Indian students have bagged the maximum student visas issued by the United States for any country, as of today this year, with 82,000 students issued visas by the US Embassy and Consulates across the country.
This is also the highest number of visas given to Indian students ever by the US Mission in India including its Embassy in New Delhi and four Consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
“The U.S. Mission in India has issued a record-breaking 82,000 student visas in 2022 to date. Indian students received more U.S. student visas than any other country,” a statement from the US Mission said acknowledging the wide belief among students that this was the best year to seek a US visa.
Among these 82,000, nearly 40% are expected to be from the two Telugu states, who have reached out to consulates in Chennai ad Mumbai as well due to the unavailability of slots in the Hyderabad Consulate, according to Nishidhar Borra of Atlas Consultants. Nishika Reddy, who got admission for her MS programme at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said she secured a slot in Chennai given the huge rush in her native Hyderabad.
Indian students comprise nearly 20% of all international students studying in the United States, with the Open Doors report in 2021 showing there were 167,582 students from India in the 2020-2021 academic year.
One of the expected reasons for the huge number this year was a few visas issued from 2020 when the country was in lockdown due to COVID19 Pandemic and its impact hampering the education sector in 2021. However, with the US varsities opening up after COVID it was widely believed by the students and the foreign education experts that issuance would be liberal this year.
Moreover, the US Embassy and the Consulates too, were short-staffed due to COVID implications to process the visa applications. Even now the consulates are working with 50% of the staff compared to pre-COVID days. But with demand from students the Embassy and the Consulates prioritized the processing of student visa applications from May to August this year to ensure that as many qualified students as possible made it to their programmes of study in time for scheduled start dates.
Charge d’Affaires Patricia Lacina hailed the U.S. Mission in India’s achievement, commenting, “We are happy to see so many students were able to receive visas and reach their universities after the delays caused in previous years by the COVID-19 pandemic. We issued over 82,000 student visas this summer alone, more than in any previous year.”
Minister Counsellor for Consular Affairs Don Heflin said in a statement, “International student mobility is central to U.S. diplomacy, and nowhere is the contribution of students bigger than in India.”
