I did not give all five criteria equal space

I filed my EB-1A petition with five criteria. That did not mean I had five equal drafting assignments.

Run a six-line audit before you use an award

An award can enter your draft as a name. Before it enters your petition, give it six lines.

My cover letter had to make the evidence easier to read

At first, I thought the EB-1A cover letter had to make me sound impressive. That was the wrong job.

A list of cities only helps if it shows a pattern

Geographic spread can look impressive. London.

The judging criterion needed more than a title

Judging sounds like one of the cleaner EB-1A criteria. You were invited to judge something.

The officer is not inside your industry

One mistake I had to watch for in my EB-1A petition was writing like the reader already understood my world. They did not.

The recommendation letters that helped me were specific, not glowing

When I first thought about EB-1A recommendation letters, I assumed the goal was praise. Strong praise.

Do not make the officer guess where a document came from

One of the quietest ways to weaken evidence is to strip it of its source. A screenshot with no URL is harder to trust.

Final merits is a closing argument, not a recap

By the time I reached the final merits section of my EB-1A petition, I was tired. The criteria sections had already done a lot of work.