Possible F1 Status Violation

[Srikumar2684]

Hi All

 

My brother is pursuing his MS program from a reputed university here in US.

 

He initially registered for MS without thesis option.

 

As per F1 rules a student is supposed to either be pursuing full time 9 credits per semester OR pursue Thesis option in which case 9 credits rule gets relaxed OR in case a student has all requisite credits for graduation(i.e min 30 credits & 10 courses) he is supposed to take a final exam to graduate

 

During the last semester my brother decided to switch to MS with Thesis option.

 

My brother spoke with Intl Student Office of the university & was orally told that he would need to submit a letter from his Professor(who is supervising the Thesis) explaining why his period of study would extend beyond this semester, this letter was to submitted couple of weeks before semester deadline i.e. May 2nd. During the course of the semester he ended up taking 8 credits and also started working on thesis from Feb 1. He officially opted for credits related to thesis from Fall of this year. He submitted the letter couple weeks before the end of semester as instructed above.

 

Today my brother was called by the Intl Student Office and was asked why he took only 8 credits. The impression they have is that he did part-time semester without meeting other requirements. They say they expected to get the above mentioned letter way back when the semester started early this year.

 

So my question to this Forum is would the above situation be considered as violation of F1 status by SEVIS/USCIS OR we think that university has the discretion to say he met all requirements to maintain F1 status. Do we have any other recourse.

 

Thanks for being patient in reading this thread and taking time to reply.