On-cycle Recruiting as International with Concurrent BS/MS

Hello fellow international monkeys,

Does having a concurrent BS/MS Master's Degree (e.g. SubMat @ UPenn, PDP @ USC) help with on-cycle recruiting? For background, I'm an incoming SA 2025 IB on F-1 visa requiring sponsorship.

Most sources say that OPTs can't stack, so once I graduate with a M.S., then I'll already be using a M.S. related STEM-OPT (overriding BS STEM-OPT eligibility). However, it was also said that having a M.S. increases odds of H1-B lottery because Master's students have their own lottery pool.

Curious to know your experiences on this.

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