回複：to MEMS

USCIS (US Citizenship & Immigration Services) is formerly INS, and was BCIS right after 911. After reorganization, it's now USCIS under DHE(Department of Homeland Security).

Does your spouse have the approval notice of F1 or your petition is pending ? Normally, after you submitted your F1 status transfer petition, you will receive a receipt from them with a case number. With that number you can track the progress of the processing. When it is approved, you should receive a notice of action or approval notice indicating your F1 status transfer is approved. If you only have the I20 from the school, your F1 status transfer is not complete. Go to your ISO for help. They will tell you what you need to do, and there is a statement you need to write to indicate why you wnat to transfer to F1.

I assume your applying for F1 visa is for travel back to China. It is perfectly understandable here. However, if you don't have the F1 status transfer approval notice from USCIS, it's very likely you will be rejected in Canada or Mexico and ask you to go back to China for F1 visa. This is the most commonly seen cases I have known. However, there is always exception. Meaning, I also heard people got lucky in this kind of situation but not very many of them.

So, if this is something you plan to do just make sure you have everything you need to improve your chance of success.