JerryL

On the GZ web site, the waiting threshold was 3 months. I guess they'll need to change that to four months. The ones that arrived in August (like mine) were stuck in a pit of some sort as well. You'll note from Rob's timelines that they didn't get processed for the most part until GZ got done with the September and the October ones. Since they seem so adamant that the cases are processed in order, they probably are somewhere in the pipeline. I can see how our cases may have been opened and assigned first to someone who worked slower, and thus fell behind cases that were assigned later. Sigh. One of those mysteries of life which I'll never know the answer to. Five years from now, I'll read through these archives and wonder why I spent so much time on this... Jerry

My advice would be to call now just to make sure they have the case from the service centers, and then a month or so after that just to check on the progress. It's doubtful both NVC and GZ will be done in a month so there's no hurry after you ascertain that NVC has the case... Jerry

Couldn't you just print the DS-230 PDF on both sides? Jerry

Glad you got through and talked to someone who could help. Persistence pays off, eh? The procedure that you described... This is for K3's? I'm a K1 and the OF169 and DS230 were in the P3 packet, not from NVC. Anyway I thought the second name check is generated after the P3 is returned, not when they upload the case into the system??? Jerry

With speakerphone or bruised ear? Headset. I was doing work while holding so it wasn't so bad, except for the occasional voice which comes on to remind you that you're still holding. You jump when you hear the voice, then realize that it's just the recording... Jerry

Minor correction. The dates for the 7/29 group should be 11/14, not 11/4. Mine didn't even (supposedly) get uploaded into the computer until 11/5. The DHL number for the 7/29 shipment is 9431614872. Informative list you've compiled here, Rob! Jerry

This got me thinking... Clearly they can't track the petitions until the boxes are opened and the petitions are uploaded into the computer. I wonder if they have a way of tracking what boxes they have that aren't opened yet. In other words, if they have a physical asset tracking system in place so they know which box to open next. In Don's post, they talked about getting shipments of dozens of boxes containing all sorts of different visa petitions. Does anyone know if all visa petitions of the same type are in the same box? Just an uninformed speculation here (no flaming! ), could it be that some of the K1/K3 visa petitions got spread over severall boxes, or even mixed up with boxes of some other types of visa petitions (presumably lower priority ones) so they haven't opened them yet? Do different classes of petitions get different priorities? I can see how if the same types of petitions got scattered through different boxes, it would be a pain to go through the all boxes just to dig out all petitions of a particular type... This may explain why there are some folks from 8/8 who have gotten P3's, but not the ones from our pit crew here. And for my 7/29 shipment, while there were reports of people getting P3s back in September, the majority of us got them in early November. Either the petitions are scattered through multiple boxes within a single shipment, or they opened one box, worked on some, and saved the rest for later... Jerry

Rob, The tables look fine on windows. This is much better than the GIF images. A few notes. I think the P3 dates from 001 are received dates, not sent dates. So mine would be 11/14 as well like others from 7/29. Annychen reported that she received hers on 11/14, and I suspect the WENDY entry is really a 7/29. They are a day ahead of us after all... Jerry

On the Windows version of Excel, you can save the spreadsheet in HTML format. Never used the Mac version but I wonder if it would have the same feature... Yes it's pretty obvious that when the boxes are opened and processed since there is an extremely high correlation between NVC dates and corresponding P3 dates. (We have any statisticians here? ) So once a box is opened, I can believe it's FIFO. I just don't think the boxes are processed in a FIFO order. Jerry

Also, for those who are not following this saga, annychen (of 7/29) received her P3 recently, but I haven't read anything from the other July folks. Jerry

Okay I give up. Anyone know how to post tables with this bulletin board? You can go read the original table here: http://www.001.com.cn/forum/usa/215315.html Jerry

Sorry the numbers are not formatted better. I just did a copy-n-paste. If you are seeing 'NVC1/4', probably the text encoding is different on your browser. I don't see a NVC1/4 on mys creen. The encoding this is in is Chinese Simplified (GB2312). The columns that Frank described is correct. P3 date is when people have received P3. If they're still waiting, it's blank. Their explanation of post security doesn't really explain why there are 8/8's who received the P3 back in October and others who are not in the computer yet. Sure is a strange system they have. I'll see if I can reformat the table in Courier font or something to make it more legible... Jerry

Rob, You can get my information from my sig. I'm a K1. Here's some info that was posted on 001 yesterday. It's unverifiable but does show a trend... ½üÆÚP3Ãûµ¥ 001ID P2 ÈÕÆÚ NVC¼Ä³öÈÕÆÚ ¡¡¡¡ P3ÈÕÆÚ lingjax 5/29 7/8 9/12 lena001 6/? 7/26 weekend668 6/25 7/28 10/18 hellenjin 6/6 7/29 ¡¡¡¡¡¡10/29 annychen 6/2 7/29 С°²za 6/30 8/1 10/20 francin 6/27 8/8 ÌìÌìϲ ¡¡¡¡7/3 8/8 10/25 smoothy 7/17 8/11 9/25 MarryLand 3/28 8/29 Kelly3 7/30 8/29 11/5 chen-stellar 6/6 8/29 11/6 xiaoxiaosh 7/31 8/29 ͦÃÀ¡¡¡¡¡¡ 8/2 ¡¡¡¡ 9/2 СÎõ×Ó¡¡¡¡ 7/24 9/15 ¡¡11/9 Åô½ã½ã¡¡¡¡ 7/15¡¡¡¡ 8/29 ¡¡ 11/4 ·Æ·Æ 3/? 9/15 ¡¡11/9 fionaapple 5/30 8/7 ÐäÐä 6/? 7/8 ¡¡¡¡¡¡9/18 WENDY 6/30 7/30 ¡¡¡¡11/14 Kristenyali 7/3 9/18 11/7 Jennyluk22 5/29 7/8 Rain1206 8/22 9/18 ¡¡¡¡11/7 taoandella 8/25 10/7 ¡¡10/10 janice81 È¥Äê3ÔÂP2¡¡¡¡ 10/16 clearance babyrat 8/13 9/16 ¡¡11/7 GO_BLUE ½ñÄê3ÔÂP2¡¡ 10/19 ¡¡¡¡¡¡11/9 ºÍƽ¸ë¡¡½ñÄê3ÔÂP2¡¡¡¡ 10/22 Èç¸è¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡9/10 10/17 kang 7/21 10/27 ning&george ½ñÄê3ÔÂP2 10/24 è³Õ 9/3 10/? 10/27 Jonathan920 9/23 10/27 Sisi 9/23 10/8 Ling 7/21 9/16 11/6 Jerry

Yeah, it's looking like 2/04 to me too. I'm trying to be optimistic about it. Penny doesn't want to miss out on her New Year's bonus from her company now that she's so close to the New Year holidays, and airfare is way cheaper after Christmas than before. Are you planning to go to GZ for the interview? I'm seeing on 001 timelines where quite a few folks with early October P3's are getting mid December interview slots just about now. So you figure maybe two months. But then there are folks with September P3's that are still waiting (sound familiar? ) so who knows. Plus we have Thanksgiving, New Year, and Chinese New Year to deal with, so I expect our P3-P4 times to be longer than what it is currently, not to mention the flood of P3's they just sent out which are flooding back even as we speak... Jerry

Fast turnaround, Jason! Penny mailed ours back on the 18th. Our two timelines are so much alike I wonder if our fiancees will meet in Guangzhou for the interview. Jerry

Seat belt? Why a seat belt? Is it gonna be going that fast? Jerry

My record for holding was just little over an hour... Jerry

Hey, maybe he was a fan too. Jerry

Like Rob pointed out, the DOS Visa folks have access to the same computer system as the consulate, whereas the NVC folks do not. So while you're waiting for your file to leave NVC, you call New Hampshire. After that, you call Washington. I don't think the Department of Homeland Security is a part of DOS. The head of both are cabinet level positions. Colin Powell heads up State while Tom Ridge heads up DHS. BCIS is in the DHS organization while the NVC and the consulates are part of the State Department. So when you get your NOA2, there's that footnote that says BCIS is now finished and will be handing the file off to State... Jerry

Thanks for all the well wishes! I hadn't realized how stressed out I was over this simple packet until after it came. All the adrenaline just flowed out of my body Friday, and I just felt this 'winding-down' feeling you get right after you finish a big presentation or meet an important deadline. Just collapsed and went to sleep right after work and didn't get up for long while... So at 4 in the morning, I started going through the 001 archives for about a dozen pages for so. It really surprised me how chaotic (as in 'non-ordered') the process was at the consulate. There are still people from July waiting for P3's! There are folks who got their P4 in two weeks and ones who have been waiting over three months with no news. It's like one giant dice roll at the consulate. You really need to have done some good deeds in your previous life. Really felt for the woman whose husband has been applying for K3 unsuccessfully over and over (didn't include all the materials, then didn't include the fee, then mailed to the wrong place, etc.). Wish there was something I could do to help these folks... Jerry

We had gotten suggestions to add a post-visa activities timeline to K1K3, and Rene & I had been working on it off and on but not making that much progress since neither of us had gotten that far. Then I serendipitously came across this thread! It's been really helpful to look at the sample timelines to construct the databse schema. Can someone take a look at our prototype schema and tell us if there is anything missing or wrong? Or just any other suggestions on additions or modifications? All the 'blank' columns are suppose to have dates in them, and all the date columns are optional. Thanks, Jerry http://www.k1k3.com/aos.php

Is it the search box at the bottom right of the tigtag.com home page where it says ÖÐÎĵçÂë²éѯ? Jerry

Hmm. This will teach me to read ALL of the instructions in the future. I didn't realize there existed this rapid dial feature. You're right; it beats memorizing those long numbers. Gonna go set it up now. Thanks Don! Jerry

I saw on 001 that someone named Ling with a NVC date 9/16 reported a P3 date of 11/6. Keep your fingers crossed! Jerry

I forgot to ask her about the label, though we talked just last night (noon time for her) and I mentioned that the address may be in pinyin and she said she had never even heard of people using pinyin on envelopes, so she should have said something if it wasn't in Chinese. I'll ask her next time I talk to her. The forms that need to go back (DS-230, OF-167, and the supplmentary info sheet) are identical to the ones on the web site. Though she said she got 7 sheets and now I think about it, the above only accounts for 5. I know that there is suppose to be a OF-169 that is also included that is not in the downloadable zip file, though that's suppose to be just an informational form. Nothing to fill out or return. Maybe that's what it was. I'll ask her that too... Jerry