Skip to content

Does a team or company award count?

Key answer

By default USCIS expects an individual award, and team awards often get discounted. But the community has seen successful cases where the applicant proved the award happened because of them - letters from the organization, a description of their personal role. The alternative: file a team award under contribution or leading role instead of Awards.

Community answers

The answers below are translated from the original Russian - the language of the community chats.

  • USCIS states in the manual and in RFE that the award must be individual. However, I have seen two successful cases: in one, the award was received by a company, and the person was able to show that it happened because of them; in the other, there was a team of several people.

  • If the contribution does not directly meet the criteria, there is comparable evidence: explain that the win is not personal, but without you, it would not have happened, and show everything possible - the significance of the competition, your role, the outcome.

  • We closed critical roles in the company through team wins: the employer mentioned that the company won competitions in recommendation letters. This did not go into the awards because the award was for the company.

The answers are anonymized community experience from the public chats, not legal advice. Officers may decide similar cases differently.

Why "Awards" gets refused

Accepted in 14% of challenged petitions (25 of 184); not an approval rate.

The award itself is not shown to enjoy national or international recognition. Officers assess the prize itself, not merely the fact that you won it.

All refusal grounds and the sample

Sources

All questions on: AwardsAll questions on: Leading role

Related on this site

Similar questions

A reference page built from community experience, not legal advice. Requirements and practice change - verify on uscis.gov.

Did this answer help?