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Do paid contests and team awards count?

Key answer

In members' experience almost all contests charge a fee, including the most prestigious international ones, so the fee itself does not disqualify an award - what matters is that it is in your field, national or international, received personally, covered by the media, and won by known people in your field. Childhood awards do not build a case: one most prestigious can be mentioned as background. A team or company award formally must be individual, but members have seen approvals where the applicant showed that their contribution was decisive.

Community answers

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

  • An award is suitable if it is from your field, you have proof of receiving it, it has national or international status, and it was personally received by an individual and not by an organization or team, though there are exceptions. There should be media publications about the award, other well-known figures in your field have received it in different years, and you will be able to demonstrate the significance of the award and that it is not given to everyone indiscriminately, and the organization that issued it has a good reputation.

  • All contests require payment, and quality, valuable international design contests can cost several thousand. In my opinion, such a contest is very suitable: their website meets all necessary criteria for describing the contest, from the jury to the outreach.

  • If the contest is really prestigious, I would attach one award from the most prestigious top contest, roughly equivalent to the level of the children's Eurovision. And even that would not serve as evidence but rather additional information for your story. Children's victories are not used to build a case.

  • USCIS states in the manual and RFE that the award must be individual. However, I have seen two successful cases: in one, a company received an award, and the individual was able to demonstrate that it happened due to them; in the second, a team of four participated in an IT competition, and it was also shown that the beneficiary's contribution was decisive. Both have already been approved.

  • I studied a case where an individual submitted a significant number of certificates and awards received in sports at age ten and slightly older. The result was an RFE and a denial. The RFE text did not mention that the certificates were obtained in childhood; the officer simply did not count them as significant.

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: EB-1AAll questions on: O-1 visaAll questions on: The petition and formatting

Related on this site

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

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