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Rehan's profile — the two things that worried him most
Rehan completed his BBA from SRM Institute Chennai in 2021, followed immediately by a PGDM (MBA) in media and entertainment from a business school in Mumbai. After that, only about six months of work as a management consultant — and then he applied for a second Master's, this time an MS in Business Analytics and Project Management at the University of Connecticut (UConn).
Going into the interview, he was anxious about two specific things. First, the double Master's — he had no way of knowing how the visa officer would view a second postgraduate degree with barely any work in between. Second, and more unusually, his entire I-20 amount was funded through an education loan. Not a 70-30 split, not 80-20 — 100% loan. He told me he couldn't find a single person online who matched that profile, which made it harder to prepare.
What actually happened inside the interview room
The interview was on 16 November 2023 — the day before his birthday — at the Mumbai consulate. He had done his biometrics separately at the Chennai consulate.
He waited in a long queue. Even if you walk in calm, the atmosphere in that hall has a way of getting to you. He described the person next to him — terrified, visibly stressed — and said that alone made his own nerves spike. Worth remembering: the anxiety around you is not about your case.
The questions the officer asked
The officer — an American male — opened with: "When did you complete your undergrad?"
Rehan answered that he finished his BBA in 2021, and then volunteered — without being asked — that he had also completed a postgraduate degree in 2023. He made a deliberate choice to be upfront rather than wait for a follow-up. Whether or not it was strictly necessary, he felt it helped establish honesty from the start.
The officer then asked which other universities he had applied to. Rehan named four: Northeastern, George Washington University, University of Texas Dallas, and UConn — and mentioned he had received admits from all of them.
The next question was: "Why did you choose University of Connecticut?" Rehan's answer was specific. He explained that UConn's MS in Business Analytics and Project Management was the only programme in the US that blended project management with analytics — a combination that made sense for someone coming from a business background who wanted to integrate data into their problem-solving toolkit, not just learn the technical side in isolation. He also mentioned that he had reached out to faculty members who were currently working in industry, and that this practitioner-led teaching was a key reason for his choice.
The question he wasn't prepared for — and the answer that almost stopped his heart
Then came the question that floored him: "What are you going to do after your Master's?"
He had not prepared an answer for this. In the moment, he told the officer he intended to utilise his STEM OPT period to gain industry experience — combining his management background with his new analytics skills to solve real business problems.
The officer said nothing. For a full minute, he looked down at his desk without responding. Rehan told me that was the heaviest minute of the whole process — he genuinely thought he had said the wrong thing, especially since common advice is to frame your post-study plans around returning to your home country and demonstrating strong ties.
Then the officer looked up and said: "Your visa is approved."
Rehan never had to explain the double Master's. The loan was never questioned directly either — though there's an important footnote on that, which I'll come to in a moment.
Should you mention STEM OPT plans in your interview?
Rehan's answer about STEM OPT worked — but I want to be honest with you about why this is a double-edged sword.
Some officers are pragmatic. They understand that international students will want to gain work experience in the US before returning, and they are fine with that. Rehan's officer appears to have been one of those.
Other officers assess the interview strictly: your plan should be to complete your education and return to your home country, demonstrating clear ties. If you volunteer a plan to stay for OPT upfront and enthusiastically, a stricter officer may view that as a red flag.
Rehan himself said he may have been lucky. My recommendation: be neutral on post-study plans. Don't lie, but don't volunteer your OPT intentions the moment the topic comes up. If you are pushed directly, you can acknowledge the option — but frame it as a short-term professional development step before your longer-term plans in India. The safer path is always to anchor your narrative around your return.
The document collection after the interview — something most people don't know about
After Rehan's interview concluded, he was directed to a separate queue where consulate staff collected and scanned physical documents from applicants. They specifically scanned his IELTS scorecard and his loan letter.
This was not something he had heard about or seen mentioned anywhere. When he asked friends whether this was standard, most said no — it wasn't something they had experienced. It may have been specific to that consulate on that day, possibly for internal research purposes, but he wanted people to know it happened.
The practical takeaway: carry all your supporting documents — including your loan sanction letter and test score certificates — even after you feel the interview has gone well. You may be asked for them on the spot.
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Book a Mock InterviewLife at UConn Stamford — what the first year actually looks like
Choose your roommates based on mindset, not just diet
Most students filter roommates by whether they eat veg or non-veg, or whether they have habits that might clash. Rehan's advice goes one step further: filter by mindset. You become like the people around you, and in an environment where every decision — how hard you network, how early you apply for jobs, whether you push each other — compounds over a semester, the people you live with matter more than most students realise. His own startup idea, which eventually got selected for UConn's entrepreneurship hub and was funded by the National Science Foundation (around $3,000), was developed with his two roommates.
Get your LinkedIn ready before you land
Rehan told me he knows students who started applying for internships and jobs within the first week of arriving on campus — and some of them had offers within a month. The US job market is competitive, and the earlier you start, the better positioned you are.
That means your LinkedIn profile should be complete before you board your flight: headline, about section, all previous experience listed, a professional profile picture. Don't arrive and spend your first two weeks building something you could have done at home.
Networking — and this is important — is not just introducing yourself and asking if anyone has an internship opening. Rehan's approach: give value first. Go into a conversation curious about the other person's journey. Ask smart questions. Build a genuine rapport. People can tell immediately when someone is only there to extract something, and it puts them off. The organic approach — where they come to you because of who you are and what you bring — works better in the long run.
What a typical day at UConn Stamford looks like
Classes at UConn Stamford are typically held in the evening — around 6:00 to 9:00 PM — because the programme also accommodates working professionals. That means your mornings are free, but they are not idle: most courses require around six hours of assignments per week. With four courses running in parallel, that is 20 to 24 hours of assignment work a week, outside of class time.
Add to that: job applications, building your professional network, on-campus jobs (many students work 10 to 20 hours a week), weekly company visits or campus events — and the calls home. Because of the time difference, the window where Indian timings and US timings overlap tends to fall around 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM your time. Rehan said that staying in regular contact with family matters more than people admit. Four or five days without calling home adds up, and that emotional anchor makes a real difference to how you function.
After a 9:00 PM class, you come home exhausted. The day fills up fast.
Cooking — the thing nobody talks about until you're hungry
Rehan told me he did not know how to cook when he arrived. He learned to make rice in the US. He learned to make basic rotis. Now he buys frozen rotis and heats them on a tawa. It sounds funny until you're in month two and spending money on takeout every night. If you can learn even the basics before you leave India, do it.
Being on a 100% loan — the honest reality
Rehan carried the full cost of his Master's on an education loan. He said that awareness — that he owes money, that someone trusted him with it — is always sitting quietly at the back of his mind. It can stress you out. But it can also work as a motivator. It stops you from sitting idle. It keeps you moving.
The key is to go in mentally prepared for the fact that it will be hard. Accept that before you board. The students who struggle most are the ones who expected it to be easier than it is. But Rehan also said he has watched friends transform in a year in ways that would have taken a decade otherwise — maturity, responsibility, confidence. Their families are proud. That part is real too.
Three things Rehan would tell every incoming student
After eight months at UConn, here is what Rehan distilled it down to:
1. Mental preparedness is non-negotiable. International student life in the US is not easy. Know that before you go. The ones who do well are the ones who accept the difficulty and keep moving anyway.
2. Network — but network smart. Don't walk up to senior professionals and ask for internships. Give value first. Show genuine curiosity about their journey. Let the relationship build before you ask for anything. One conversation with the right person at the right time can change everything.
3. Be focused, not broad. Rehan admitted he made the mistake of trying to pursue too many things at once and not being able to give 100% to any of them. Pick one or two priorities. Then give 200% to each of those. If everything is important, nothing is.
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