OPT Data Validation- Sample Letter to Students

SEVP has prepared a Sample Letter to Students to serve as a model for for communicating with students on OPT, as part of the OPT Data Validation Exercise. Between March 27- April 14, 2008, SEVP will e-mail a copy of the sample letter to all PDSOs of schools with any students currently on OPT.

SEVP has provided the sample letter to assist institutions in contacting students on OPT to request the student’s current name and address, as well as employer name and address. The sample letter already has fields that will work in mail merge to automatically add the student’s name and address from the Excel spreadsheet provided by SEVP with the current name and address in SEVIS for any student currently on OPT.

Institutions may tailor the letter as they prefer. If the institution chooses to use the letter, SEVP recommends that the institution add school-specific information to the sections with yellow highlights. The words enclosed in carets such as <<AddressBlock>> are used for the mail merge, so it is recommended that you do not delete these.

Institutions are NOT required to use the sample letter provided by SEVP, and may use any means to contact students (e.g. e-mail, letter, phone call).