EB-1A eligibility assessmentfor extraordinary ability

1. C1 · Awards for excellence

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(i). Prove you received it, it is national/international, and it is for excellence — not participation.

• Proof you received the awardA website listing or a letter saying you were nominated is not receipt.Example exhibits
  • Certificate with your legal name, award title, year, and issuing body (e.g. “IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies, 2024, awarded to Priya Shah”).
  • Official winner list printed from the sponsor site the same day, URL and date in the footer, your name highlighted.
  • Award letter on letterhead: “The selection committee has selected you as the 2023 recipient of the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award.”
  • Ceremony program or press release naming you as recipient (not nominee).
  • Reject: LinkedIn “Featured” screenshot, Slack congratulations, a nomination email you sent yourself.
• National or international scopeCampus, company, city, and regional awards are routinely rejected at Step 1.Example exhibits
  • Eligibility page: “Open to practitioners worldwide” or “U.S. national competition; applicants from all 50 states.”
  • Sponsor identity: National Academy of Engineering, IEEE, ACM, NIH, NSF, national medical college, national film academy — not Acme Inc. HR.
  • Call-for-nominations showing a national/international applicant pool (e.g. “1,412 submissions from 38 countries”).
  • Reject: Employee of the Month, Dean’s List, city chamber award, company hackathon, “best poster” at an internal offsite.
• Judged for excellence, not attendanceOfficers ask who judged it, the criteria, and how competitive it was.Example exhibits
  • Selection-criteria PDF: “Judged on originality, impact, and documented excellence by a panel of 9 independent experts.”
  • Jury roster with titles (e.g. “Chair: Prof. Lin, MIT; Judge: former NIH study-section chair”).
  • Competition math from the organizer: “12 winners from 1,400 applicants (0.9%).”
  • Reject: participation trophy, attendance certificate, “everyone who published this year.”

2. C2 · Membership in selective associations

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(ii). Outstanding achievement must be a condition of admission, judged by recognized experts.

• Admission standards that require outstanding achievementDues-only, degree-only, or ‘anyone can join’ memberships fail.Example exhibits
  • Bylaws § membership: “Fellows shall have made outstanding contributions to the field, as judged by the Fellows Committee.” Highlight that sentence.
  • IEEE/ACM/National Academy Fellow criteria page (not the regular-member join form).
  • Sigma Xi / National Academy / specialty college (e.g. FACR, FRCS) rules requiring nominated outstanding work.
  • Reject: IEEE Member (grade: Member) dues receipt; ACM Professional Member; LinkedIn “Open to work” groups; meetup.com.
• Judged by national or international expertsA committee of coworkers or a local chapter is not enough.Example exhibits
  • Fellows-committee roster: names, institutions, and that they are independent of your employer.
  • Election letter: “You were elected by the Board of Fellows on 12 March 2024” — not “thank you for your application and check.”
  • Nomination form showing two existing Fellows must sponsor you.
• Proof you are a current member in that selective classA LinkedIn badge is not primary evidence.Example exhibits
  • Certificate: class of membership in bold (Fellow, Elected Member, Member of the National Academy).
  • Public directory printout: your name, class, year of election (e.g. nae.edu member directory).
  • Reject: lapsed membership, student member, “senior member” that only requires years of experience.

3. C3 · Published material about you

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(iii). The piece must be about you, in professional or major media — not your employer’s blog.

• The article is substantially about youA quote in a company product story is not ‘about you’.Example exhibits
  • Full PDF: headline uses your name or your named method (e.g. Nature News, “How Shah’s imaging model changed radiology screening”).
  • Profile / Q&A where you are the subject for most of the piece (IEEE Spectrum, The Lancet profile, WSJ “The Innovators”).
  • Reject: one-sentence quote in an employer product launch; a conference recap that lists 40 speakers; a press release you wrote.
• Professional or major trade / major media outletEmployer PR, Medium, LinkedIn, and paid wires are discounted.Example exhibits
  • Masthead or “about this publication”: circulation, unique visitors, or “the journal of record for [field].” Examples: NYT, WSJ, Reuters, Bloomberg, Nature, Science, IEEE Spectrum, Modern Healthcare, Variety.
  • Staff journalist byline and a newsroom email domain — not “sponsored content” or “partner post.”
  • Reject: company newsroom, BusinessWire/PR Newswire you paid for, Medium, Substack, your lab blog.
• Title, date, author, and translation if neededUndated clips and screenshots without the outlet fail.Example exhibits
  • First page showing publication name, date, author, and URL.
  • If not English: certified translation stapled to the original.
  • Print the full article, not a social-card crop.

4. C4 · Judging the work of others

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(iv). You were asked to judge others in the field — not to review your own team’s work.

• Invitation to serve as a judge or reviewerSelf-description on a CV is not an invitation.Example exhibits
  • Elsevier/IEEE/Springer peer-review invitation with full email headers (From, Date, Manuscript ID).
  • NeurIPS / RSNA / ASME / AACR program-committee invitation PDF on organizer letterhead.
  • NIH study-section or NSF reviewer appointment email from an .gov address.
  • Hackathon/startup-judge invite only if the event is national and you judged unaffiliated teams — attach the program naming you as judge.
• Evidence you actually judgedAn invite you declined does not meet the criterion.Example exhibits
  • Journal “thank you to reviewers” page or Publons/ORCID review record with the year and journal name.
  • Conference TPC list with your name, or completed-review confirmation (“review submitted 4 Jun 2025”).
  • Grant panel roster or meeting agenda listing you as a reviewer.
• Same or allied field, independent of your employerInternal code review or hiring screens are job duties.Example exhibits
  • The journal/conference/agency is in your field (computer vision, interventional cardiology, etc.).
  • Reject: reviewing your reports at work, interviewing job candidates, grading your own students without an external appointment.

5. C5 · Original contributions of major significance

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(v). Originality plus major significance, independently corroborated. Letters alone usually fail.

• What is original, in plain facts‘Innovative work’ with no named method or result is conclusory.Example exhibits
  • Named artifact: U.S. Patent 11,234,567 “Method for low-dose CT reconstruction,” issued 12 Jan 2022, inventors listed.
  • Paper: first/corresponding author, title, venue, DOI — one sentence on what was new vs prior art.
  • Protocol or standard you authored (hospital SOP ID, IETF RFC, IEEE standard clause) with date and your name.
  • Reject: “I led many innovative projects” with no name, date, or artifact.
• Independent proof the field used itOfficers ask what others did with the work, not what you think it means.Example exhibits
  • Google Scholar/Scopus: paper X cited 400+ times; InCites percentile in the field.
  • License: unaffiliated company licensed the patent; attach the redacted agreement or licensee press.
  • Standard: IEEE/ISO/IETF/HL7 document that cites your paper or patent number.
  • Clinical/agency: hospital or ministry protocol that adopted your method, on their letterhead.
  • Third-party paper: “We implemented Shah 2022 …” from authors who never worked with you.
• Beyond ordinary job dutiesDoing a hard job well is not a contribution of major significance.Example exhibits
  • Show use outside your employer (customers, other labs, other hospitals, open-source users).
  • Reject: performance reviews, “employee of the quarter,” internal wikis, Jira tickets, your own product one-pager.

6. C6 · Scholarly articles

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(vi). Articles in professional or major trade publications. Venue quality matters; citation volume is mostly Step 2.

• The articles themselvesA list of titles without PDFs is not evidence.Example exhibits
  • PDF of each paper + the DOI landing page (IEEE Xplore, PubMed, ACM DL) showing you as an author.
  • If in press: acceptance letter on journal letterhead with manuscript ID.
  • Trade article in a professional magazine of record (IEEE Spectrum, NEJM Perspective) with your byline.
  • Reject: a Word list of “selected publications,” ResearchGate screenshots only, preprints with no venue.
• Professional / major venuePredatory, pay-to-publish, or workshop-only venues are weak.Example exhibits
  • Journal “about” page: peer-reviewed, ISSN, impact factor or SJR, publisher (Elsevier, IEEE, NEJM, Nature portfolio).
  • Conference: acceptance rate (e.g. NeurIPS 26%) and that it is the flagship of the field.
  • Reject: MDPI special-issue spam, unknown Open Access with APC as the only bar, internal tech reports.
• Your authorship roleMiddle author on a 20-person paper needs explanation.Example exhibits
  • Author-contribution statement: “P. Shah: conceptualization, method, corresponding author.”
  • First-author or corresponding-author mark on the PDF.
  • If middle author: a one-page note mapping your named contribution to a figure/section.

7. C7 · Artistic exhibitions or showcases

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(vii). Display of your work at artistic exhibitions. Other fields usually mark N/A.

• Proof the work was displayedA portfolio website is not an exhibition.Example exhibits
  • Exhibition catalog page with your name, work title, venue, and dates.
  • Wall text or object label photo plus the museum’s checklist.
  • Curator letter: “Your work [title] was exhibited in [show] at [museum], [dates].”
• Artistic exhibition or showcaseTrade booths and office displays do not qualify.Example exhibits
  • Museum, biennale, juried gallery, or recognized showcase program (Venice, Whitney, national design week).
  • Reject: company lobby art, a trade-show booth, Instagram “gallery,” a campus hallway.
• Selective/curated admissionOpen-wall community shows are weak.Example exhibits
  • Call-for-entry + jury names, or a personal invitation from the curator.
  • If STEM: mark this criterion N/A rather than stretching a poster session into an “exhibition.”

8. C8 · Leading or critical role

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(viii). Two tests: your role was leading/critical, and the organization is distinguished.

• Leading or critical — not just a title‘Senior’ or ‘principal’ on a business card is not enough.Example exhibits
  • Org chart with your box as head of the unit, plus a duty statement you signed.
  • Outcome you owned: “Shipped Model X used by 40 hospital systems”; “PI on NIH R01 R01-XXXX, $2.1M.”
  • Board minutes or offer letter: “You will have sole authority over [function].”
  • Reject: “Senior Staff Engineer” with no proof you were critical to a distinguished org.
• The organization has a distinguished reputationA small unknown firm needs independent proof of distinction.Example exhibits
  • Independent ranking or press: Fortune 500, nationally ranked hospital, R1 university, NIH-funded center, national lab.
  • Awards the organization won (not that you won) from a national body.
  • Reject: your CEO’s letter that “we are a distinguished startup.”
• Both prongs in the same exhibit setA critical role at an undistinguished org, or a junior role at a famous org, fails.Example exhibits
  • Expert letter that names (1) your specific critical duties and (2) why the org is distinguished, then points to Exhibit numbers.
  • Pair: Google Distinguished Engineer announcement + product used by unaffiliated companies; or NIH intramural PI appointment + institute fact sheet.

9. C9 · High salary or remuneration

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(ix). High relative to others in the field — independent benchmarks, not coworkers.

• Your actual payAn offer letter for a job you did not take is weak.Example exhibits
  • W-2 (Box 1 and 5) or 1099-NEC for the year, name matching the petition, SSN redacted.
  • Equity: grant notice + 409A or 10-K footnote so total compensation can be added.
  • Foreign pay: certified translation of tax return or employer letter on letterhead with currency and dates.
  • Reject: a verbal “I make $400k”; an expired offer you declined; a band on Levels.fyi with no W-2.
• Independent field benchmarkComparing yourself to teammates is not the regulatory test.Example exhibits
  • Radford / Mercer / Culpepper page: occupation, level, metro, 90th percentile highlighted next to your W-2.
  • BLS OEWS for the SOC code and metro, 90th percentile.
  • AAMC faculty salary survey or NIH intramural pay table for academic medicine.
  • Levels.fyi only if you attach the methodology page and the same level/metro slice — not a tweet.
• Same field and locationA U.S. tech salary vs a different country’s academic scale is not comparable.Example exhibits
  • Survey slice: same job family (e.g. Staff ML Engineer, SF Bay, 2025) — not “all software worldwide.”
  • If you moved countries, include a note converting currency and explaining the market.

10. C10 · Commercial success (performing arts)

8 C.F.R. § 204.5(h)(3)(x). Box office, sales, or equivalent. Other fields should mark N/A or use comparable evidence.

• Objective sales or box-office figures‘Popular on social media’ is not commercial success under this prong.Example exhibits
  • Box-office report (Box Office Mojo / Comscore) for the title, dates, and gross.
  • RIAA / BPI certified units, Billboard chart, Nielsen album/streaming certificate.
  • Publisher royalty statement or Nielsen BookScan for a performing-arts-adjacent book only if that is the art.
  • Reject: Instagram follower count, Spotify “monthly listeners” screenshot with no certification.
• The success is yoursA film you extra’d in does not count.Example exhibits
  • On-screen / billing credit, union contract, or IMDb pro page showing principal or named creative role.
  • Recording contract or producer agreement tying you to the certified title.
• If you are not in performing arts, mark N/AForcing this criterion with SaaS revenue usually hurts credibility.Example exhibits
  • STEM, medicine, and business petitioners: check N/A and put commercial impact under C5 (contributions) with licenses and adoption.
  • Do not attach a startup ARR slide as C10.