06/17/2026
A master's student accepted into a PhD program wanted to skip academia, join his friend's IT company as CTO, and start his career in the US.
The challenge was proving that his background, which was largely built through student competitions, Microsoft-related publications, and university organizations, met the bar for extraordinary ability under the O-1 visa.
Our team built a 27-page brief connecting his deep expertise in Microsoft software to a real-world application: helping small and mid-size businesses defend against cyber security threats that larger corporations can afford to handle but most small companies cannot.
We argued five criteria of extraordinary ability including publications, awards, judgeship, and critical role, and tied everything back to his business plan and the company he was stepping into as CTO.
The O-1 was approved, and the same case qualified him for an EB-1A as well.
