J1_waiver_J1

June 20th, 2023: H1B visa documentation received by the Office of Legal Cousel of my instituion. Note on the J1 waiver approval notice: after receiving the document yesterday, I realized that that was "simply" a courtesy copy and that the original waiver was sent to my attorney. Although I did not indicate to send the waiver to my attorney on the G-28 Form, I also did not check the alternative option when I sent the packet to DOS in December. I reached out to my attorney who told me that they will send me the waiver as soon as they receive it. Just wanted to leave this extra information here in case someone else should find themselves in the same situation.

July 19th: received J1 visa waiver approval notice in the mail. This makes it a total of six months and three weeks from the shipping of the packet to DOS to the approval notice in my hands. Ooof! It's been quite the journey!

Time to share my timeline! I hope it will be helpful as this thread has been super helpful to me over the last six and a half months: DS-2019 expiration date: July 1st, 2023 Category of J1 waiver: No Objection Statement (NOS) because I received funds from home university Reason: Postdoc with J1 to assistant professor with H1B J1 visa waiver timeline: December 30th, 2022 Packet mailed to Department of State (DOS) January 6th, 2023 Packet arrived at DOS January 21st, 2023 Embassy sent NOS to DOS January 26th, 2023 Packet marked as received on DOS website March 28th, 2023 NOS marked as received on January 25th on DOS website June 21st, 2023: Favorable recommendation (FR) from DOS **Didn't receive a hard copy of the FR from DOS (like many others in this forum)** June 28th, 2023: case accepted by USCIS (Vermont Service Center) July 3rd, 2023: received paper receipt notice from USCIS (mailed on June 29th) July 13th, 2023: case approved H1B visa timeline: June 30th, 2023: I-129/I-907 petition with premium processing and change of status mailed to USCIS; as the J1 waiver had not been approved, the petition was submitted along with a copy of the NOS from my home country Embassy and a screenshot of the DOS website showing the favorable recommendation July 5th, 2023: receipt notice from USCIS via email (California Service Center) July 12th, 2023 case approved At this point, I expect to receive both documents within the next two weeks. I will update the post if new relevant information comes up. Good luck to everyone who is still patiently waiting for the approval!