<p>Sorry. I didn’t remember your previous post. The timing for Richmond Scholar semi-finalists would have several factors. First would be how soon your application was COMPLETE. A lot of people submitted on time but then have had credentials following behind. The sooner you were complete, the better the odds would be that you were read earlier. But beyond that, it would be rather random. Every member of the staff has a particular geographic area where they take the lead, and how fast your file would get read on their timetable. For whatever reason, certain geographic areas tend to apply on the earlier side and others on the later side. PA and NJ tend to come in early. VA comes in last (and it is the largest state, so it is hard to get it read quickly). Also, whatever other projects your officer has on his/her desk could influence it. I wish that 100% of our time was dedicated to reading folders right now, but few of us are able to do that given other responsibilities. And while in a perfect world we’d get internationals done first, it isn’t realistic because a lot of their credentials tend to straggle and they are challenging to get filed quickly. Plus, many international students tend to include a lot of extra documentation, (some helpful, some less so) but they take longer to read as a result. </p>
<p>Bottom line is that it probably ends up feeling pretty random to the outside world, but there is a method to the madness. And as I’ve said before, we’ve never had an international student who was unsuccessful at making the trip (and we’ve brought people from Nepal, Bangladesh, China, among many other countries–places that it’s just not that easy to get to the US from) even when the turn-around was short. So I’m sorry if you are stressed. We’re truly working 12-13 hour days at this stage to try to give everyone a fair chance. I just wrapped up folder reading tonight about 30 minutes ago.</p>