{"id":977,"date":"2025-07-09T05:38:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T05:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/?p=977"},"modified":"2025-07-09T05:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T05:47:12","slug":"us-student-visa-season-off-to-a-slow-start-for-indians-lowest-since-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2025\/07\/09\/us-student-visa-season-off-to-a-slow-start-for-indians-lowest-since-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"US Student Visa Season Off to a Slow Start for Indians, Lowest since Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"9fece8afa224fd09e54b043d0febfb58\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- NR ATF -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8898941184964366\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4839033563\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>March to July is generally a busy time for Indian students applying for <a href=\"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2025\/06\/27\/planning-a-trip-to-the-united-states-be-ready-to-share-your-social-media-details-of-last-5-years\/\">US student visas<\/a>, as they prepare for the Fall semester that starts in August\/September every year. However, this year, the visa process has been much slower, more than expected.<\/p>\n<p>Between March and May 2025, only approx. 9900 Indian students received the F-1 academic visas &#8211; the lowest number for these months since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a 27% drop compared to the same period last year, when around almost 15,000 visas were issued. In 2024, the number was around 13,400 and in 2022, it was almost 11,000.<\/p>\n<p>This reduction in the number of F-1 student visas issued has been attributed to many reasons, which may have caused this setback for many students. While the reasons may be different, the current overall civil unrest with the United States and unpredictable laws have made it tougher for students to plan an academic future in the dream institutions.<\/p>\n<p>This slowdown comes amid <a href=\"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/trump-governments-mass-layoff-plan-begins-us-supreme-court-approves\/\">Trump administration<\/a>\u2019s stricter policies on international students. These include cancelling visas for some students (including Indians) involved in pro-Palestine protests or those interacting with law enforcement. There was also an interim two-week pause (May 27 &#8211; June 18) in new and fresh applications to introduce tougher checks, especially on students\u2019 social media activity.<\/p>\n<p>In May 2025, it was reported that US embassies were told to stop scheduling new student visa interviews while these checks were being updated. By June, the US Embassy in New Delhi asked applicants for F, M, and J visas to make their <a href=\"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2025\/06\/27\/planning-a-trip-to-the-united-states-be-ready-to-share-your-social-media-details-of-last-5-years\/\">social media accounts public<\/a> to help with the screening process. (For the uninitiated, F-1 is for academic programs, M for vocational training, and J for exchange programs.)<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s slow visa processing comes after a larger drop in <a href=\"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2025\/07\/05\/no-extra-visa-for-indians-15-countries-you-can-visit-with-uk-visa\/\">F-1 visas for Indian students<\/a> in 2024. From January &#8211; September 2024, only 64,000 F-1 visas were issued to Indians \u2014 much lower compared to the over 1.03 lakh in 2023 and around 93,000 in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Indian students now make up the largest group of international students in the United States. In the 2023\u201324 academic year, they even surpassed Chinese students, according to the data obtained from Open Doors 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/donald-trump-issues-warning-on-additional-tariff-for-these-countries\/\">US government, led by Donald Trump<\/a> has said that visa decisions are important for national security and public safety. In this regard, they have issued an advisory for students to apply early and expect longer processing times. US embassies have now resumed processing student visa applications, and students should regularly check the official websites for appointment availability.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March to July is generally a busy time for Indian students applying for US student visas, as they prepare for the Fall semester that starts&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[220,216,219,254,317],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-india","tag-narendra-modi","tag-us","tag-us-visa","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}