I am currently on J-1 and almost finishing 1st year of my subspecialty fellowship and my program end date is august 30th 2009.
I have signed additional year in same subspecialty for NONSTANDARD / RESEARCH and academic tract (as defined by ECFMG) which would be through 8/30/2010.
My contract and application for continuation of J-1 sponsorship was submitted to ECFMG about 10 days ago and got a call from them 2 days ago that I need to resubmit the applicationand contract because the second year training is a nonstandard training as mentioned above and subspecialty name has to be changed as above.
I have only 5 weeks left until my DS-2109 / program training ends (until 8/30/09) and to get statement of need for this nonstandard track from home country and to resubmit the revised contract and application with ECFMG woudl take another week atleast leaving me with 4 weeks only.ECFMG asks for about 6-8 weeks for processing of such applications.
My question is that if my application to extend J-1 sponsorship through 8/30/2010 has not been processed by ECFMG until 8/30/2009 would I still be able to wait for the processing since there is 30 days grace period once your DS2019 or training completes.ECFMG says that this 30 days grace period would give me time and I can wait for processing of my new application until 09/29/2009 and still would not be out of status.
I know that this 30 day period is for packing and getting ready to leave but since I have been accepted in the same trainig program for another year and my application might still be under processing after 8/30/2009
would this case be considered different?
Thank you for your advice.

