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AAO: what it is

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AAO: definition

Key answer

The AAO (Administrative Appeals Office) is USCIS's appeals body. It reviews appeals of petition denials, including EB-1A. AAO decisions are published - they show which evidence persuades officers and which does not.

An AAO appeal is filed on Form I-290B and is just one post-denial option alongside refiling and a motion. Real outcome statistics are compared on the after-denial page.

On this site, EB-1A AAO decisions are collected into a database: for each case you can see which criteria were claimed, what the officer rejected and why. It is the most honest source on how final merits works in practice.

AAO: the official source

AAO: what to do - tools

AAO: read next

AAO: documents and templates from the library

AAO: from community discussions

  • «If it ties in somehow with your contribution to the industry, that your personal methods and developments were used in lectures, etc., then you can add it as one of the pieces of evidence for the contribution-to-industry criterion. Or else only in final merits.»

    community member · from public community chats

  • «And if there are no old articles, how suspicious will it be that I started publishing. Even if I keep a 2-month interval? Can the release of articles be tied to publishing, for example, of a unique method or a "contribution" to the community? For example, I published some unique method and it started getting cited in the media? For an O1 visa is that also critical or does it relate more to EB1?»

    community member · from public community chats

  • «If we're talking about contribution that can be confirmed by a significant number of citations or a developed method or a patent. What specifically counts as a "contribution" to the endeavor isn't in the requirements. But right now, because there are a huge number of applications and the quota is limited, if a petitioner doesn't have this kind of clear contribution but is just a great specialist, then the chance the approval goes to someone who has all this is much higher. Keep in mind that right now every applicant has to compete with a large number of top-class professionals from all over the world, and just being a very good specialist in your field isn't enough.»

    Yernar · from public community chats

Personal opinions of community members from public discussions, not legal advice.

AAO: related terms

All glossary terms

A reference definition, not legal advice. Requirements and procedures depend on your case - verify on uscis.gov.

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