September 14, 2022
Hello SHARE Region,
This is a friendly reminder that our J-1 visa applications are due to Berkeley International Office (BIO) on October 3rd, 2022 for any January and February start dates. Please cascade this to your faculty and staff as needed. Since we provided the deadline of September 9th to give us time to coordinate with scholars, postdocs and PIs, we have received Visiting Scholar, Visiting Student Research and Postdoc requests that we are processing now.
Anything that is submitted from this point forward will likely require that we push out the start date if a J-1 visa is required or it may require expedited processing, which is an additional fee.
We want to make sure you know what to expect and you can see the complete message from Berkeley International office here.
Below is an excerpt from BIO's original email to BRS:
Timing of J-1 Requests and Start Dates: Given the limited availability of visa appointments, it is important to think realistically when discussing feasible start dates with your international scholars and their hosting faculty, and we ask that you submit requests with start dates that reflect the current reality. With that in mind, please see guidance below regarding J-1 request submission timing.
- Submit J-1 new initial requests with appointment start dates in January and February by October 3, 2022
- Submit J-1 Exchange Visitor extension requests for any scholars at least 30 days prior to the current DS-2019 end date
- Avoid start dates in December and on holidays and university closures
- For scholars starting in January we recommend a start date of Tuesday, January 3, 2023 or later as it is the first business day in 2023
- Consult BIO as soon as possible on the feasibility and timing of any request to change status to J-1 if scholars are currently working for UC Berkeley on F-1 OPT. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is currently experiencing a significant backlog that is impacting processing times
Thank you,
Ana Karla
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