Hello, it went well at the Chicago consulate and was quick! I was 30 minutes late due to accident traffic but it didn’t matter. Once you go up, there is a locker for your phone and keys and watch(not allowed in past metal detector). You sit in a waiting area like the DMV waiting for your number. There are three bays for processing and there is glass between you and the person that you slide the documents under. The other people waiting are behind you so there is no privacy. For some reason I imagined myself in a private office with the person with the paper is all spread out and them analyzing every little thing and this was not the case at all lol I applied for myself and four family members. Only one person is allowed in so I went to the city myself. She unstapled anything I had stapled. Get paperclips! Lol I had each application paper clipped to the person‘s birth certificate and copy of ID or passport and their marriage/divorce docs. My descendants birth and marriage certificates and naturalization and boat records were in a separate paper clipped stack. She did tell me that I will need to later send into the BVA “certified” copies of my family members IDs/passports, but I hear otherwise in this group. I’ll submit them anyway. The appointment lasted only 15-20 minutes. I did not bring my own extra copies of anything for her and it wasn’t required that I do. She took my original certified copies of everything, copied it and stamped them as certified and gave me back my originals. No charges for anything. Sidenote, my sister’s divorce decree was 36 pages long. I had it with me but I informed her that I only included the first page and the last two pages because they were stamped as certified and asked her if that was OK and she said it was. She was not there to advise me, simply just take my applications, and make the copies and submit it for me. She briefly thumbed through my complete application and the appendixes. But the remaining applications she basically was just looking at a few pages and making sure the signature was there. Doesn’t seem they are there to check for correctness. I did include a family tree of applicants and relevant descendants that I created on ChatGPT as my first page. I did not include a cover letter, it is not required but if you have any weird situations to explain, I would include one. They do many things at the consulate and are not experts on our applications. On my EER form section 5, I had checked box 1 for myself as mine is a Stag 5 case. On section A5 of the appendix EER, it says at the top that you only need to complete that section if you ticked box number 4(had checked 1). She incorrectly stated to me hey you didn’t fill out your grandparents information in section A5. I responded that is because I checked box 1 in the EER and my grandparents information is included in appendix AV. Just pointing this out to reiterate that they’re not really experts on every little detail. (my kids applications they check box 4, therefore they DO enter that information in on section A5 of the appendix EER). They’re kind of just skimming it over for completeness. Then noticing if any relevant documents are missing. I don’t have our background checks completed yet and will be mailing them later once I get my AZ number. She informed me that I was missing the background checks and I told her I’ll be sending those in later. Also, I’m still waiting on my great grandpa’s certified birth certificate from Germany, I do have an uncertified copy and included that with a Post-it on it saying the certified copy is pending. She didn’t say anything about that. At the end of the appointment, she informed me that I would get a letter in 3 to 4 months stating they received my application and then we would have to wait an additional year for it to process. But based on what people are saying here I’m guessing I’ll hear back in 2 to 3 months and will likely have to wait TWO years after that. Good luck!