penpaper

This is a great thread. Honestly, I have no idea about credit history nor how to build one. Thanks for all the info... hope to learn more... especially about renting apartments. Do they come with furnishings like refrigerator and gas range? Or do you have to buy everything on your own upon arrival?

happylearning, do you mean your I-140 took 9 months to be approved? Maybe you should ask your lawyer about it. Maybe something got messed up along the way. I know someone (a doctor-RN) whose I-140 has been filed last Aug 2005 and until now has not been approved. Upon consultation with his lawyer, he learned that his history of overstaying in the US a decade ago was probably the cause of the delay or pending disapproval. Bottomline is, if something is not right or is taking so long, there must be a reasonable cause. With regards to PD, I believe being documentarily qualified is the most important thing for NVC. It doesn't matter if your PD is 2001, if you don't become documentarily qualified, you will never get to Packet 4.

I believe you are indirectly implying pinoy_RNako and I do not deserve to get an interview and visa ahead of agp_ph!!!!!! I find your comments uncalled for. How fast your case is processed depends on a lot of factors! To name a few, the rate of processing may depend on: 1. How fast you and your lawyer paid the fees 2. How fast was your bank draft cleared 3. How fast were your documents prepared and submitted to the lawyer 4. How fast did your lawyer forward all the documents to NVC, and 5. How complete were the documents submitted to NVC Priority dates are important but so is being "documentarily qualified." I consider agp_ph a forum buddy and I wish everything could have worked out for him/her in time. I sincerely hope ( I actually believe so :) ) he/she isn't resentful of our getting the visas. I wish him/her and the rest the best of luck. I pray they will soon get their visas too. Okay it's time to get my "hackles" back down. :)

Thank you Suzanne, Lawrence, Rep and everyone who shared their experiences. We got our immigrant visas and are leaving for the US in a couple of weeks. Thank you Suzanne for everything. Your generous heart has helped a lot of nurses all over the world... and I for one, benefited a lot from your advices. How can I thank you enough for all your replies (through pms) when I was going crazy over the filling up of the DS230 form!!!!! Thank you so much. Lawrence, thank you for always being the sound of reason... especially during times when topics become too hot to handle. =) Rep, I took to heart all your tips and insights... even printed your experiences in 2005 just so I could learn from them... well I couldn't have passed the medicals and the interview with flying colors without your invaluable help! Thank you so much. I want to share my timeline: Priority date: March 2006 I-140 approval: April 2006 NVC case number generated: April 2006 Visa fee bill generated: May 2006 Payment cleared by NVC: June 2006 Packet 3 received by lawyer from NVC: June 2006 Packet 3 forwarded to NVC: July 2006 Case completed: July 2006 ( 5 days after documents were received by NVC) Case forwarded to Embassy in Manila: September 11, 2006 Packet 4 received: September 16, 2006 Interview at the US Embassy: October 25, 2006 Immigrant Visa received: November 3, 2006 Thank you everyone. Hope I can help others too. God bless.

Hi jakey, agp_ph and leis! Don't lose hope. Let's pray that this retrogression will be over soon. Some of my colleagues had their cases completed at the end of August and they still didn't get an interview! They remain optimistic that in a few months everything will be okay again. By the way, jakey, the interview went well. Thanks for asking. =) My family and I went a few minutes before 8:30 (appointment was 8:30am) and finished at 10:30am. I didn't experience any rudeness or disrespect at all. In my opinion, the medicals at St. Lukes was more stressful. Be sure to read and follow the tips found in this forum. They helped me a lot... especially Rep's... his shared experiences served as my guide during the entire medical and interview process. Here's hoping and praying that all three of you will get your packet 4 soon. Don't forget to update us. :)

kurt2006 - you were interviewed last week too? Who knows, we might have been sitting next to each other! :) Regarding your visas, I'm glad to hear you submitted your document immediately. Since retro will be setting in, they'll probably have more time to prepare our visas. Here's hoping we get our visas soon. arys, agp_ph, happylearning, leis, jakey, bottomless - do you have schedules already? Good luck guys... you're in my prayers.

Saunders' rationale for each question actually helped me a lot. Be sure to read them more than once. I'll pm you other references I found helpful.

Respecting someone else's personal opinion is an admirable trait, you know.

angeldust, do you know your NVC case number (MNL2006XXXXXX)? If you do, you can check the progress of your case by calling NVC at 0016033340700. If you don't know, ask your agency for your case number.

Lawrence, I totally agree with your post. I always believe that the cheating controversy goes all the way up to the PRC. I have always found the actions of the PRC chair somewhat questionable. If she and her group did not prematurely publish the list of passers and instead waited for the NBI to finish their investigations then the issue would not have been blown out of proportion. Her actions at the Senate hearing was disappointing as well as laughable. Resorting to namecalling at the Senate hearing did nothing but make her appear foolish and childish. This nursing controversy is like a horrible toothache. No matter how many painkillers you take, the pain doesn't go away... it actually gets worse and worse... the only solution is too pull the entire tooth out and be done with it!

Congratulations lifehouse! I believe you're the first one in our batch (forum batch). When are you leaving? Good luck and God bless. agp_ph, happylearning and pinoyRNako: hope you have your schedules already. john: congrats.

Rep, your insights are very helpful. Thanks for sharing them with us. By the way, I just had my medical exam. Thanks to all those who contributed tips and advices in this forum... they made the entire process so much easier. Best advice: For Day 1 (Tues), go to SL in the afternoon. My family and I went at 1:30 pm. There was no lining up in ALL the steps. From digital picture-taking, x-rays, labs, Vitals/Eye exam, PE to Immunization review, everything proceeded in a breeze. We finished at 3:30pm. Day 2 was more stressful. We arrived at 1pm and went to 2nd floor for immunization. My child had her shots around 2:30pm... then my husband at 3:30... I had mine at 4pm. We went to the releasing area together and got our x-ray plates and immunization records at 5:30pm. Hopefully the interview goes well too.

There must be a retake. It's a matter of integrity. This is not just any ordinary exam! This is the BOARD EXAM that confers professional licenses to those who pass. In a licensure exam, the result is highly questionable when you invalidate 30-40% of the questions. It becomes outright unacceptable when the reason for the invalidation is a leakage of test questions (cheating)! It doesn't matter the number of people who cheated. What matters is that there was cheating and that no one can determine who cheated and who did not. This is my personal opinion. Sometimes, little sacrifices today can spell the difference between future success and failure.

I took and passed both my cgfns and nclex last year. For CGFNS, I used CGFNS Study guide and Lippincott. The exam was full of med-surg and pharma topics. Very little prioritization and delegation. For nclex, I used saunders and Kaplan. I guess both were great study materials because I found the actual exam pretty manageable. Mostly priorities and delegation. Passed it with 75 questions. Good luck on your exam.

i got that 12 am medical sched too. and so did my companions. i think that's more of a deadline than an actual sched. congratulations pinoyRNako and december. wow everyone seems to have an interview schedule this October. the embassy must be working overtime. which is all good! hey don't forget to post your experiences and tips. Good luck to all. God bless. :)