Thanks to the scraper software developed by Xarthisius, and the efforts of our band of CAPTCHA solvers, we are getting good data about the number of cases that get scheduled for interviews. If you take a look at the charts provided by Xarthisius you will be able to see the impact on each region of the 2NLs that were just sent out. To understand the data, go to the charts, pick the region you would like to study, and move the time bar back and forth to the 23rd, 24th and 25th.

So – to use EU as an example, take a look below.

First we see the file before the 2NLs were sent out.

 

Next, on the 24th we can see the 2NLs have been sent, but the embassies have not yet “accepted” the cases, so they are showing as “In Transit”.

 

Then finally we see the embassies are starting to accept the cases – which then get the status of “READY”.

Go ahead and play with the charts yourself to see the effect for yourself. Hopefully this helps people understand what the heck the status codes of in transit and ready actually mean.

 

Now – by comparing the files we can see that the number of interviews scheduled in each region was as follows:

AF – 1553

EU – 1156

AS – 187

OC – 74

SA – 71

Remember – these are CASES that got scheduled – not people. Each case has the selectee PLUS any derivatives.

 

If we assume that the numbers above represent the monthly “capacity” for the number of interviews the embassies can handle, we can guesstimate the visa bulletin progress for the coming months. By calculating the response rate (which will slightly grow over the coming months), we can guess how many cases have to become current to meet the capacity levels shown above. Of the big three regions, EU is the easiest to guess because there are no VB limited countries.

For a rough idea of how to do that guesstimate, here is the method.

Currently the EU response rate is 54%, so to get 1156 interviews KCC would have to make around 2000 cases current. That will take us to between 17000 to 17500 next month (April interviews), and about 21500 to 22000 the month after (May interviews). As I have said before that pace is MORE than ample. Remember, longer term forecasting is obviously inaccurate  so we should continue to wait and see. The real question is when the regional quotas are reached, but at least people should be able to understand that the VB pace seems well understandable and sensible at the moment.