My exhibit list got better when I stopped treating it like storage
My final EB-1A petition had 40 exhibits. That number only tells half the story.
Topic
How-To
A collection of 10 issues
Prestige is context. Responsibility is proof.
A famous venue is not proof. A famous company is not proof.
The first thing my EB-1A had to explain was my field
Before my EB-1A petition could explain why I was extraordinary, it had to explain what field I was extraordinary in. That sounds obvious. It was not obvious to me at the start.
The 13-year timeline I drew before I wrote a word of my final merits section
Before I wrote my final merits section, I drew a timeline.
Not in a fancy tool. A list, in a Google Doc, by year, from 2011 to 2024.
For each year, one line for every concrete thing on record: a press piece, a launched program, a judging invitation, an award,
I had Forbes coverage from 12 years ago. Here's how I used it as EB-1A evidence.
In December 2011, Forbes ran an article called "Can't meet Eric Schmidt in Paris at LeWeb'11!? No Worries." It covered an event I had organized called the LeWeb Student Warm-up, held just before the main LeWeb conference in Paris. I was 22.
Seven months
7 things I did before writing a single paragraph of my petition
7 things I did before writing a single paragraph of my petition
Most people think petition writing starts with writing.
It does not.
The writing was the easy part. Everything that made the writing easy happened before I typed a single paragraph of my cover letter.
Here are the seven
You can't edit a blank page
The biggest thing holding most EB-1A candidates back isn't a lack of qualifications. It's the absence of a draft.
There's research. There's notes. There are bookmarked success stories and saved Reddit threads and half-finished Notion pages. But there's no draft.
The 3 types of EB-1A candidates I keep meeting
Since sharing my full EB-1A petition and getting hundreds of messages, clear patterns started to emerge.
Most serious EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, and O-1 candidates fall into one of three archetypes. This post is to help you figure out which one sounds most like you, and what that means for your
Why I chose 5 criteria (and why you should choose 3)
The legal requirement for EB-1A is 3 out of 10 criteria. That's it.
Most people think more criteria = stronger case. It doesn't. More criteria often means a diluted case. You spread your evidence thin. Your narrative wanders. The USCIS officer has to follow five different threads
The moment I stopped researching and started writing
For months, I told myself I was "preparing" my EB-1A petition.
I had 20+ browser tabs open. I could quote criteria from memory. I'd read every success story on Reddit. I had a Notion page called "EB-1A Notes" with 47 bullet points and zero