The trip itselfQuestion 4 of 11
“Why do you want to visit the US?”
The short answer
The US Embassy in India warns that when a consultant coaches the interview, "every client from a particular consultant sounds exactly like one another." It says this "diminishes credibility among those who memorize the 'correct’ answers and cannot hold free-flowing conversations with visa officers."
The advice going around
The correct answers, learned by heart
Somebody hands over a sheet of answers to memorise, and it holds up until the officer has heard the same sheet forty times that morning. The embassy says this in public: every client of one consultant ends up sounding like the others. The sentences are usually accurate. They are also not yours, and a memorised answer rarely survives the second question.
At the window
The same question, answered two ways
What most people say
“Sir, I wish to visit the beautiful tourist places of America, namely the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls, and then return to my motherland.”
What works
“Sir, our grandson turns one in May. We want to be there.”
Same agent, same script. They all sound alike. Just tell me in your own words.
His inner voice · episode 4
So skip the memorised speech. Give the real reason in your own words, the way you would tell a neighbour.
Check it yourself
What the embassy actually publishes
The US embassy in India warns that coached applicants all sound alike
Applicants who receive interview coaching by consultants should also be wary of such services. The end result is that every client from a particular consultant sounds exactly like one another. This diminishes credibility among those who memorize the 'correct' answers and cannot hold free-flowing conversations with visa officers.
Read 13 October 2026
The applicant, not the consultant, is answerable for what the application says
You alone are responsible for the accuracy of the information in your application.
Read 13 October 2026
Visiting relatives is a listed reason to apply for a US visitor visa
The rule behind it
What the law actually says
A US visa application starts from the assumption that you intend to stay
The officer does not start from neutral. The law tells them to assume you intend to stay, and the burden is on you to show otherwise. That is why almost every question is a way of asking the same thing: what brings you back.
Every alien [ … ] shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa [ … ] that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status.
What we can and cannot do
We are licensed for Canada (RCIC R710507). We help with US visitor visa applications, and for US legal advice a US-licensed immigration attorney is the person to ask.
Where this stops
What this page does not claim
The embassy's warning is about consultants who coach scripts. This page reads it as an argument for answering in your own words, which is also how we prepare people, and it goes no further than that.
Keep going
The rest of the interview
Before the window
Send us the file before the interview, not after.
We read the DS-160 against what the officer will ask, tell you which answers are doing you harm, and say plainly where the gaps are. If the honest answer is that nothing is wrong, we say that too.
Three fields · about 30 seconds