About MERIT IQ
Built by people who filed their own petitions — and got tired of watching others do it blind.
MERIT IQ started as a shared spreadsheet between three friends comparing RFE notices. It's now a platform, but the instinct hasn't changed: tell people the truth about where they stand, then help them close the gap themselves.
Where it started
A visa runway that kept getting shorter, and no honest source of truth.
Our founding team went through OPT, the H-1B lottery, and eventually self-petitioned EB-1A and EB-2 NIW cases of their own. What struck all three of us was the same gap: agencies were incentivized to say yes to almost anyone, and software gave you forty features and zero judgment. Nobody was willing to say "not yet — and here's exactly why."
MERIT IQ is the tool we wished existed: an AI system that reads your record the way an experienced reviewer does, paired with mentors who've actually sat where you're sitting — watching a status clock and needing a real answer, not a sales pitch.
What we stand for
Four principles that shape every product decision
Honesty over conversion
If your record isn't ready, we say so — with a plan, not a pitch.
You stay the petitioner
We build structure and evidence. You review, approve and sign. It's your name on the case.
Evidence over opinion
Every recommendation is mapped to a specific regulatory criterion — never a vague "looks strong."
Time is the real cost
Every product decision is stress-tested against one question: does this save the person months, or just money?
Who's behind it
A small team of engineers, immigration researchers and self-petitioners.
We're not a law firm, and we don't pretend to be one. Our team is made up of people who built the AI gap-analysis models, immigration researchers who track USCIS adjudication patterns and RFE trends, and mentors — successful EB-1A and NIW petitioners across engineering, research, product, music and design — who volunteer their real experience, not a script.
- Every mentor has personally filed and won the route they coach on
- Our gap-analysis model is retrained against real adjudication outcomes, not guesswork
- We work alongside your attorney, never instead of one