Are you a school official who needs to submit evidence, a form or another document type to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)? If so, it is important to remember that all documents submitted to the program should be in a Portable Document Format (PDF).

To help stakeholders submit PDFs properly, SEVP added the Guidelines to Submitting PDF Documents to SEVP to the Contact Us page on ICE.gov/SEVP. Within these guidelines, school officials will find:

• At-a-glance specifications for documents, including the required image quality, as well as maximum file sizes.
• How-to guides that will help you convert a file into a PDF, compress images, embed a font, and encrypt and zip files.
• File name and privacy protection guidance.

SEVP requires that all documents be in PDF because it is an international standard for creating, viewing and sharing electronic documents across different computer platforms and environments. PDFs may contain both text and images, and help keep a document’s formatting integrity consistent. For more information about the document types that your school may need to submit to SEVP, visit the Initial Form I-17 Frequently Asked Questions page on ICE.gov/SEVP, and find the descriptions under the “Evidence for Certification” tab.

Following the Guidelines to Submitting PDF Documents to SEVP will help ensure the quality of submitted documents to prevent delays in processing a petition. We encourage you to refer to the guidelines the next time you need to submit evidence or any supplemental information to SEVP. Help us share this new resource with your network on social media, using the hashtag #StudyintheStates.