As many as 1,200 applicants appeared for interviews on ‘Student Visa Day’ at the U.S. Consulate at Bandra Kurla Complex on Thursday. The day marks the beginning of the peak student visa application season, which runs from June to August.
The U.S. Embassy and Consulates interviewed more than 4,000 students across India. “It is a time when students see the culmination of their application efforts: they’ve been accepted to a U.S. school, they’ve secured funding, and acquiring a student visa is a brief stop before the culmination of the journey,” said Michael P. Evans, the Consular Section Chief, at a round-table discussion held at the U.S. Consulate, Mumbai, which was attended by current students and recent alumni of U.S. universities.
The panellists shared their experiences at U.S. universities and explained how they had planned their application effectively. Ryan Pereria, regional officer of United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), and a panellist at the discussion, said that his organisation guides students who want to study in the U.S. “Anybody can use our library; there are reference books and computers which people can use,” Mr. Pereria said, adding that USIEF holds talks on how to write essays, and students can get them reviewed before sending them to universities. “The emphasis is on helping students help themselves.”
The students and alumni at the discussion included: Shweta Katti, who grew up in Kamathipura, a red-light area in Mumbai, and received a full scholarship from Bard College, New York, with the help of Kranti, an NGO that helps trafficked women and their daughters; Aqil Chinoy, a graduate from Gallaudet University, Washington DC, who has a hearing impairment and works as an assistant general manager for A.S. Moloobhoy Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai; Sakhe Bhuree, an undergraduate student at Florida Institute of Technology, studying astronomy and astrophysics; Srushti Achrekar, a senior in agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and, Manmohan Thorat, a junior at Oklahoma State University, currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
The writer is an intern at The Hindu.
