Scholars who are employed at BU using their Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorization are typically limited to a period of 12 months of employment eligibility. However, students in certain STEM major fields, may qualify for a 24-month extension of OPT authorization to continue their BU employment, provided that:<\/p>\n
Departments can request ISSO review for an F-1 STEM OPT extension request at any time after the F-1 OPT employment has started. However, the OPT Employee can only submit the OPT STEM extension within 90 days of the initial OPT expiration.<\/p>\n
There are several parties involved in supporting F-1 STEM OPT employment\/training, including the F-1 OPT employee, their F-1 sponsoring school, Boston University\u00a0ISSO and\u00a0host department\u00a0and USCIS (who will issue the OPT STEM employment authorization).\u00a0 If you need to extend authorization for a current employee in F-1 status with a qualifying STEM major and qualified employment, you will need to forward a completed scholar processing packet to the ISSO to initiate the process.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
As the employer\/training site, BU assumes some responsibility in insuring compliance with the OPT STEM regulations. As the host department of the employee, please note the following:<\/p>\n
More information about employer responsibilities<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>student reporting requirements<\/a>\u00a0are also provided on the Department of Homeland Security’s Study in the States website.\u00a0<\/span>We rely on timely communication from the BU hiring department to meet these reporting requirements.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n Departments hosting employees on OPT STEM should be aware that the regulations include provisions related to compliance site visits<\/strong> from USCIS to ensure that the employee is receiving structured and guided work-based learning experiences, as outlined in the required Form I-983. Please contact the ISSO<\/a> immediately should you receive any inquires related to an international employee on OPT STEM in your department.<\/p>\n Thus, when you are hosting an employee on an OPT STEM authorization, please pay attention details provided above regarding details on the Form I-983, the annual self-evaluation form and any changes in the term of the employment (including job duties, BU title, resignations, etc.).\u00a0 More detailed information about OPT STEM site visits is provided on the\u00a0<\/span>Study in the States website.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While the process of applying for F-1 STEM OPT is certainly faster than applying for change to another immigration status, BU host departments should note that if a F-1 STEM OPT extension is not possible in a particular employee\u2019s case, then it may be necessary to come up with an alternate immigration sponsorship strategy which may take several months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scholars who are employed at BU using their Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorization are typically limited to a period of 12 months of employment eligibility. However, students in certain STEM major fields, may qualify for a 24-month extension of OPT authorization to continue their BU employment, provided that: their major field of study is on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8027,"featured_media":0,"parent":193,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8027"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16307,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5017\/revisions\/16307"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/isso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}