On July 21, 2017, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) will deploy its next release.

Among other enhancements, new functionality in SEVIS Release 6.35 includes updates related to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) recertification process, including:

• The addition of actual certification expiration dates (CEDs) in SEVIS.
• The ability to edit a Form I-17, “Petition for Approval of School for Attendance by Nonimmigrant Student,” as part of the recertification process.
• The ability of the school official to indicate receipt of the 12-month self-evaluation from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) optional practical training (OPT) students.
• A change to SEVIS’s calculation of the STEM OPT end date to match U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ approved end date.

Once the release occurs, school officials will see their school’s actual CED in SEVIS. However, principal designated school officials cannot apply for recertification prior to 180 days before their CED and should file no later than 30 days prior to their school’s CED. For more information about the recertification process, please read Getting Started with SEVP-Recertification on Study in the States.

During SEVIS Release 6.35, the system will be unavailable. SEVP expects this outage to last approximately four hours. The release does not include any updates that involve changes to the Batch schema. However, Batch users should plan their uploads carefully.

For more information about the release, read the SEVIS Release 6.35 Planning Guide and watch the SEVIS 6.35 Pre-Release Webinar on the SEVIS Help Hub.