Visa question: attending visiting weekend as a an international student

[geitost]

I have been invited to attend a school's visiting weekend - does anybody know if I will have difficulties entering the U.S. on a tourist visa? Technically my visit has an academic purpose (and I get reimbursed by the school), and I have heard of people who were sent straight back home when the border policy officer learned that they were entering the U.S. on a tourist visa although they were meeting with a professor...

[fuzzylogician]

I think the tourist visa is perfectly fine for visiting schools. It's what I used for admissions visits and I didn't have any trouble going through border control. Just make sure you don't make it sound like you're there to work or to study - that's not what the visa is for, and maybe that's what the people you mentioned said (or how their explanations were interpreted). Traveling to different cities in order to visit graduate programs you've been admitted to for graduate school is allowed under the visa, and if you print out some acceptance/invitation letters indicating your itinerary and have a return flight back home a reasonable time after your last visit ends (which you should only show if asked!), I don't see why there should be any problems.

[geitost]

Excellent, thanks for the advice!