Originally, I had all of my documents in a briefcase but I wasn’t allowed to bring it inside the consulate so I had to carry a bunch of loose papers.  Please bring folders as this will make your life much easier when you are there!
 
The interview was strange from the start as you are standing up and speaking to someone on the other side of a window.  The officer was dressed in very casual work clothes which was a bit of a surprise.  It felt more like I was speaking to a cashier or administrative assistant.  I brought a tonne of supplentary documents but wasn’t asked for anything other than the mandatory items listed on the website.  That said, I’m still glad that I brought them and was over-prepared.  My questions were very basic:
 
1) What is your occupation
2) What is your field of specialization 
3) Where will you be working 
4) Where did you go to grad school
5) How long was your longest stay in the US in the last 5 years
6) Where have you travelled internationally over the past 5 years
 
It was very casual.  I am super happy that this is all finally over.  Thank you all for being such a great (cyber) support system.  It has been great bouncing ideas off of you all these past few months. Congrats to those who have already interviewed and best luck to everyone who is waiting to be assigned an interview or has one coming up.  Keep the faith!

Thanks TexasForeverYall!
 
i also read on his site that some EBs were asked for University transcripts.  If you don’t have in time, bring your wall degrees.  Does anyone else have any other tips?
 
Just to be on safe side, I am going to bring my actual employment contract, state license (for my field of work), paperwork from when I was on a temporary US work visa a few years ago.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share the great news that my Immigrant Visa appointment has been scheduled.  My total wait time from cc to assignment of interview date was 109 days.  Has anyone else heard yet?  I put in an additional request to have the case expedited so I’m not sure if that is what pushed it through or if this was simply it’s natural course.  I hope you all get similar news soon.  Keep the faith!

Hi TexasForeverYall
 
Ferbos is correct about what he said re: case being at NVC.  I’m not exactly sure the algorithm that the NVC uses to schedule cases.  I also don’t know if the 5 different EB classes are prioritized differently at this stage.  I do know that the first 3 EB categories (1,2 and 3) each receive 28.6% of the worldwide limit.   EB4 and EB5 each get 7.1%.   It is advantageous to be EB-1 because you are also entitled to any unused visa in 4th and 5th categories.  EB2s then get any unused visas from first categories, and EB3s from 1st and 2nd.  Worldwide, 140,000 EB visas are given out which includes spouses and minor children.  This number is for people like us who go through consular processing and ppl who take the adjustment of status route (wayyyy more of them - see bar graph in link bag SciFamily sent and in prev. comment that I posted.    
 
Each country can only have a max of 7% of the worldwide limit.  There is a pie graph on the site SciFamily sent which shows that China and India (plus others) are by far the biggest users of these.  Canada is in the “other” category at less than 2%.
 
Since family-based categories have no annual limit, as many of these can be given out as there are ppl.  The bottleneck for them seems to be the number of interview slots available each month at the different embassies.  
 
I just don’t know the system that the NVC uses when deciding how to allocate interviews to people.  Clearly, visa category does matter.
 
Have a look at the filtered dwheels excel sheet that I posted yesterday.  Since 2014, only 11 people have indicated they were from Canada and in EB categories.  You can see  that our wait times have been very atypical.  Several of these people were assigned interviews in a few weeks.  Before us, SSeb has the longest wait time in the bunch which was 72 days.  I’m not sure why there is such an enormous backlog now  

It must have been the additional request then.  Best of luck.  I’m rooting for you guys and I really hope that you both get dates assigned soon.

Hi TexasForverYall,
 
Have you tried calling them today?  Since they are a part of the federal government, emails are screened more closely before sending out and it can take 2-3 days before you receive an actual email.  My interview date is Aug. 21, 2018.  Best of luck!

Thanks, bkbk8!  My interview date is Aug. 21, 2018.  For my first expedite request, I focused primarily on the US community that I am meant to be serving once I commence employment and why the long wait for this visa is harmful to them (they are a vulnerable sector of the public).  This time, I focused a bit more on personal reasons such as severe financial loss.  Good luck to you and hopefully you hear back soon as well!

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share the great news that my Immigrant Visa appointment has been scheduled.  My total wait time from cc to assignment of interview date was 109 days.  Has anyone else heard yet?  I put in an additional request to have the case expedited so I’m not sure if that is what pushed it through or if this was simply it’s natural course.  I hope you all get similar news soon.  Keep the faith!

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share the great news that my Immigrant Visa appointment has been scheduled.  My total wait time from cc to assignment of interview date was 109 days.  Has anyone else heard yet?  I put in an additional request to have the case expedited so I’m not sure if that is what pushed it through or if this was simply it’s natural course.  I hope you all get similar news soon.  Keep the faith!

Another day and still no news.  FYI, when I take the entire dwheels spreadsheet, copy/paste it into Excel and filter for Country of Interview (Canada/Montreal) and Visa Type (only Employment-Based), this is what I get.  As you all can see, our wait times have been waaayyyy above the norm.  What is going on?
 

Hi FERBOS,
 
The good news is that NVC should start scheduling August interviews around 9 days from now or so (last 2 days of month).  We don’t have to wait an entire month for the next cycle.
 
TexasForeverYall, as long as your priority date is current, it shouldn’t matter when it was.  The Case Complete date is what puts you in your place in the lineup.  My priority date is July 2017 but you are ahead of me in line because my CC date was 03/16/18. They usually start scheduling interviews around last 2 days of month (roughly).  You can put in an NVC expedite request for anything but I wouldn’t base your case on the fact that it is “outside the normal processing time.”  The truth is, we simply don’t know what normal is.  NVC and the embassy will not give us any information on this.  We are basing our perception of what normal is on two data points which may or may not be reliable.  VJ is not an official government source.  For all we know, these wait times are normal (or even less than normal).  

Thanks for the info, TexasForeverYall!  Looks like you’re 8 days ahead of me.  It’s unbelievable that this is taking so long for all of us.  Let’s all update each other when/if we find out!