Ladd, who attended the local presentation, says the INS representative who addressed a crowd of anxious university representatives seemed aware of SEVIS’s slowness and technological shortcomings.

“She seemed very well informed,” Ladd says. “It was encouraging.”

Shortly after the conference, the INS offered educational institutions nationwide a deadline extension for registration—a gesture aiming to ensure that the new system would be manageable for everyone involved, says INS spokesperson Karen Kraushaar.

“It was certainly reasonable for them to be allowed to get their systems up and running in the way that is most enabling for everybody,” she says.

The INS continues to consult with major figures in the educational community to find an expedient and reasonable path to SEVIS registration, she says.

Ladd maintains that Harvard is already partway down the right road. Seeing representatives of Harvard’s peers at the Jan. 27 workshop affirmed her confidence in the University’s preparedness, relative to that of other institutions.

“We’re at least in a comparable position, and some would say we’re in a better position,” she says.

Over the past few months, HIO has been building a new database for its own information on international students. The new system is SEVIS-compliant, Ladd says.

Starting from Jan. 30, when Harvard received approval for SEVIS use, the HIO has been required to enter SEVIS data for all new student visa applications that it processed.

But fortunately for the University, Ladd says, the number of international students needing new visas before the end of the semester will be negligible.

Yet, looking ahead, she emphasizes that SEVIS’s challenges are not over.

“It’s going to be a trying time in terms of things not happening,” she says. “We’re here to help students as much as we can.”

—Staff writer Nathan J. Heller can be reached at heller@fas.harvard.edu.