On the May 30th I had appeared for my Visa - Personal appearance and cleared it. Here is the experience I had.
Mine was of type L1-B blanket. The appointment was at 10:00 AM IST.
The entrance is the one facing the Gemini flyover(Chennai). You won't be allowed to stand in the queue outside only until 15mins prior to the scheduled time. At the entrance they would check you Passport and appointment confirmation letter. Once you are verified you will be let in. Once in, you will be physically frisked for mobile phones,storage materials or anything. Once clear you will be let into a lobby.
You would see a series of counter and they would check your documents. They will group documents together and pin them and separate the unnecessary ones. Keep the docs in the same order that they organize and hand over to you. Once that is done you will be let into the Visa lobby.
The Visa lobby is an insane place. It is a small room with 7 counters and a huge number of people. You would have to wait in the chairs provided until its your turn. When its your turn the crew will call you to stand in a queue. The queue is insanely slow. This is the most difficult part. You will have to stand in that queue for around 3 hours seeing others getting rejected. You would get really tensed and worried as time passes by. Those three hours would be like 3 decades. It is ridiculous that that the consulate can't make a work around for this annoying queue. Anyways once your turn comes you will be guided to one of the 7 counters. He will fire a few questions and you will be good to go, with or without the passport.
Tips1.Speak the truth. Do not bluff. Even if you are missing something and if you are truthful there is a very good possibility of you clearing the interview(They wouldn't reject your Visa, rather ask you to appear on another day with adequate documentation). End of the day even they are humans.
2.Do not walk in with an empty stomach. Had I been made to stand another hour I would have definitely collapsed. Have adequate food, not less nor too much. You wouldn't want hunger let you down on dooms day.
3.Keep your docs organized. if we consider the interviewers getting irritated in terms of levels of irritation, giving a disorganized set of docs to the interviewer will directly put you in the 5th level of irritation. He will definitely turn you down.
4.Be cool, he/she's not gonna eat you. Greet them in a very friendly manner. Any questions they ask look at their face when you answer. Always have a smile on your face, it increases the comfort level and confidence on you. Trust me on this, it works.
5.Body language is important. The way you present yourself, the way you speak to them makes a huge difference. Especially the male interviewers will look carefully at you when they ask a question. Basically they are seeing how confident we are physically on buttressing whatever we speak. If they have doubts, they would keep firing questions. I was very confident in my answer so the interviewer never went further after the first question.
6.Those who are going for masters, better have a solid proof that you could sustain financially your education. Oral confirmation does not help much, documents are required. If your dad is a big shot you better have all certificates, job experience certificates etc. to bolster your point.
7,In case you are applying for Visa after a significant time period after your graduation, you would have to have a strong explanation of each and every month after your graduation until the current date as in what you did. You need to produce documentation to buttress that.
8.Finally, Be cool! Chill! No worries! The cooler you are, the easier it goes!
