Originally Posted by
ethicalconundrum
Well, then the rules have changed since 2004. My bro-in-law came over on a student visa for a course of study in one field at one institution(I will not name either). He quit that course of study, went in a completely different direction, and began attending a completely different advanced and accredited university. I went with him to the Immigration office in downtown LA(twice, two long, full days) and he was re-issued a student visa right there on the spot. We had to take a lot of paperwork, and get a letter from the chair of the dept at the new school, and the Immigration people were just fine stamping him to continue. If it's different now, I guess I will defer to others with more recent experience. Can you share your more recent experience?
To supplement what Wannabe Flyer has posted:
There is a difference between the actual visa stamp, and the I-94 arrival/departure record. Long story short, once someone is in the U.S., the visa stamp itself is totally irrelevant.
Long story: a visa is nothing more than permission to apply for admission to the U.S. in a particular status. That status can be immigrant or non-immigrant. Well-known non-immigrant statuses are B-1, H-1, L-1, M-1 and F-1. When the CBP officer at the port of entry determines that you are indeed eligible to enter the U.S. in that particular class, he or she will issue a form I-94 (these days they can be issued electronically as well). The form I-94 shows your status and maximum stay. For example, when I moved to the U.S. on my L-1 visa, my length of stay was always determined by the end-date of my I-129 petition, not the expiration date of my visa.
That I-94 document is very important, because USCIS has the authority to re-issue it. For example, if you enter the country on an L-1, but convert to an H-1, you will get a new I-94 with that. You can stay until the expiration date of that I-94, UNLESS you need to travel outside of the U.S. In that case, you need to get an H-1 visa stamped.
In your case, since you got a new I-94 in the same classification, there was no need to get a new visa stamped: the visa itself was issued for the same class.
Apologies for getting a bit off-topic here, but I think this may be of interest to other folks as well. For those interested in immigration policies etc, the USCIS Field Manual is a good read:
https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/.../0-0-0-15.html