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Liaison

Biographic Information

Your Legal Name

This section pulls in information you entered when you created your account. Confirm that what appears here is correct; click the Profile Section link to make changes.

Former Name

If you are sending any documentation or test scores where your name is listed differently than it appears on your application, select Yes in this section and enter the alternate or former information. This ensures that your documents and test scores are matched to your application. Contact customer service so they can manually match these items to your application; failure to do so could cause significant delays.

Examples of alternate or former names include:

  • Birth names (if different from current legal name)
  • Maiden names
  • Nicknames (e.g., "Bob" for Robert, "Beth" for Elizabeth, etc.)
  • "Westernized" names
  • Alternate punctuation (e.g., your name appears with/without a hyphen, apostrophe, or diacritical marking)
  • Alternate spacing (e.g., your name appears with or without specific spaces)
  • Known misspellings (if a document contains a misspelling)

Legal/Preferred Name Phonetic Pronunciation

Enter the phonetic pronunciation of your first and last name or write a familiar word that rhymes with your name. Phonetic pronunciation is how your names sound when read or spoken aloud. Make sure to separate syllables with dashes and capitalize syllables that are stressed.

Examples:

  • Raul Gonzalez = rah-OOL gon-SAH-les
  • Ngoc Nguyen = nahk nuhWEN or sounds like “knock” “WIN”
  • Sophia Lamagna = so-FEE-uh, sounds like “lasagna”

Phonetic Spelling Guide

Vowels

Vowel

Examples

Phonetic Spelling

Sample Names

A

fat, land

ape, date, play

ah, father, car

America, ago

a

ay

ah

uh

Nancy (NAN-see)

Jason (JAY-suhn)

Adriana (Ah-dree-AH-nah)

Bianca (Bee-YAHN-cuh)

E

check, ten, when

the, benefit

green, evil, he

e

uh

ee

Ken (KEN)

Alex (AL-uhks)

Maria (Mah-REE-ah)

I

ice, bite, high

Is, hit

y

Ih

Michael (MY-kuhl)

Lindy (LIHN-dee)

O

hot, fought, not

open, tone, go

loose, tool, crew

toy, oil

ah

oh

oo

oy

John (JAHN)

Rose (ROHZ)

Judy (JOO-dee)

Leroy (LEE-roy)

U

up, cut

duty, tube, assume

fur, deter

use, cute, few

uh

oo

ur

yoo

Cynthia (SIN-thee-uh)

Judy (JOO-dee)

Kurt (KURT)

Eunice (YOO-nis)

Y

family, city

my, dry

ee

y

Amy (AY-mee)

Kyle (KY-uhl)

Consonants

Most consonants are written the way they sound, but there are a few special cases.

Consonants

Examples

Phonetic Spelling

Sample Names

GI giant j Gianna (Jee-AH-nah); Italian
GI Gitano brand jeans gh Giselle (GHEE-sehl-luh); German
H loch hh Ahmed (AHH-med)
TH thought, thin, bath th Beth (BETH)
TH bathe thh Heather (Heh-THHER)
Z zebra, rose z Zenobia (Zeh-NOH-bee-uh)
ZH azure, leisure zh Jean-Paul (Zhan-PAWL)
Y

family, city

my, dry

ee

Y

Amy (AY-mee)

Kyle (KY-uhl)

Sex

Select the appropriate option. This information is required for reporting purposes to the US Federal government, using these values only.

Gender Identity

If your gender identity differs from your legal sex, use this section to indicate your gender and pronouns.

Birth Information

Enter your date of birth in MM/DD/YYYY format. For example, January 7, 1989, would be listed as 01/07/1989. Make sure you enter your date of birth correctly; failure to do so could cause significant delays with matching documentation and test scores.

Then, enter your country, city, state/territory/province, and county of birth. If you are unsure of your county of birth, select N/A.

Note: to ensure applicants are entering consistent data for some questions, this application uses pre-populated answer options that are maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). For example, country answer options are derived from ISO 3166, which is the international standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions.

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