<p>I can't find any conclusive info. on this anywhere! I really want to stay in the US for my masters, after doing my undergrad studies there, but I don't know if it's possible. If any other internationals have any experience with this, I'd appreciate advice. : )</p>
<p>You could stay as long as you are in school with a student visa. If you decide to work then you will need to apply for a work visa and your employer would need to sponsor you. Not that many firms are willing to sponsor non-residents any more due to the expense and abudance of labor. I would advise you to get an education in the US with an intention of returning to your home.</p>
<p>Even if you find an employer willing to sponsor you, you need to go through a process that involves a literal lottery. If you don’t win you cant stay.</p>
<p>When you are finishing your undergraduate program you can apply to graduate school. If you are admitted, you will get a new I-20 from that university. Lots of students do this every year.</p>
<p>Yes, I know about the green card lottery. It’s crazy. It’s just that I read on some colleges pages, in the international visa section, something about doing a course or returning to my home country for two years to get a visa?
I don’t know…</p>
<p>Some J-1 visas have a “two-year homestay” rule. Those visas are meant for students whose college education in the US was paid for by their home government. Most international students are on F-1 visas and they can go straight from college to grad school.</p>
<p>
Not what Waverly meant. There’s a yearly cap on the number of work visas for college graduates (H-1B). In some years that quota is reached on the very first day of the year that work visa applications are accepted, and then they need to run a lottery to decide which applications get processed at all.</p>
<p>Oh, those J-1 kids are lucky ha. How many years are those work visas valid, does anyone know?
Thank you, all!</p>
<p>Up to 6 years, as long as you stay with your employer. After that your employer needs to petition for a green card for you if he wants you to stay (or you could marry a US citizen…). The catch is that it’s a fair bit of hassle to sponsor an employee for a green card. For example, your employer would have to document that there are no Americans qualified for and wanting your position - that applies mostly to highly specialized occupations, e.g. high-tech positions requiring training beyond a PhD.</p>
<p>When does one apply for the H-1B visa? Is it something that if one doesn’t get it the first time, one has to leave and that’s that? Again, thank you!</p>
<p>The application season starts on April 15, I believe, but you should double-check that. You cannot apply for an H-1B yourself; your employer has to apply for you.</p>
<p>If you do not get an H-1B straight out of college (or grad school), you may be able to bridge one year to the next H-1B cycle with OPT (assuming you haven’t already used it for internships in college). If your OPT is up and you don’t have another visa (work, student, etc), you need to leave.</p>
<p>Oh, the OPT must have been the “course” I read about. Okay, thank you so much! This is exactly what I wanted to know.</p>
<p>It is crazy, we educate the world’s best and brightest and then tell them to go home.</p>
<p>tell me about it</p>
<p>Actually, I have another question that again I’ve found no definitive answers to. What do Internationals do during summers at college? Go home to a country with no jobs or internships?</p>
<p>Some go home, some travel, some take summer classes, some stay and work on campus, some use their OPT for off-campus jobs or internships in the US.</p>
<p>Yes, but note if you use your OPT during college, you don’t get to use it the year after and must head home then.</p>
<p>Tis is something to really think through. I’ve had students determined to go to college in the states when it really was not their best option.</p>
<p>Realize that Americans are struggling to get internships now. Employers are probably less likely to choose an intnl who they can’t hire easily upon graduation rather than an American.</p>
<p>In most countries, going to the elite colleges there yield the best jobs. In many only the giftware name American colleges are know.</p>
<p>Really think this through.</p>
<p>This is such a disheartening thread… Now I’ll have to hang around the American crowd and get myself nice and married, cause I sure as hell aren’t going back to this broken country.</p>
<p>Haha I’m with you there Alisyn!</p>
<p>I’m actually serious…</p>
<p>I hear that Canada and Australia are a lot more welcoming to college-educated immigrants than the US…</p>