Replies

I doubt whether they ever do full background checks on student visa applicants (unless they come from Iran).

That is a little disturbing.

What type of visas were the 911 terrorist issued?

I've been through student visa process myself (I'm an Eastern European who used to study in US) and consular officials spend 2-5 minutes on each application. What they check is just the basic economic background. Whether the person has money to pay for studies, does not appear likely to stay in US illegally afterwards or does not have obvious red flags of some other type. They might also run some quick computerized checks against databases of known terrorists etc. behind the scenes but I doubt whether they do more.

Google says that after 9/11, they've added more background checks for citizens of most (or all) Muslim countries but if this person was from China, his experience was probably like mine.