My brother just got a offer letter from an IT company. He will start his job from the end of this month. What I wanted to know is can he still apply for H1 for 2010 or is it too late. Is there a deadline to apply? And where can I check if the quota has been filled? I would really appreciate your help.

Laure_Boi

If you mean the H1B for this year, then it will be H1B for 2011. This year the application rate is very low. There are plenty of quota available for both masters and undergrad level application. you can Google and check the available quota for H1B 2011.
But there have been more scrutiny in H1B application documents especially if it is IT company. Be ready to provide all supportive and convincing documents to get the approval without problem.
you can find lots of discussion on this matter at www.murthy.com

Good Luck

http://sajha.com/sajha/html/openthread.cfm?threadid=81921

Laure_boi, H1B visas start on October 1st of every year. They start taking the applications on April 1st and keep taking the applications until the quota is met. As of May 6th 2010, only 18,000 (regular) and 7,600 (Masters) have been issued. This means that there are A LOT of H-1B available. As long as the company is legit and the work is legit, your brother will have no problem getting the visa. Just ask the company to file for his H-1B visa as soon as possible and your brother will be able to start working on a H1 visa from October 1st. Until then, he will just have to remain in his current status (I am guessing it's F-1 {OPT})

Source for the numbers: http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/h1b-visa-2011-cap-count-update/

H1B Visa Cap Count Table

H1B FY 2011 Update Date	H1B General Cap	Masters Degree Cap
May 6, 2010	18,000 out of 65,000	7,600 out of 20,000

Google the info, but as far as I know it is not late yet. If he applies now he can start working from October only. The quota is not reached yet.

Yes if he applies now it will be effective from first Oct 2010.If he is on OPT can work on that date in OPT and after than on H1B if he gets approval.

Thank you all for your valuable information. So he can still apply for H1B. That's a good news. One more question I have is, when does the result come out or when do they notify you about your approval. Is there a certain time frame or it is just random.

Laure_Boi

Laure_boi, they don't have any set time frame. It depends upon the case. Sometimes they keep asking for more information and that delays the approval. If you do premium processing (I think it costs an extra $1000) I think they will get back to you in 15 days. Otherwise, it could take anywhere from 1 to 6 months. However, this year they don't have a lot of applications so may be that will speed up the process. This blog http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/ usually has good information on this topic.