I am eligible for an interview waiver under new US rules. I have a previously issued F1-visa and I want to renew it. I had previously gotten 221g and so I have clearance received written on my visa. But with the new rules I qualify for an interview waiver, but can’t reach the drop-box option because it asks about clearance received part and then immediately puts me in the area to apply for an interview. I don’t understand how to navigate this. Does anyone know anything about this?
My guess is that probably you do not fall under the new policy as you are applying for renewal of same visa class and your F1 visa expired in last 48 months which makes you fall under the regular IW/dropbox policy which makes one ineligible if there is annotation on the previously issued visa.
http://cdn.ustraveldocs.com/in/in-niv-visarenew.asp
Note that the recently introduced policy of IW is at discretion of the CO so you first need to schedule an interview appointment and then the CO will review the application and decide whether you should be granted IW or not. So even if you are eligible for IW under new policy, you will still need to schedule an appointment first which will be converted to dropbox later on.