My employer assessed that I qualify for O1 in their internal assessment and are willing to sponsor my application. What are the trade-offs in terms of flexibility if I were to go O1 route? I could get STEM OPT extension this year (on my first year of OPT). My employer is also filing for H1B. Curious what are trade-offs of O1 vs STEM-OPT vs H1B for switching employers, re-entering to US, and filing for EB1. I am also concerned that O1 might be more uncertain if there is a change in government here. #workvisa Edit1: I have only Master's degree, but with research experience.
How many papers/citations do you have??
50 citations, 6 papers, all recent (<1 year). Multiple highly selective student awards, worked as reviewer and my work was selected for talk at top conference.
O-1 is preferable for all reasons except 1) if you switch jobs to a new company, O-1 needs to be redone from scratch. There’s no transfer. 2) The day you file your I-485 you lose your O-1 status unlike H1-B
Thanks, may be then I will wait for H1B lottery to play out. I can always apply for O1 later in summer if I don't get H1B and I also have STEM extension for 2 years.
You should look into taxes too. STEM OPT allows you to not pay for FICA and Medicare (till you have 5 years of presence in US). You would have to pay that on H1B. Not sure about O1. I would have stayed on STEM OPT and if I didn’t get H1B in my last try, switch to O1 and keep trying for H1B.
Thanks for your helpful suggestions. Agree, tax will increase, but my main concern is not to be worried with constraints on work visa and eventually try and get EB1. I think O1 doesn't help me too much on that except providing more time based on responses here. So your advice seems to be really spot on.
Go with O1 and try for EB1 A. Do you have phd?
No PhD, but Master's from top-5 US university and Bachelor's from top-5 university in my country.