If you are a student and no matter what your plan is to study in the United States starting from learning English in an ESL school or obtaining a degree from one of the American Universities on any subject under the sun, the bottom line is you would be required to obtain an F1 student visa for your self to get into the United States as a student.

It’s important that I mention that almost any one irrespective of the age of the person or his educational background might choose to apply for an F1 student visa. Also the procedure for the same is fairly simple and goes as per the under mentioned. Also you ought to understand that this is different than the exchange student visitor program that the United States patronizes by the recognized J1 visa program which is primarily a sponsored program and has a whole bunch of different details attached with it.

1. Download the F1 student visa guide for the purpose of application.
2. Now once that is done then you need t decide up on where in the United States you would choose to stay while you study
3. Now you need to choose up on the type of the school that you want to get an admission into. Like a college, a university, or may be a graduate school or an ESL school to learn English.
4. Now you need to get in touch with the school and initiate the admission process in to the same.
5. Once the school has accepted your admission request they would be issuing you a I 20 form. Please note that this I 20 form, is the going to be the most important part of the paper work that you prepare for the F1 student visa application.
6. Now you need to apply with the I 20 form to the United States embassy or Consulate for the F1 student visa, to the United States. Also please note that in case you are already in the United States than there are provisions that you would not be required to travel back to the home country. While your visa status is changed to that of a student.
7. While you travel to the United States on a F1 student visa for your studies. The United States government would allow you to work there legally too, for a limited number of hours every week to help you collect the money for the studies there.

Looking at the huge shortage of the nurses in the United States today, this has gone up to 117,000 for the case of unfilled vacancies for registered and qualified nurses, at different hospitals and nursing homes across the United States.

As a resolution to the above mentioned problem on the 11^th of Feb in 2009. A new act was introduced in the house known as the Nurse Relief Act HR 1001. The crux of this new Act is that a new category of visas, the W – Visa category would be introduced which would only be for the nurses from all over the world to come over to the United States. The annual capping for this new visa category would be currently at 50000.

The nurses and the physiotherapists fall in Schedule A, They get preference under the third preference employment immigrant category and thus do not need the labor certification. But currently the visas under the said category for the nurses and the physiotherapists are not available at all and one would be required to wait till October to see the scope coming out of this category.

Again the H-3 temporary non immigrant level visa would allow nurses to enter the United States for the purpose of acquiring training in the said skill and would be expected to leave post the completion of the training.

Similarly, nurses could opt for the J-1 exchange visitor program and enter the United States in the capacity of an exchange visitor training and then leave post the completion of the training. In this visa category they would not allowed to work. But rather this is also a training visa. However the nurses coming under the said J-1 visa category would be eligible to get minimum wage rate, as applicable, under the provisions of the visa category.

The primary reasons for introducing the new W- Visa are:

1. As per the labor department in the United States the shortage of qualified nurses stand at a staggering 120,000. There was an urgent need to address this concern.
2. The states in the West and the Southwest United States have a higher growth rate than the rest of the country.
3. Other countries in the world like India, China and the Philippines have a higher number of nurses that they do not hire as well. Such surplus human resource could be better used in a country like the United States where the demand is higher than the supply.

The limits for the fiscal year 09, has been fixed as per the provisions of the INA Act (Sec 201). As per the said Immigration and Nationality Act (Sec 201), the annual minimum family sponsored preference limit is 226,000. However as per the same act the Upper limit for the preferred immigrants has been set to a maximum of 7% of the total applications received from the country for the employment based preference and the annual family sponsored preference. However, only 2% has been allotted for the dependent area limit.

The Sec 203 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, defines the preference of the family sponsored preferences as per the under mentioned.

First – The preference would be given to the unmarried children for the citizens and the number stands at 23,400 plus what ever is the surplus from the numbers allotted to the 4^th preference.

Second – The send in the line would be the spouses and children along with the unmarried children of the permanent residents of the United States.

Third – Third in the line comes the children of citizens who are married in different countries and are have been staying there. The upper limit for this category has been fixed at 23400 plus the surplus of the first two preferences.

Fourth – Siblings of adult United State citizens, and the upper limit of this preference e has been capped at 65,000. This category would also include the surplus of the previous 3 preferences.

There has been mentioned some preferences for the employment based immigrations as well.

1. 28.6% of the world wide employment based preference level would be allowed as the first preference.

2. People in profession who holds advanced degree. This category has been capped at the maximum of 28.6% of the world wide employment based preference level.

3. The third category is for the skilled workers and the professionals. Again capped at 28.6% of the world wide employment based preference level.

4. This category is for the special immigrants being capped at 7.1% of the total world wide level.