AAO research
EB-1A three-criterion threshold — AAO decision APR162025_03B2203: Appeal dismissed; petition denial affirmed. Review source status, procedural posture and…
Decision summary: AAO decision APR162025_03B2203: Appeal dismissed; petition denial affirmed. The review record does not provide a normalized explanation of the disposition. Consult the cited source pages.
Source reviewed: This page summarizes the specific AAO source and posture recorded in the completed source-review tracker. It does not turn a nonprecedent decision into a general rule.
Decision snapshot
Decision ID | APR162025_03B2203 |
|---|---|
Decision date as printed | 2025-04-16 |
Classification / field stated in source | EB-1A appeal; petitioner was an elementary school teacher. |
Procedural posture | Appeal from service-center denial, de novo review; modern two-step framework stated at p. 2. |
Operative disposition | Appeal dismissed; petition denial affirmed. |
Final-merits status | reached: ; result: Not reached because petitioner met only two criteria; final merits arguments were reserved (p. 5). |
What the AAO decision addressed
The review record does not provide a normalized explanation of the disposition. Consult the cited source pages.
Criterion-by-criterion status in this source
These labels reproduce the source-review record. “Not considered,” “not reached,” and “not coded” do not mean the criterion failed. A Director finding recited as background is not an AAO holding unless the decision says so.
Criterion | Source-review status |
|---|---|
Awards | Not coded — source PDF |
Membership | Not coded — source PDF |
Published material about the person | Not coded — source PDF |
Judging the work of others | Not coded — source PDF |
Original contributions of major significance | Not coded — source PDF |
Scholarly authorship | Not coded — source PDF |
Artistic display or showcases | Not coded — source PDF |
Leading or critical role | Not coded — source PDF |
High salary or remuneration | Not coded — source PDF |
Commercial success in the performing arts | Not coded — source PDF |
How this record may be used in research
Comparison scope: Strong modern threshold-failure example: one criterion accepted by SCOPS, one added by AAO, two claimed criteria rejected, three prior adverse findings waived, and no final merits. Useful for illustrating that waivers are not merits findings. [{'fact': 'AAO states SCOPS had found one criterion (judging); on appeal it found scholarly authorship but rejected original contributions and high salary, leaving only two criteria.', 'pages': [1, 3, 4, 5]}, {'fact': 'For original contributions, letters described valued teaching and mentoring but did not document significance across the broader field; AAO noted the record lacked independent objective evidence of major significance.', 'pages': [3, 4]}, {'fact': 'A single co-authored 2023 peer-reviewed article in an education journal met scholarly authorship because the petitioner taught in education and the journal served teachers and education professionals.', 'pages': [4, 5]}, {'fact': 'The petitioner’s $79,166 salary exceeded one listed wage level but fell below the cited local top-10% threshold of $84,010, so the AAO found it was not high relative to the field.', 'pages': [5]}, {'fact': 'Awards, membership, and leading/critical-role criteria were waived on appeal, not substantively re-decided by AAO. Do not describe them as AAO-rejected findings.', 'pages': [3]}]
Page-level source trail
Use the official PDF and the cited physical page numbers to check each statement.
Open the official USCIS decision PDF. Page-specific citations were not available in the normalized row.
How to use this record
This is a historical, nonprecedent AAO decision about its own administrative record. It is not a prediction, success rate, or current filing instruction. Compare the issue and procedural stage before drawing an analogy. The current framework is in the USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 2.
Related corpus research
Full-corpus research index
Teaching sector research
Threshold research
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Waiv research
Major Significance research
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