Dropbox and Visa interview for family

[chnrbk]

Hi,
I am a father of a 12-year-old kid. I have a question about scheduling the VISA appointment for the three of us.

My kid and wife have not traveled to India for the last 6 years. I am eligible for dropbox because my last visa got expired this year only.

As per the Visa Dropbox checklist, I am eligible for dropbox, I think Kid is too because he is under the age of 14 years, but my wife is not eligible.

I would like to get your feedback on how to schedule the visa interview for all of us in this case.

A. Do I need to create CGI profiles for each of them separately?

B. I can include Kid as a dependent in my profile and schedule dropbox for both of us?

C. Create a profile for the wife separately and schedule for OFC and Consular interview?

D. Or is it possible to include all of them in one profile but can schedule the visa interview/dropbox separately?

Or is there any requirement that the primary(me) applicant must get the visa first?

Appreciate your response. Thank you

[rajarampatidar]

I did gone through this process recently...let me try answering...Here is my story first....

Ours (Mine, wifes and kids) last stamped visa were of 2015 valid till 2017. We moved back to India in 2019.
This year I got selected in H1B Lottery and have taken dropbox appointment and visa got stamped for me and wife together successfully (based on current I797, previous stamped visa and previous I797).
For my kid, once ours visa got stamped and current visa became valid, we applied for his visa via dropbox and got approved and stamped successfully.

1. You and your wife should be eligible for dropbox if you able to successfully answer few questions (I think should able to as long as you did not have any special comments in your visas)
2. Once your visa's become current (stamped in passport), using those you can apply for kids visa via dropbox
3. if you would like to go for in-person interview than you can add all dependents of yours within your profile and pay fee together
4. If you would like to go for dropbox then you should add only dependents within your profile for whom you taking the dropbox appointment along with you (finding two or more than two slots is another challenge)
5. As finding the slots is a challenge, the preferred option is to have different profiles created for each candidate irrespective of if you taking dropbox on same day or not.
6. If you accidently add your dependents in your profile and later on create separate profile for them, it detects that their information exists (in your profile) and asks to transfer, that transfer process takes time and sometime you need to raise ticket to consular helpdesk via provide feedback section or call them to help in transfer.
7. Adding all of them in one profile and scheduling separate drobox is not possible. Not sure about in-person interview (should be the same case but why should someone have separate in-person interview, in first place)
8. for Kid, both parents must have valid visa, not valid I797 (for dropbox eligibility)

Thanks,
Raj