USCIS Policy
How USCIS Evaluates O-1A Totality of Evidence: 2023 Policy Update
The 2023 USCIS Policy Manual update changed how adjudicators conduct the final merits determination in O-1A cases. Understanding what the updated Kazarian two-step requires — and what common petition errors undermine it — is essential for building an evidence package that survives step-two review.
How the totality standard works in O-1A adjudications
The O-1A classification requires a showing of extraordinary ability in science, education, business, or athletics — defined by USCIS as a level of expertise indicating that the person is among the small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field. The adjudication process is not a simple checklist. USCIS does not automatically approve a petition because it satisfies three or more of the ten regulatory criteria. Instead, after determining that at least three criteria are met as a threshold matter, the agency conducts a holistic totality review to assess whether the overall evidence demonstrates sustained national or international acclaim.
This two-stage process — sometimes called the Kazarian two-step after the Ninth Circuit's 2010 decision in Kazarian v. USCIS — was formally incorporated into USCIS guidance and then clarified through a series of policy manual updates. The 2023 update to the USCIS Policy Manual is the most recent and significant revision, and it changed how adjudicators are instructed to conduct the final merits determination. Understanding what the updated guidance requires — and what it prohibits — is essential for petitioners who want their evidence package to survive the second step of the analysis without a request for evidence.
The practical effect of the totality standard is that petition building is cumulative. A single high-impact criterion met with strong documentation can anchor a petition, but it rarely suffices on its own. Adjudicators look at the body of evidence as a whole, asking whether the petitioner's contributions, recognition, and position in their field collectively paint the picture of someone at the very top. Petitions that address many criteria with mediocre evidence typically fare worse than petitions that address three or four criteria with documentation that is specific, quantified, and corroborated.
The Kazarian two-step and how the 2023 policy manual update changed it
The Kazarian two-step has been the governing framework for extraordinary ability adjudications since the Ninth Circuit's 2010 ruling. Step one asks whether the petitioner has submitted qualifying evidence for at least three of the ten O-1A criteria. Step two — the final merits determination — asks whether the totality of that evidence establishes extraordinary ability. The Kazarian court held that USCIS could not front-load substantive analysis into step one by requiring that individual criteria be met only by the most exceptional evidence. Step one was to be a threshold categorization, not a quality filter.
The 2023 USCIS Policy Manual update clarified several aspects of how step two should operate. First, it reinforced that adjudicators must consider the totality of all submitted evidence — including evidence relevant to criteria not formally met — when conducting the final merits determination. Second, it directed officers not to apply a rigid formula at step two, but to assess whether the overall record shows the petitioner is recognized at the top of their field by reference to concrete factors: the significance of their work, the selectivity of the recognition they have received, and the degree to which peers in the field regard them as extraordinary.
The 2023 update also addressed a recurring problem in which officers at step two essentially re-evaluated individual criteria rather than conducting a genuine holistic review. Adjudicators are now directed to focus the step two analysis on the field-wide picture rather than drilling back into any individual exhibit. For practitioners, this means that the brief accompanying a petition should connect the evidentiary dots — explaining why the combination of the petitioner's publication record, citation impact, award history, salary comparator, and other documented achievements collectively establishes top-of-field status, rather than repeating criterion-by-criterion analysis.
Evidence types that carry the most weight in a totality analysis
Not all evidence carries equal weight in the final merits determination, even though the regulatory framework treats the ten criteria as formally co-equal. In practice, adjudicators and the AAO on appeal consistently treat certain categories of evidence as particularly probative of top-of-field status. Citation counts and impact metrics for published research — when placed in field-specific context — are among the most persuasive evidence types for researchers and academics. A petitioner with 500 citations in a field where the median researcher accumulates 50 over a career is making a quantitative argument about relative standing that is difficult to contest.
Awards and prizes from recognized bodies in the field carry outsized weight because they represent third-party selection — someone independent of the petitioner reviewed the field and selected them for recognition. The same logic applies to peer review and grant panel service: those assignments are made by journals and funding agencies that selected the petitioner as an expert, not because the petitioner asked. Letters from independent experts who can describe, with specificity, the petitioner's contributions and their significance to the field remain the backbone of most successful petitions, particularly for researchers whose citation metrics are moderate but whose qualitative contributions are significant.
High salary is one of the ten criteria but tends to function as a corroborating factor at step two rather than a primary driver. Where salary data is robust — a full professor at a top-20 institution, a researcher in a specialized industry role commanding a salary in the 95th percentile for the occupation — it strengthens the totality picture. Critical role evidence, if well documented, similarly contributes to the holistic picture by showing that distinguished organizations have entrusted the petitioner with responsibilities requiring recognized expertise. The best petitions assemble several strong evidence types that reinforce each other rather than relying on any single thread.
Common submission errors that undermine totality review
The most frequent and damaging error in O-1A petitions is submitting generic evidence that does not establish field-specific context. A letter from a colleague stating that the petitioner is an excellent researcher does not help the adjudicator answer the relevant question: how does this petitioner's standing compare to others at the top of the field? Expert letters that work are specific. They name the petitioner's contributions, identify the work being cited or used, explain why that work advanced the field, and situate the petitioner relative to others in the discipline. A single well-crafted letter of this type contributes more to the totality analysis than five generic endorsements.
A second common error is padding the petition with volume at the expense of quality. Submitting 40 pages of publication reprints for a petitioner with 20 publications does not make the petition stronger — it makes the adjudicator's job harder and can obscure the genuinely strong evidence. USCIS officers work with a finite amount of attention. The cover brief should highlight the three to five exhibits that most powerfully demonstrate top-of-field standing, and the remaining exhibits should be tabbed and organized so an officer can locate them if they want to confirm a specific claim. The organization of the petition signals whether the petitioner's counsel is confident in the underlying evidence.
A third error is failing to address weak spots proactively. If the petitioner's citation count is moderate for the field, the brief should not pretend the count is strong — it should explain why the petitioner's specific subfield has lower citation baselines, or why qualitative impact in this case outweighs quantitative metrics. Adjudicators notice when a brief is silent on obvious questions. A well-structured petition anticipates the step-two analysis the officer will conduct and provides the framework for evaluating the totality, rather than leaving the officer to draw their own conclusions from an undirected pile of exhibits.
How adjudicators weigh conflicting or incomplete evidence
The totality standard does not require that every piece of evidence be favorable. Adjudicators understand that a petitioner's record will have gaps, and they are directed to assess the overall weight of the evidence rather than treating any single unfavorable data point as disqualifying. What creates problems is unexplained conflict — a citation count that contradicts the narrative in the expert letters, a salary claim supported by a contract that shows a different position title, or an award described as internationally recognized that the record shows to be an internal institutional prize. When exhibits conflict with each other or with claims in the brief, adjudicators have grounds to discount both.
Incomplete evidence is handled differently from conflicting evidence. If the record is silent on a criterion the petitioner claimed to meet, the adjudicator will typically note the omission and discount that criterion at step two. But the absence of evidence for criteria not claimed does not by itself undermine the totality review for criteria that are well supported. Petitioners sometimes over-claim, asserting five or six criteria when they can only document three solidly. This creates a situation where the brief promises more than the exhibits deliver, and the officer conducting step two has reason to doubt the petitioner's characterization of their record throughout the petition.
The practical guidance for handling gaps and conflicts is to be straightforward in the brief. If citation data is limited because the petitioner works in an applied field where knowledge disseminates through patents and technical standards rather than journal articles, say so explicitly. If the award history is thin because the petitioner works in an industry that does not have a robust award culture, provide evidence of the award landscape in the field. Adjudicators are not looking for perfection — they are looking for honesty about the record combined with evidence that, taken as a whole, demonstrates the petitioner is among the best at what they do.
Practical implications for building your O-1A petition
The totality standard has concrete implications for how practitioners should structure the petition. The cover brief should open with a clear framing of the petitioner's field, the level at which the petitioner operates within that field, and the key evidence that establishes top-of-field status. This framing gives the adjudicator a lens through which to evaluate the exhibits that follow. Without it, the officer must construct their own understanding of the petitioner's field and significance from scratch — and may not reach the same conclusions the petitioner would want.
The criterion-by-criterion analysis in the brief should be followed by a dedicated totality section that synthesizes the evidence. Many petitions skip this section or treat it as a brief summary. A well-executed totality section is substantive. It connects the petition's strongest evidence types — explaining, for example, why high citation counts, NSF grant PI status, and a salary in the 93rd percentile for the occupation collectively establish that this petitioner is recognized as one of the leading researchers in their subfield. This synthesis is what the 2023 policy manual update calls for, and it is also what distinguishes a well-argued petition from a compilation of exhibits.
Finally, the 2023 update reinforces that the totality determination is fact-specific. There is no formula that guarantees approval, and no combination of criteria that automatically triggers it. What the update makes clear is that USCIS is looking for genuine evidence of exceptional standing in the field — not compliance with a checklist. Petitions that take that standard seriously, building a record that honestly and specifically documents the petitioner's achievements and their significance, are the ones most likely to succeed at step two. The routine matters as much as the content: a well-organized, well-argued petition signals that the petitioner and their counsel have engaged seriously with the legal standard.
What we typically gather for this kind of case
| Document | Where to source | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Peer-reviewed publications | Web of Science / Scopus exports | Anchors original-contributions and authorship criteria |
| Citation analysis | Google Scholar profile + ESI top-1% data | Quantifies major significance in the field |
| Salary benchmark | BLS OEWS for SOC code + locality | Documents high-salary criterion at 90th-percentile or above |
| Critical-role letters | Direct supervisor + program director | Establishes role's importance, not just title |
What we see go wrong, again and again
- 01Treating extraordinary ability as a credentials checklist rather than a story of field-wide impact.
- 02Submitting bibliometric data (h-index, citation counts) without explaining what makes those numbers high relative to peers in the same sub-field.
- 03Relying on letters from collaborators or co-authors rather than independent experts who can speak to influence.