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Hello folks, I want to share my Day 1 CPT experience. The H1B lottery is approaching soon this year. If this is your last chance to participate in the H1B lottery and you're considering Day 1 CPT as your backup plan, I hope my sharing can help you. My background I am currently a designer at VMware. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree (not a STEM program), I only had one year of OPT. I did not win the H1b lottery that year so I started to consider options for my next move. Why Day 1 CPT I started to search for different approaches. There are options such as L1 Visa, O1 Visa, and Day 1 CPT. I don't want to be relocated to another country since I've heard a lot of my friends saying that after they are relocated to Canada, the company won't let them come back to the US for more than 1 year, no H1B lottery or green card application during their stay abroad, and have to go back to the H1B loop after returning the States. I also consulted some lawyers about the O1 Visa, but it looks a bit challenging for a fresh graduate. I learned about Day 1 CPT from a colleague in the same boat and a friend at another company. I searched online and learned as long as you enroll in a legit university (these universities might not be well known like UCs, NYU, and others, but get accreditation from reliable institutes), attend class, and complete school work on time, you shouldn’t get into problems. These schools allow international professionals to continue working while they pursue another degree. The school enrollment process doesn’t need much from the company and manager. The only thing needed is an offer letter and an agreement with the school. There were no law companies involved in this process as long as my manager or the HR could sign the CPT agreement. My manager at that time was very supportive and the company agreed with me using CPT to continue my work after my OPT expired. Our company also has a system that helps to reimburse 3,000 of the fees if the employee is doing a degree program. But after the company was acquired by Broadcom, there are no such programs anymore. School choice & experience I learned about day1cpt and universities from an agency found on https://day1cptuniversities.com/ website, I filled in a form and connected with their consultant (for free). They are very responsive, so I would recommend chatting with them if you need day1cpt help. They recommended three schools with good accreditation based on my case: Westcliff, Sofia, and CIAM. Sofia requires one onsite per month for a whole day during the weekend; Westcliff requires one night (3 hours) per week. Since I'm based in Irvine, I finally chose Westcliff University. The price is $795 per credit. The agent helped waive application fees and joined their day1cpt communities. I have been with Westcliff for almost 2 years now. There are 6 sections/3 semesters each year. One semester has two main courses (each 3 credits) and an internship course (1 credit). This means we need around $795*7 = $5565 per semester. There is one class every week from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Parking is free with validation at the front desk. We need to participate in class discussions to get attendance. The professors are overall not too strict on us. The assignments have several formats, such as a discussed question (1 post 250 words + 2 responses 150 words), APA formatted paper (2-4 pages), and PPT presentations (8-10 pages). On average, I will spend 3 to 7 hours on weekly assignments. I also heard a lot of students complaining about these, but I'm kind of comfortable with putting time into new areas and knowledge that I want to learn. BTW, my friend told me that all the work will help us provide solid materials if getting an RFE for H1b :) The Internship course is the one that allows us to do full-time jobs. We need to renew the CPT for each semester. The school will send out emails reminding us of the renewals and we can renew it through an online form and receive the endorsed I-20 within 7-10 business days. It will state the time and period that we are allowed to work for a specific company that will cover the whole year without a gap. If we change the company, we need to resubmit the CPT application. #workvisa #h1b #day1cpt #F1 #OPT
Can different universities have different CPT agreements?
I think so...The school will decide on the format.
Day-1 CPT might create visa-related issues in the future.
if you did select a legit school then yes. As long as the school has valid accreditation and complete classes and homework on time, there wouldn't have issue, thats what our attorney said.
Day-1 CPT will often create an issue, I can not speak for your specific situation, but be very careful, I know one of my colleagues had to leave the country and work from Canada until he got the TN visa. If you can, the Canada route is not bad either, the TN visa looks promising. Not sure how Trump will take a TN visa through as he was raising eyebrows last time.
how to contact the agency?
This is their contact: https://api.whatsapp.com/message/JCCNF7HTZLMNJ1?autoload=1&app_absent=0
Hiya ! I am considering doing this. Any suggestions ?
Hey genuine question. Why would anyone go through so much effort to stay in the US when the immigration policies are stacked so badly against them? Why not choose another country where you wont have to jump through so many hoops just to get a chance to live there?
There is high pay in US as compared to other countries and a lot more opportunities too.
It's a personal choice, but I enjoy the working & living environment here. Work life balance is much better than my home country.