The recommendation letters that helped me were specific, not glowing

When I first thought about EB-1A recommendation letters, I assumed the goal was praise. Strong praise.

Do not make the officer guess where a document came from

One of the quietest ways to weaken evidence is to strip it of its source. A screenshot with no URL is harder to trust.

Final merits is a closing argument, not a recap

By the time I reached the final merits section of my EB-1A petition, I was tired. The criteria sections had already done a lot of work.

Your resume explains chronology. Your petition explains eligibility.

A resume asks: What did you do, and when?

My exhibit list got better when I stopped treating it like storage

My final EB-1A petition had 40 exhibits. That number only tells half the story.

Prestige is context. Responsibility is proof.

A famous venue is not proof. A famous company is not proof.

The first thing my EB-1A had to explain was my field

Before my EB-1A petition could explain why I was extraordinary, it had to explain what field I was extraordinary in. That sounds obvious. It was not obvious to me at the start.

The 13-year timeline I drew before I wrote a word of my final merits section

Before I wrote my final merits section, I drew a timeline. Not in a fancy tool. A list, in a Google Doc, by year, from 2011 to 2024. For each year, one line for every concrete thing on record: a press piece, a launched program, a judging invitation, an award,

I had Forbes coverage from 12 years ago. Here's how I used it as EB-1A evidence.

In December 2011, Forbes ran an article called "Can't meet Eric Schmidt in Paris at LeWeb'11!? No Worries." It covered an event I had organized called the LeWeb Student Warm-up, held just before the main LeWeb conference in Paris. I was 22. Seven months