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Urgent question - fed up with int. stud. office
Hi everyone,
I finished my undergraduate studies by the end of this Spring semester, so I naturally wanted to apply for OPT to at least get back some of the money I spent for my education. However, when I went to the international students office of my college, I was told that the expected date of completion field on my I-20 was on December and I could not apply for OPT because my records were most likely closed or inactive. I was given that new I-20 when I was reinstated on October 2009 (caused by a complete oversight of the inter. stud. office, which they accepted and apologized for) so I would have never thought that they would put a date two months away from October -especially as I told them I would be taking classes on Spring 2010-, so I never realized that the date was on December until I was told of that fact by the office couple days ago.
This Spring I paid my tuition, registered for and took courses just like any other semester, oblivious to what's going on, and I was not notified or contacted by the International Students Office, and I'm assuming that I should have. Now they refuse to help me to fix that 6 month gap in my record, and they refuse to reinstate me as a former student that graduated on June so that I don't look like I disappeared for six months... They tell me that either I need to leave the country -obviously I don't want that-, or that I can apply for masters so that they get me a new I-20/reinstate me as a grad student. When I talked with them, I seriously felt that because they neglected to make sure if I was still getting a degree or not during Spring, and because they botched up the last time as I've explained above, they are hesitant to contact DHS to work towards a solution.
I would like to know what I can do to fix this problem, and my options. I thought of talking to Homeland Security but the int. stud. office lady told me that the outcome would not change. I don't want to have that six months haunt me for the rest of my life (I plan to stay in America so I plan to, at some future time, apply for H-1, green card etc.) and I would rather use my OPT option before starting a masters. Help and advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading,
Alex
I finished my undergraduate studies by the end of this Spring semester, so I naturally wanted to apply for OPT to at least get back some of the money I spent for my education. However, when I went to the international students office of my college, I was told that the expected date of completion field on my I-20 was on December and I could not apply for OPT because my records were most likely closed or inactive. I was given that new I-20 when I was reinstated on October 2009 (caused by a complete oversight of the inter. stud. office, which they accepted and apologized for) so I would have never thought that they would put a date two months away from October -especially as I told them I would be taking classes on Spring 2010-, so I never realized that the date was on December until I was told of that fact by the office couple days ago.
This Spring I paid my tuition, registered for and took courses just like any other semester, oblivious to what's going on, and I was not notified or contacted by the International Students Office, and I'm assuming that I should have. Now they refuse to help me to fix that 6 month gap in my record, and they refuse to reinstate me as a former student that graduated on June so that I don't look like I disappeared for six months... They tell me that either I need to leave the country -obviously I don't want that-, or that I can apply for masters so that they get me a new I-20/reinstate me as a grad student. When I talked with them, I seriously felt that because they neglected to make sure if I was still getting a degree or not during Spring, and because they botched up the last time as I've explained above, they are hesitant to contact DHS to work towards a solution.
I would like to know what I can do to fix this problem, and my options. I thought of talking to Homeland Security but the int. stud. office lady told me that the outcome would not change. I don't want to have that six months haunt me for the rest of my life (I plan to stay in America so I plan to, at some future time, apply for H-1, green card etc.) and I would rather use my OPT option before starting a masters. Help and advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading,
Alex
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