Mad rush for US student visa interview slots causes glitches

Several students complained about being locked out of their accounts

The US embassy’s bid to fast-track visas for Indian students aiming to pursue higher education in the US has met with a few teething problems as a huge backlog of aspirants swarmed to the portal on Monday, resulting in a few technical hiccups.

The US mission in India said on Sunday it would open visa interview slots to facilitate the legitimate travel of Indian students as a top priority in the next two months and that students headed to the US would not require any proof of Covid-19 vaccination to fly to the country. All they will need is a negative Covid test taken in the previous 72 hours, it was said.

However, the huge rush for slots put the embassy’s systems under strain and led to technical difficulties. The embassy acknowledged some of the issues that anxious students may be faced with as the portal dealt with the enormous load, asking students not to “refresh too often”, as it could lock them out of their accounts.

The warning may have come too late for some students who were locked out of their accounts with no prior warning and implored the embassy to make an exception to unlock their accounts.

Some frustrated students lashed out at the mission, faulting the organisation for being unprepared to deal with the influx of students even though it was aware of the high demand.

Others asked the consulate for more information to ease panic and allow people to plan out their booking attempts accordingly.

Though fears that they may be barred from foreign universities amid the pandemic have eased, students are rushing to get their documentation together to join US universities by August. Meanwhile, the French embassy has also invited students from India to apply for visas to study at universities in France.