Ms. T is a seasoned professional in e-commerce marketing who previously worked at a leading content e-commerce platform in China. After coming to the U.S., she worked on an L-1 visa. After she left that job, a U.S. company petitioned for an O-1A visa for individuals of extraordinary ability on her behalf.

• The first filing went a long time without a decision, and the client's L-1 grace period was about to run out.
• The client's press coverage and scholarly articles were all published within a short window, about a month before filing.
• The first filing received an RFE in which the officer challenged all five criteria, with only one month to respond.

• Thirteen business days after the first filing there was still no decision and only two days of the grace period remained, so we quickly filed a change of status to B to keep the client in lawful status.
• We pushed back firmly on the officer's concerns about the publication dates, and USCIS ultimately accepted our position.
• We prepared both an RFE response and a new filing at the same time: we strengthened the evidence point by point and refiled with premium processing within a week, so the new petition was decided before the original RFE deadline.

Date	Milestone
2026/08/22	First O-1A filing (premium processing)
2026/09/14	Change of status to B filed; RFE received the same day
2026/09/21	Second filing (premium processing)
2026/10/09	Approved, valid for three years

A grace period about to expire, all five criteria challenged, and only one month to answer the RFE: three kinds of pressure hit at once. Instead of simply waiting to answer the RFE, we first secured her status with the change to B, refiled seven days after the RFE arrived, and won approval 18 days later. It took less than a month from the RFE to approval, and the client changed to O-1A inside the U.S. with the full three years.

The refiled O-1A was approved in 18 days, and the client changed status to O-1A inside the U.S. with a three-year validity period.