Which occupations file for EB-1A most often?

Why this list gets read wrong

The list of fields is built from notices - petitions that already drew a request for evidence, a notice of intent to deny or a refusal. Such a sample cannot show who files most: only the people an officer argued with are in it.

Business leads not because it is easier for founders but because those profiles raise questions more often: a title and a company structure are evidenced by the company's own paperwork, and an officer checks that kind of proof harder.

The sciences come second for the opposite reason: scientific filings are numerous in absolute terms, and the argument is usually not about whether publications exist but about whether they show recognition.

What the field actually changes

The difference between fields shows not in the odds but in which criteria actually get counted. Across 1242 AAO decisions: sciences - authorship 78% and judging 68%; IT - authorship 62%, judging 54%, leading role 32%; engineering - authorship 55%, judging 54%; business - leading role 40%, judging 31%; arts - exhibitions 38%, judging 34%, media 26%; sport - awards 39%.

Judging stays high in nearly every field and is the most underused criterion: peer review for a journal, sitting on the jury of an industry competition, assessing applications - all of it documented by the invitation, the signed report and the minutes.

The other side: a criterion with a high rate for other people does not become winnable if you have no substance for it. Three criteria closed with independent corroboration are safer than five closed with a company's internal paperwork.

These shares are computed over appeal decisions - cases that had already been refused. They are not probabilities of approval and cannot be inverted into odds.