Sohan Sethi entered the H-1B lottery three times and was rejected each time. He spent $13,000 on legal fees and 700 pages of evidence to secure an O-1 visa instead.
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Sohan Sethi, 29, spent the first 25 years of his life in India. He arrived in Chicago in January 2022 to start a master's degree at the University of Illinois Chicago, a school he had kept on his laptop wallpaper for years. Twenty days later, on his 25th birthday, he stood at the same spot in the picture.
After graduating in May 2023, Sethi got a job as a senior business analyst at a healthcare company. A year and a half later, he was promoted to manager of analytics and reporting. Professionally, things were moving.
Then the H-1B lottery hit. Three times, he entered. Three times, he was not selected.
After the second rejection in April 2025, Sethi said he realized he could not rely on the lottery if he wanted to stay in the U.S. He started preparing for the O-1 visa in June 2025, almost a year before his OPT was set to expire.
Unlike the H-1B, the O-1 is not a lottery. Applicants must demonstrate "extraordinary ability" through achievements in their field. Sethi hired a lawyer and spent the next several months building his profile while working full time. He audited his achievements, secured media coverage, judged at industry events, received awards, published scholarly articles, and gathered letters of recommendation.
By February 2026, his lawyers had organized more than 700 pages of supporting evidence. Sethi said he spent about $13,000 on lawyer fees.
In March, he was not selected in the H-1B lottery for the third time. His STEM OPT was due to expire on July 5, leaving him roughly 100 days to legally stay in the U.S. unless another pathway worked out.
After filing the O-1 petition, Sethi received a Request for Evidence, which required additional documentation and another wait. He said he was refreshing his email about 20 times a day for months.
During that period, he started thinking about other possibilities. He knows people who have gone back to India, pursued a second master's degree, or moved to Canada or the U.K. He considered those options too.
"I couldn't find another country where I felt I could build the same career," Sethi said. He works in data analytics and AI. "None of the other countries comes anywhere close to the level at which the US operates. That's why I didn't want to give up without exploring every possible option."
Then the email arrived. He was on a call with his best friend when a message from his lawyer popped up. It said, "Congratulations."
Sethi said the immediate aftermath was silence and complete bliss. The first people he called were his mother and brother back in India. Their smiles on the video call, he said, made the effort worth it.
Today, Sethi manages a team of analysts working in healthcare data and analytics. He shares advice on LinkedIn about job searching, life as an international student, and the O-1 process. "The only intent behind that was to be there for someone in the way I wish someone had been there for me," he said.
His O-1 visa is valid for three years.
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