Last week, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) implemented Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) release 6.16. This release means improvements when searching for nonimmigrants by SEVIS ID numbers and for working with lists of nonimmigrants in SEVIS. For the first time since SEVIS was launched in 2003, school officials will not have to count the number of leading zeros or make sure to include a capital N when searching for a record.

The release also includes a mandatory task for every SEVP-certified school. Every school must complete the Form I–17 School Accreditation and Recognition Conversion project. This one-time conversion project migrates current information on the Form I–17, “Petition for Approval of School for Attendance by Nonimmigrant Student,” into reformatted fields that capture more complete information about the accreditation or recognitions held by the school. The task is not a difficult one and can be completed in a matter of minutes if all needed information has been collected in advance.

You can get more information about the release and the Accreditation Conversion Project on the SEVIS resource page where you can access:

• Recorded demonstrations of the new functionality,
• Accreditation Conversion Job Aid,
• Accreditation Conversion worksheet,
• Frequently Asked Questions about the Accreditation Conversion Project, and
• Recordings of the February 21 and April 11 webinars that discuss the project at length.

Please direct any questions relating to the Accreditations/Recognition Conversion Project or to the release in general to SEVISTechnicalFeedback@ice.dhs.gov.