Sharing my timeline as I found this website very helpful and reassuring during the whole process.
I am from the the same country as the user GKT who posted his timeline in a previous thread. Our embassy sent out NOS to DoS at the same time (they batch the letter, so one letter had 4 applicants names). Just going to show how different the timeline can be between different people! His favorable recommendation was issued within a month of NOS while mine ended up taking 4 months.
I had no government funding but had 2 different J1 sponsor organizations. The DoS requested a “Funding source memo” and I couldn’t find much info about this request. I contacted both my sponsors and no one had received anything. This was during the government shutdown and everyone advised waiting.
I emailed the 212waiver address twice, once on 2/25 and again on 3/13 to ask who they sent the request to, as both the responsible officers on my DS2019 forms had since left the sponsor organizations. Finally on 4/3 I received a reply from this address apologizing for the long wait and stating that they re-sent the request. And then the response to the memo was received very quickly. I suspect that they did not send the original request when it was noted in the timeline as both my sponsors are very familiar with J1 waivers.
I just received my I797 receipt from USCIS yesterday 5/8, dated as 5/1 receipt date.
Pasta got a reaction from eliottreid in 2019 J1 WAIVER TIMELINE - New Applicants