New Student Immigration

Passport Names on the Form I-20

Each F-1 International student receives a Form I-20 to obtain the F-1 Visa and to maintain their immigration status as a student in the United States.

There is a section on the Form I-20 just below the “SEVIS ID” which provides important demographic data about the nonimmigrant student.  This section is very important to international students because it describes their names, country of origin, and date of birth.

The Designated School Officials (DSO) of BGSU follow strict guidelines in creating your nonimmigrant record.   The name standards are to ensure that we are in compliance with machine-readable passports.  Most countries in the world will require international travelers to possess the machine-readable passport in the near future.   

The machine-readable passport has two zones:

Visual Inspection Zone (VIZ)
Machine-readable Zone (MRZ)

You should carefully inspect your Form I-20 to ensure that it matches your passport.  Your DSO will match the fields to the MRZ and there will be no special characters in your Form I-20. Your

Designated School Officials can change the following fields in the SEVIS (Form I-20) record;

SURNAME/PRIMARY NAME
GIVEN NAME
PREFERRED NAME
PASSPORT NAME
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP
DATE OF BIRTH
ADMISSION NUMBER
ISSUE REASON

Resources:
For a complete description of how your DSO enters your name on your Form I-20, check the Department of Homeland Security guidelines at this website:

https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/sevis-help-hub/getting-started/create-and-manage-initial-student-records/sevis-name-standards

Frequently Asked Questions