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on_and_off·

Could you elaborate on these misconceptions about the standards for extraordinary ability for O-1 ?

I almost tried to get a O-1 but I was admitted in the H1B lottery.

The criteria are indeed very opaque and you can read very conflicting accounts on HN and elsewhere.

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In short, while the standards are very high, almost always they are not as high as people believe so it's almost always worthwhile to have an experienced attorney evaluate your background.

Pretty much anyone with a Ph.D, core contributor to a major open source project, inventor of record on multiple patents, speaker at conferences, OR otherwise able to demonstrate that s/he is an expert in their field can get admitted on an O-1 visa, if they have good legal representation.

Could you elaborate on "core contributor to a major open source project"? Do you know examples of that?

I'm a relatively core contributor of druid.io project, struggling to get a touristic visa (2 failed attempts).

Well for example I know someone that was able to get an O-1 visa on the basis of being the expert on a piece of technology because he had for years been a major contributor to a business critical open source project. It's not enough to just point to github though, as your lawyer will tell you, you need prominent business people to vouch for your credentials. They are used to doing this though, if your company has the right connections.

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