U.S. Embassy in South Korea to Resume Student Visa Applications Soon...SNS Profiles Must Be Public

The U.S. Embassy in South Korea is reportedly set to resume student visa interview appointments, which had been suspended for about three weeks.

According to diplomatic sources on June 20, the U.S. Embassy in South Korea will restart scheduling for non-immigrant J (student exchange), M (vocational training), and F (study and research, including professors) visa applications. This follows the U.S. Department of State's announcement on June 18 (local time) that it would resume procedures for issuing entry visas to foreign students and trainees.

An embassy official stated, "The embassy will soon resume accepting applications for F, M, and J non-immigrant visas," adding, "In accordance with the new guidelines, we will conduct comprehensive and thorough screening?including online reviews?for all applicants for F, M, and J non-immigrant visa categories, covering both students and exchange visitors."

Photo of the U.S. Embassy in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

The embassy further explained, "To facilitate this screening, F, M, and J non-immigrant visa applicants will be instructed to set the privacy settings of all their social media profiles to 'public.'"

However, as the embassy explained, the visa issuance process is expected to become somewhat more stringent. Previously, the U.S. Department of State had announced that new student visa applicants who do not allow access to their social media account posts may be denied a visa.