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Do any of the following qualify as extraordinary abilities?

* Winning Academic Competitions * Breaking World Records * Building Very Large Digital Things



Winning academic competitions:

Generally not. USCIS considers academic honors to be pre-career, or preparatory for career. I'd omit these, as they can make you look small.

Exceptions might include very prestigious international competitions with a lot of media buzz, or cutting-edge postgraduate or fellowship work.

Breaking world records:

Interestingly, there's no O-1 category that this really fits into, even though it's clearly evidence of extraordinariness. I've had good luck fitting it into the "prizes and awards" category.

This works best if there is some media buzz around the event that features the record-breaker, that you can also compile in the media coverage category.

Building very large digital things:

Probably, if they ship, if they're successful, and if they make peoples' lives work better. This could be an "original contribution of major significance." You'd have to show specific examples of the impact of your work on the field as a whole, i.e., how it was a game-changer.




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