Familiar does not mean weak evidence
Some of the work in my EB-1A petition had been part of my life for years. That familiarity made it easy to undervalue.
Topic
How-To
A collection of 38 issues
I tested my petition by reading only the headings
My EB-1A cover letter was long enough that I could not judge its structure by reading one polished paragraph at a time. A paragraph could sound clear on its own while sitting in the wrong section. Two adjacent sections could make the same argument with different words. A missing step could stay hidd
The judging invitation was not the whole record
My EB-1A petition included two judging roles. I judged the Soyoye Pitch Competition at King's College London in February 2018. I also judged the pitch session at UCL HackMed on February 23, 2020.
My future-work section started with work already in motion
Most of my EB-1A petition looked backward. It described roles I had held, initiatives I had built, media coverage I had received, judging I had done, and recognition already in the record.
My longest sentences were hiding the weakest evidence
Some of the most convincing sentences in my early petition drafts were also the hardest to prove. They sounded efficient because they compressed a role, an organization, a result, and a conclusion into one line.
I treated every critical-role claim as two separate cases
The leading or critical role section of my EB-1A petition looked like one argument. While drafting it, I found it more useful to treat it as two.
A number needs a noun before it can support a claim
Numbers made parts of my EB-1A petition easier to understand. Founders of the Future ran more than 80 events and reached more than 4,000 aspiring entrepreneurs from 2016 to 2021.
Your most impressive exhibit does not have to come first
Evidence order is not a ranking of your achievements. It is a route for the reader.
Write the case theory before the cover letter
Before I drafted my EB-1A cover letter, I forced the case into two sentences. The first sentence named my field: community building in technology and entrepreneurship.
The translated page still needs the original beside it
My media evidence included a full-page feature in the French publication La Tribune. An English translation made the words readable to someone who did not read French.