Optional Practical Training, or OPT, is an employment benefit offered through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that enables international students with F-1 status to gain 12 months of off-campus work experience in their field of study.

Graduating F-1 students eligible and interested in applying for Post-OPT work authorization are encouraged to apply early. The earliest the International Students and Scholars Center will accept Post-OPT I-20 requests is February 2, 2026. You can start getting prepared for this now. We recommend reading through the Post-OPT webpage to learn more about the process.

To allow for both the ISSC and USCIS processing times, you may submit your Post-OPT I-20 eForm request to ISSC up to 97 days prior to your program completion date.

• The program completion date for undergraduate students is the degree conferral date of the semester. The spring 2026 degree conferral date is May 11, 2026.
• The program completion date for graduate students depends on your final academic requirements. Completion includes dissertation approval after defense, receipt of comprehensive exam results, or project defense. However, in most cases, the degree conferral date of the semester is the program completion date.  The spring 2026 degree conferral date is May 11, 2026. You may need to consult with your academic advisor to determine your program completion date.

Note: You do not have to have a job in order to apply for OPT.

Apply for Post-OPT

  
Be advised, USCIS processing times generally increase with applications submitted later in the semester. It is common for applications to take an average of 90 days to be processed. Therefore, we recommend you apply early in the application season!

USCIS can receive applications up to 90 days before your program end date, which means ISSC can produce OPT-recommended I-20s as early as February 10, 2026. All requests are reviewed in the order in which they have been received.

Please note: Students cannot receive an OPT authorization end date more than 12 months from the end of their 60-day grace period. This means for students who apply later, their OPT may be authorized for a period of less than 12 months. Applying early in the application window increases your chances of obtaining your authorization by your requested start date and receiving OPT for the entire 12-month period.

The ISSC has pre-recorded Post OPT informational videos on our ISSC YouTube Channel.

You can also join live webinars—see our events webpage for details about upcoming webinars.