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First of all, I wanted to thank all the members of this forum for their insight and support. This road did not feel as lonely as we all traveled it together.

My timeline:



Eb3, priority date June 2002



RFE on 485 for self March 2005, spouse a couple of weeks later.



Replied to RFE beginning of May. Received notice on June 8 that our case was transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio



Made infopass appointment to visit Columbus and was told that Cincinnati was the office that received files from the service center and that Cincinnati would forward the files to Columbus.

I start my experience first with a big thanks to Rajiv who helped us through the process of getting F1 visa stamped. Without his encouragement we would not have done it.

When an I-485 is accepted at the Service Center, requests for FD-258 FBI fingerprint checks, fingerprint fees, and G-325A consular background checks are made by USCIS. Responses to these requests come back to USCIS and must be matched up with the appropriate files held in staging. File Maintenance "file connects" these responses to the corresponding files.

My wife and I had our passports stamped after a 6 hour ordeal that started at 8:30 a.m. and ended at 2:30 p.m. Here are some tips based on what we experienced,



1. For an 8:40 appointment, get there before 8 if at all possible. They were not checking appointment timings, so people with 9/10 a.m. appointments were ahead of us in the line. All they care is that you have an appointment for that day.

My timeline:



eb3, priority date June 2002



RFE on 485 for self March 2005, spouse a couple of weeks later.



Replied to RFE beginning of May. Received notice on June 8 that our case was transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio



Made infopass appointment to visit Columbus and was told that Cincinnati was the office that received files from the service center and that Cincinnati would forward the files to Columbus.