DocMartin817

thank you for the wonderful information and I am so glad it went well. Preparation seems to be the key and your infor really reinforces that point.

I was hoping to come, but now it looks like I will be in GZ at thet time for the interview. Dang I hate to miss a good barbecue

I too am sorry about the outcome and can understand your frustration with the process. But I agree with David. I think the problem was the one visit and you not there for the inteview. If you had made more visits, then your presence there may not have been as critical. They are looking for fraud and the proof of the relationship now is in the effort you spend to show that it is valid. So they raise the financial bar on you as one way of showing that it is a serious relationship. Your going there and providing a certified copy of your passport along with the extra financial info should be more than enough. Sure it is inconvenient, but that is the game and we have to play by their rules and not what we think is fair.

I am thinking of meeting Liwen in Beijing and have the medical exam done there and then fly to GZ for the interview. Any information on how we can pay the visa fee there would be appreciated

Yesterday the P4 arrived at Liwen's apartment. The interview is set for June 28th. The timing was very close to the timeline estimate of June 27th (before the slight date revision). The date on the P4 was May 25th, 2005 and Liwen receved it on the morning of the 28th. Now the fun begins: getting airline tickets, my visa, my forms filled, her forms filled, a new police report for her (her's has expired), practicing the interview questions, finding a place to stay in GZ, doing the medical exam, and taking care of a million lose ends here and there. Plus I am in the middile of negotiations on buying a house, need to fly to DC in two weeks for a three day meeting, work on a major project at work that is due around the first of July, help my daughter move to her new apartment, and let me think, what else?? Jumping for joy, clicking my heals, and going crazy all at the same time. But the interview date is set; what more can I say?

I think the other interesting data is the P4 to interview times. Looking at the last 11 data points on the timeline, the average wait from receiving the P4 until the interview is about 45-46 days with a range of 34 to 64 days. Now the last two reported interview dates that are not yet on the timeline had extremely fast turnaround times - two weeks or so. It is way to early to see if this is a trend or an anomaly. I tend to think the latter, but the next few weeks will give us enough data points to see if a trend emerges. So now I am thinking, if the trends hold constant, that our P4 could arrive some time during the week of May 30th with the interview around July 15th.

i know, I have been tracking the latest interviews too. I am wondering if the reason they have such early interviews is that there were some cancellations and they are filling in the empty time slots.

I called DOS this morning and asked about the interview date for Liwen. The lady who I talked to was nice and said that no interview date had been set yet. I then asked if the name check was completed yet and she looked it up and said yes. So I asked her if she knew what date the name check was done and she looked again. What she told me was that she could not tell when the name check was completed but that she became eligible on March 3rd. That was the date I received from my email response to Guangzhou where they said she was documentarily qualified. So I guess what I am saying is that what I recorded as the P3 being entered into the computer (which a previous call to DOS had led me to believe it was only been entered and the name check was not complete), means that my March 3rd date is a reflection of everything good to go and all we do now is wait for the interview. Liwen had sent the P3 back on Feb. 3rd, so it seems to me that the name check went very fast. I guess only time will tell if I am getting accurate information and the proof will be when we receive the interview date, which I still guestimate as some time in late July or early August

the medical exam must be done in one of seven approved places in China http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/guangzho...edicalexam.html

fee

Thanks, I certainly do not want to wait a few extra more months. What I had read gave the impression you could reschedule in about a 15 day window. But I guess that is a thing of the past.

I read on uschinak1.com that it is possible to ask for your interview to be scheduled at a slightly later date than the one they send you. At the uschina site, he says that "If necessary, the fiancée should not be afraid to negotiate a convenient interview date." Has anyone had any experience doing that? I am planning on going to the interview, but I know there are times more convenient for me than what they might schedule.

Once the application gets to Guangzhou, I have a feeling the visa type does not really affect the data on wait time. The slowdown for non K1 visas occur before they arrive at the embassy. I think that after the applications arrive at the embassy, all the applications are processed and the time frames are similar. The current pool of applicants by visa type is too small for any statistically significant difference between them.

Based on the latest info from Timeline, I looked at the 21 people who are listed for an upcoming interview. I made one correction in the data: jimglots numbers for p3 to p4 were transposed with his numbers for total time to interview. The mean total P3 to interview wait time for this group was 158.6 days. The median time was 157 days, and the range was from 139 to 176. Five different days each have 2 interviews scheduled. Using my numbers as an example: P3 entered into the computer on March 3rd 2005. The interview most likely will occur between July 20th and August 26th. The week of August 8th would be the one I should bet on. But I am guessing it will be closer to the week of August 22nd, given the move to a new building and the closure in May for a few days. And then there are the unknown factors: length of time for name and security check, bureaucratic errors and incompetence, and the winds of fate.

I would like to review the material you have compiled too

Are there certain times of the month when the p4s are more likely to be sent out?

This is also an area I would like to find out more about. Liwen already owns one apartment there that she rents out and is planning on buying more once she starts working here. I just assumed that it would be easier if all the Chinese real estate is in her name. My plan is the same, to retire there in the future, so buying real estate over there is very interesting to me.

thanks again for all the information you have provided about the process and a double thanks for all the work you do for all of us

Congratulations, that is great news. I like your travelogue style of writing.

My SO is a great cook and I loved all the meals she made when I was with her. Her mother does not cook at all. Her father cooks some of the meals, but she is the main cook for the family. She lives with her sister in the same apartment as her parents and makes and eats most all the meals upstairs at her parents apartment.

I use Pimsleur when I am driving to and from work. I have bought a number of CDs most of which are not very good. But I did get a fairly cheap but legal copy of the Rosetta Stone on EBay and I like that program for home study. Also lots of my Messenger talk with Liwen includes short language lessons.

I would think that the timing you give is a bit overoptimistic. Using the data provided by nooneufo, I would guess that at a minimum the p3 to p4 takes 90 days and p3 to interview is 150 days. These would be what I would call "best guesses" and "very optimistic estimates." It would probably be a little longer. My P3 was mailed back on Feb 3rd. Using this data, I would guess at the absolute earliest my p4 will come in May 3rd. Then the interview would not happen until around July 2nd or so. Being cautious about the speed of the process, my hope is that sometime in the month of July Liwen's interview will happen. So for a P3 that was mailed on April 1st, the p4 should at the earliest arrive around June 29th and the interview would be around Aug 29th or so.

Your description of the interview wait was excellent. It is posts like this that really help me in my prepartions for the interview, Thanks

I am thinking of using Portand OR as our POE, but in the past I heard so much negative I was considering SF. Is it really true, Portland has changed that much?

well then I really like that phrase "documentarily qualified." That means we are on the home stretch and just have to practice the interview and wait for p4.