On April 9, 2016, USCIS announced that it had completed its selection of 65,000 petitions in the general category and 20,000 petitions in the advanced degree exemption category through a computer-generated random selection process. This year USCIS received approximately 236,000 petitions (up 3,000 from 2015), of which 85,000 were chosen.

Advanced degree exemption applications were chosen first and then, those not selected were put with the general category applications in order to hit the cap. Processing of H-1B cap cases will begin by May 16, 2016.

For the full USCIS announcement, please click here.