US Elective: Which Visa do I need?

[goodyearkl]

Hi guys. I have a 4 week elective in California in the fall and I am trying to piece together which visa I need/paperwork I need to fill out. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance!

[JohnGrisham]

Best to ask the program. For medical electives during medical school, its the B1 visa. But i vaguely recall reading that you can't use that for graduate medical education(i.e. residency).  Tricky situation, but im sure its been done before just need to ask them. Assumingly they accepted you knowing your a Canadian requiring a visa to go there, and theyve taken us before  

[rebecki]

I am currently doing a 2 week elective in California right now and I did not need any Visa. I came prepared with all my acceptance paperwork, my proof of enrollment etc, but no one looked at it and I was waved through no problem. 

Edit: this is for a medical school elective as an M4 

[JohnGrisham]

54 minutes ago, rebecki said:

I am currently doing a 2 week elective in California right now and I did not need any Visa. I came prepared with all my acceptance paperwork, my proof of enrollment etc, but no one looked at it and I was waved through no problem. 

Edit: this is for a medical school elective as an M4 

Different beast as a med student elective.

That said, i'm very surprised you didn't need a B1 visa. Then again, there's lot of variation at the borders and sometimes they just dont care. 

[Laika]

On 2/11/2019 at 12:02 AM, JohnGrisham said:

Different beast as a med student elective.

That said, i'm very surprised you didn't need a B1 visa. Then again, there's lot of variation at the borders and sometimes they just dont care. 

B visas are easy to obtain at the border, for Canadians at least. You should definitely check with the school to find out which visa they require; they may not be able to on-board you if you enter on the wrong visa.