The mbaMission Podcast

Ep 87 | The US MBA Visa Maze

• mbaMission • Season 3 • Episode 87

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The U.S. MBA visa process can feel overwhelming for international applicants—but it’s far more navigable than many assume. In this episode of the mbaMission podcast, Harshad Mali, Harold Simansky, and Jeremy Shinewald break down the full U.S. MBA visa journey, from F-1 student visas and STEM-designated OPT to the H-1B lottery and longer-term pathways. They discuss how top employers continue to sponsor MBA talent, why business schools are actively working to attract international candidates, and how shifting application trends may actually create new opportunities for global applicants. Rather than viewing visas as a barrier, this conversation reframes them as a strategic, multi-stage process that can support long-term career growth in the U.S. and beyond. 

00:00 Navigating the H-1B Visa Landscape
02:58 Understanding the MBA Journey and Visa Options
06:03 The Role of Business Schools in Talent Development
08:52 The Impact of the $100,000 H-1B Fee
11:59 Future of Work and Remote Opportunities
15:01 Embracing Uncertainty in Career Decisions

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Harshad Mali:

There are 85,000 H1B visas, 65,000 for the main crowd, and 20,000 for US graduates. A student has to find an employer who's willing to sponsor an H1B down the road.

Jeremy Shinewald:

You know, this$100,000 fee, the firms who have responded quite well to this, um, NVIDIA, Amazon, you know, just said, yeah, we'll pay this, that's fine.

Harshad Mali:

And those are they tend to be the firms that MBAs want to go to. Don't think too much about the future because this is a land of opportunity. There's a lot of ideation creation here that you are missing out on. So think about that. If you want to create something, come here.

Harold Simansky:

For international students, getting into a top U.S. MBA program is a dream, but staying after graduation? That's the real challenge. The United States remains the world's most coveted business education destination, yet its visa system is one of the most complex to navigate. Every year, thousands of talented MBA graduates face the same question: what happens when classes end and the visa clock starts ticking? In this episode, we're breaking down the modern U.S. visa journey from the F1 student visa that gets you in to the OPT and STEM extensions that buy you time and the H1B lottery that can decide your future. We'll explore how top business schools are adapting their programs, how employers are responding to global talent needs, and what 2025's new policy discussions could mean for you. Because in today's world, an MBA isn't just about mastering business strategy, it's about mastering the strategy of staying. Whether you're applying, studying, or already working, this episode will help you see the visa process, not as a barrier, but as a blueprint for building your global career. It's my understanding, some of these top business schools, they are one-third down when it comes to international candidates. Can you imagine what that number looks like? So if they were expecting a thousand and now suddenly they're getting 700, simple math is okay, jump into the pool, zig where other people are zagging. People aren't applying now, then you know by all means apply. Think about it in terms of maybe this is your year. Right. We don't know. Things are changing very, very quickly. But as always, and I say this to my clients, you must zig where everyone else is zagging. And this is a perfect example of that.

Harshad Mali:

Absolutely. I think one thing that a lot of people don't understand is yes, business schools are nonprofits on paper, but in reality, they actually create and nurture talent that other industries need. And because there is a talent deficit of many sorts in many industries, uh, business schools are going to definitely do their best to attract international applicants. And now we're in a phase in which things might ease up on the visa front. And time will tell if uh these things will change my Hansei's table. Yeah.

Jeremy Shinewald:

I think also, I mean, one last thing on the on the on on the on the current situation for students, then we'll get to the future of you know what students can look to in the future post-graduation. These things have a tendency to slow down and then snap back. And so if you're thinking like, oh, I'll wait this out, there are probably a lot of people thinking, I'll wait this out. And if you're if you are waiting it out right now, first of all, who knows what the future brings in terms of other administrations. If you're applying in the coming year, you're gonna, I believe at that point, you're gonna graduate and there will be a new president because you're waiting a year, you're applying, then there's a year until you start, and then you're you're almost at the cusp of the end of this administration. Um maybe that's a good segue. Not that much has actually changed right now for students. And there's uh, you know, a lot of a lot of MBA students um were put off by the news about H1B visas. We can get to that. Um, but first of all, there there has been some clarify clarification given uh you know by you know by the administration saying that um the new$100,000 H1B fee doesn't apply to anyone on a student visa. Um so if you're on a student visa, you now arguably are more appealing than than than than you were before because now if you're compare if you're competing against someone who is in the general, you know, the general pool of H1Bs, it's$100,000 less to hire you than it is to hire any other applicant. So I would say people should be deeply like in the I'm not saying this is good for society. I'm just you know, in a myopic view of the MBA world right now, MBA should be delighted about the about the the the MBA students should be delighted about the$100,000 fee because it's gonna reduce the number of of um of firms that are. I mean, quite honestly, it's competitive. That's exactly it, yeah. So I think that's important. But um, but there's a long way before you're even you're even gonna get to the H1B. So Harshad, share with us the kind of the typical uh MBA journey to you know post post uh post-MBA with their various uh statuses. If you want to be one of our success stories, sign up for a free consultation with a member of our full-time MBA admissions team. Since we've worked with tens of thousands of applicants over the past two decades, we can give you our honest opinion on your chances and help you put together your very best application. That is not a sales call, but rather your first session with one of us for free. We can give you a profile evaluation, answer specific questions about the process, review your resume, talk about your school choices, and so much more. Sign up at MBAmission.com slash consult. We look forward to working with you.

Harshad Mali:

Absolutely. So once you start your MBA program, you um get to do a lot of networking. And I'll get back to that again. But uh the biggest thing is once you graduate, you get three years of optional practical training, OPT. Can I interrupt you for one second?

Jeremy Shinewald:

You you get you're you are correct. And almost every MBA is eligible for the three years of OPT. Technically, you do need to be in a in a STEM degree, which I think virtually every MBA program now qualifies for the STEM degree to get the three years. But um if you're not in a STEM degree, you get you get one year. But again, I think I think virtually every MBA program now is a is a has been designated a STEM degree by the like the Department of Education, whatever. But go go ahead.

Harshad Mali:

No, you're absolutely right. I think the STEM certification is something that most business schools will get because with the advent of AI, uh it's hard to argue that uh an MBA is not a STEM degree anymore. Uh but let's assume that uh a student uh gets enrolled in a STEM certified MBA program, which is probably about 90% of the MBA programs right now. Uh that that student will get three years of optional practical training after he or she graduates. And during that, they can pursue anything they want, uh, you know, as long as the training that they get is related to what they have learned. And this is the time when they get three years to apply to the H1B. Now, the H1B uh is a lottery system still. You have to apply and you basically will be picked out of the lottery. Clearly, a student has to find an employer who's willing to sponsor an H1B down the road. So that's uh a discussion that student must have uh very early on after he or she starts that job on an OPD. But you get three chances. There are 85,000 H1B visas, uh, 65,000 for the main crowd and 20,000 for US graduates, but the US graduates fall under both buckets. So in reality, uh the number that they should look for is 85,000. And they get three years of uh applying, uh reapplying, reapplying to get their H1Bs. The odds of them getting their H1Bs rejected are, I would say, maybe 10%, maybe more, uh, but nothing more than that. I think that's something that uh students should know. Also, what I have seen um uh uh among students uh for many years is that even if they don't get H 1Bs, uh what their employers do uh is they actually send them uh to another country to work there for a year, and then they work on the H1Bs then and then they come back to the US. So I don't want international students to uh think that the H 1B lottery system is going to work against them. The other thing is this uh the way the H1B system was abused was a lot of the people who applied to the H1B programs who lived outside the US, uh, they uh put in multiple applications. Uh and uh because of that, the lottery pool uh was big. Uh and because of that, their odds of getting at least a few H 1Bs uh approved for their companies, no matter who the employees were, they went up. And that process has been curtailed even by the previous administration. So bottom line is the international H1B applications are going to go down. Uh the other thing is uh you get three years again uh to apply for an H1B while you're in your OPT. And once you're on the H1B, you get six years on the H1B. You have to renew the H1B every three years. And then during this process, if you file for a green card, then the H1B can continue. By that point, typically a lot of people actually get uh some kind of EAD employment authorization document because they have applied for their green cards and they, you know, if you go through the first two process uh steps of the process, uh, which is the labor certification and the I-140. If I-140 get up gets approved, you then get an EAD card. So it doesn't matter whether you get an H1B renewed at that point or not, and the EAD card helps you even switch jobs. If you feel like, well, I'm not growing here or I want to learn or do something new, you can use that EAD card for something else.

Jeremy Shinewald:

I think I think that was a uh tremendous in-depth run-through and and an important. I think just to just to sum up, uh, just to simplify, because I think sometimes applicants, you know, they don't they don't understand, we're in this stuff all the time. So I think I think what we're saying is that um, again, this is not immigration advice, you should contact an attorney. But what we're saying is if you think about it from a school, for if you are a STEM certified, just taking people through the path in brief, uh you go through a STEM certified MBA, which is almost all of them, uh, you get three years of what's called OPT, optional optional practical training, um, which could allow you to get a job with any employer in the United States, um, as long as it's germane to your to your studies, at which point you have three years to apply for an H1B. If you get it and you're on the H1B, you have an attempt, you have time to apply for your green card with time. If you don't get it, your company, you can either look for another visa class that could could apply to you. Um, you know, there are other visa classes. There are NAFTA visas for Canadians and Mexican applicants. They might, you know, they they might have applied for that instead of an H1B. There are uh entrepreneurial visas. Our uh our our our our beloved uh directorial team is on an entrepreneurial visa. Right.

Harold Simansky:

Uh there's also what's it called an Albert Einstein visa, meaning for true truly exceptional people.

Jeremy Shinewald:

Yeah. Um not only Jesus, a misnomer. Like um, yeah, you know, you can get it from being an athlete, or Melania got one for being a model.

Harold Simansky:

No, no, I mean Listen, that's that's a perfect example. And then there's perfect examples where such a visa would not be uh appropriate for anybody. Yeah. Or so anyone I know.

Jeremy Shinewald:

But let's continue. Yeah. So you know, your your firm can transfer you, you know, for a year or two, they could try to bring you back as an intercompany transfer. They could you could apply again. The bottom line is you're you you have a lot of kicks in the can on this one. And you know, um, if you're settled here with your family, you may not you know, may not be excited about like moving abroad for two years, but you can you're you're pushing that that decision is coming way down the pipeline. So that's really that's really important.

Harshad Mali:

Absolutely.

Jeremy Shinewald:

The other thing also is, you know, this hundred thousand dollar fee, and uh without discussing my own my own politics um on this, it was interesting because the the immigrant to this country and me was kind of initially offended by the by by this and sort of looked at it as a deploy to keep people out. But, you know, as I dug in on it a little bit, I was like, there I don't know if the$100,000 fee is the appropriate amount. It seemed rather arbitrary, but the spirit of it, I think, is consistent with some of what Harshad was saying, is that there was an element of it that was meant to, you know, is was meant to favor employers who can who can pay more and sort of sustain it and are really attempting to, you know, hire the best and and put them in their pipeline as opposed to maybe there was a I think bipartisan consensus that aspects of that program were being abused to keep some wages lower and to and to hire people instead of Americans at the fringe level. So I without getting into that debate, even though I just introduced it myself, uh, I think I think this the spirit is I think the the individuals, the the the firms who have responded quite well to this, NVIDIA, Amazon, you know, just said, yeah, we'll pay this, that's fine. And those are they tend to be the firms that MBAs want to go to.

Harold Simansky:

Right, right. Listen, I think at the end of the day, that speaks to something slightly different. And that is in the US, there happens to be a talent gap. There is, particularly for folks who are leaving uh MBA programs. In actual fact, there what they have done, the skills that they've developed, the education they have is very highly valued. So at the end of the day, if we believe that a talent gap exists, then what's happening now may in fact be the aberration. And the reality is from a purely, and again, not getting into politics, from a purely economic revitalization, if you will, perspective, then immigration from business school students is going to be a part of the future. What it looks like, obviously we're we're we're never quite sure, but but there's certainly going to be some ups and downs, and maybe we're in a down period at this point.

Jeremy Shinewald:

I I think one other piece that that uh that we should talk about is just that in some ways uh visas in for some some applicants are becoming less relevant. You can do your job from anywhere. And so, you know, when when the dinosaurs among us, when we when we graduated, you have to be physically in an office and you had to be, you know, reporting your eight to six or whatever it was at your firm. But now, like you could you could get a uh uh you could graduate from business school. Some people are like, I don't even want to be in the in the you know in in an office in the United States. Like I'd I'd I'd rather go back to uh you know and uh sit on the beach somewhere and in a uh in a digital nomad environment and get paid the same amount as if I was in the office. So there are people who are just like, it's just not less relevant, or they don't even realize at this point that that's that is you know an option at certain firms still.

Harshad Mali:

Yeah, absolutely. I think uh a lot of the talk about the investment in MBAs uh is gonna be redefined if people are gonna work from home, if they're gonna be paid the same if they were to live in the US, but uh they're living somewhere else, working from home on a beach. I think that's gonna change the dynamic. I think the next few years is going to uh predefine how uh business schools and you know also the employers think about employment. There are there is talk now about returning uh employees to office. Um but there's also talk about uh you know keeping the work from home uh situation alive. So a lot will depend on the compensation.

Jeremy Shinewald:

Yeah, there's a real push-pull with that uh that that return to the office because the return to office is I feel like when it's for when it first started, I started hearing my consultations. I've had two good years at home, I've controlled my schedule, I'm just not ready to go back to the office right now. I want to apply to business school so I can at least sort of uh you know re- re-acculturate myself and like you know, stay in this, stay in this world and kind of prepare myself psychologically for this return return to office. I mean, we're here in we're here in San Francisco. I'm sure that uh many many citizens would be saying I I I would cheer for a return to office.

Harold Simansky:

No, that's true. I was just gonna say San Francisco downtown is is dead. Yeah, and like you said, you're being less diplomatic than me.

Jeremy Shinewald:

I'm saying it's it's quieter. Yeah, yeah. You're saying it's dead. It is quiet.

Harold Simansky:

It is quietish dead. Um but I I think at at the end of the day, there from what we're hearing, what we're seeing, this notion here of five days a week, I think is is going to be a relic at this point. I think to and again, different conversation here, but but you talk to some business owners now and you lose talent if you end up having people coming in five days a week or requiring it. Listen, I think this is a very fraught time. It is a time really of so many different choices happening, so many decisions happening. And I tell folks, listen, embrace the chaos right now. This idea here, if you want to go to business school, apply to business school. That is one decision point. Going to business school, that's another decision point. At that point, then you get to business school, seeing how the visa situation lays itself out, that's another decision point. And at that point, you get that first job OPT, that's another decision point. So the reality is by coming here as a business as a business student, it opens up a world of options that it's not just open the door, close the door. It's a world of options over a period of years, and at any given moment, you'll be able to make the choice that's right for you.

Jeremy Shinewald:

It it's funny. I think I think what you're saying is actually very wise. And what what I wrote on, and I mean this in a non-political way, but uh what I wrote on on LinkedIn a while ago when a lot of this was this was going on was your your MBA and your career will outlast any administration. That's right and and that could cut any number of ways. There could there could be uh another administration that curtails visa classes even more. There could be one that opens them up. You just have no idea. And so uh, you know, if your dream is to go to school in the United States, your dream is to start your career in the United States, then you know, you have an option to opt out now or to see what happens. And I think if it's your dream, you should at least see what happens. So you're right, there are many, many decision points along the way. Let's uh let's wrap there. Great to do it with you, Harold, and great to have amazing guests like Harshad. I will say, if you are interested in a free consultation with a member of our team, uh, it will not be an immigration consultation. We should connect you to our wonderful immigration lawyer, Mark. Um, but but we can talk to you about the ins and outs of any aspect of your application. I would highly encourage you to call my friend Harshad, who is so humble will probably direct you to Harold. Uh but uh but uh you know, just an amazing consultant. I've you know, uh just so much heart and soul into every single applicant out there. And he's gonna put everything he can into a free 30-minute session for you. You're gonna get so much value out of it. So I would I would highly recommend you only get one with our team. We can't do 10, you can't do one with each of us. We're generous to a point. Uh and so I would highly recommend taking up a hard shot at a free half hour.

Harshad Mali:

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I would say for international applicants is don't think too much about the future because this is a land of opportunity. As Jeremy said, the administration is going to change. Think about what you can do differently here that you cannot do in your home country. Uh, there's a lot of ideation creation here that you are missing out on. So think about that. If you want to create something, come here. Yeah.

unknown:

Great.

Harshad Mali:

Great then. Great.

Jeremy Shinewald:

Great ways, Dan. Yeah, optimistic tone. Thanks so much. Perfect, perfect, perfect, great then. Exciting news. You can now access OnTrack by MBA Mission for free. Take our two-minute onboarding questionnaire to personalize your learning path. Choose the free plan, and you'll have unlimited access to our complete modules on MBA application timelines, standardized testing, your professional background, community leadership, school selection, and more. You'll also get access to select lessons from our brainstorming, personal statement, essay, resume, and recommendation modules. It's a great introduction to the OnTrack platform and will help you jumpstart the MBA application process. Get started today at ontrack.mba mission.com.