I'll have my interview in July. After having done all the prep (DS-160, SEVIS, visa appointment fee), I realized that my passport will expire before the stated end of my PhD program. Although I read a few times that my passport needs to be valid for the entire stay in the US, when I called the embassy hotline I was ambiguously told that I would "likely" be given a visa that is valid until my passport expires but that it ultimately depends on the embassy official.
Any experiences? I really want to avoid going back to my home country twice (once to apply for passport, once to apply for visa).