
Ask HN: Have you gotten an O-1 work visa? What was the experience like? - marymkearney
Hi, I&#x27;m interested in hearing stories of how people got their O-1 &quot;extraordinary ability&quot; work visas. (1) Did you find the O-1 option yourself, by researching it, or was it suggested to you by an immigration lawyer or a friend? (2) Did you rely on past accomplishments, or did you seek media coverage, enter contests, etc., to build your evidence portfolio? (3) What was the process like for you - easy, difficult, frustrating, confusing, scary, exciting?<p>I&#x27;m a (former) immigration lawyer working on doing a brain dump of all my knowledge about O-1 visas. The idea is to demystify the process, and create a public resource for individuals to build their own O-1 evidence packages.<p>Would love to know what has worked and not worked, for folks who have been through the O-1 process, so I can build better tools. Thanks!
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tlubinski
1.) found several options, discussed with lawyer, and went with O-1. 2.)
According to the lawyer I already had enough proof of my "extraordinary
abilities" 3.) My advice: don't try this without a lawyer specialized in O-1.
It took me 4-6 weeks to gather all the data + some extra weeks to get
recommendation letters. My application had several hundred pages in the end
(compiled by the lawyer).

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marymkearney
Hi, thanks so much for the reply and sharing your experience. Totally agree
about the lawyer.

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achalkley
1) Suggested by a lawyer. 2) Had enough already because have extraordinary
abilities :) 3) I would say, long and arduous - even having all the evidence
first. Collecting it and collecting references from basically everyone with a
professional connection.

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marymkearney
Thanks - I can see your halo of extraordinariness from here! :) Seriously, I
looked at your stuff and I can see why you qualified.

Can I ask how many categories you had? And also, how did you approach
explaining "what you do" and why it's cool, in language the examiner could
understand? Thanks so much.

