[anonu]

Maybe this can help someone:

There is a total of 85,000 new H-1B visa numbers released each US Fiscal Year, with the FY2020 beginning as of October 1, 2019.

Out of 85,000 new H-1B visa numbers, 20,000 are set aside for individuals that graduated with a Masters or equivalent (or higher) degree here in the U.S., provided the university wasn’t a for-profit entity.

There is high demand for new numbers and USCIS typically receives 190K+ cases the first week of the season (ie: April 1, 2019). Thus, each year USCIS conducts a lottery to decide which of the cases will be processed .

The H-1B Cap lottery first step is to decide which cases will be selected for the regular 65,000 numbers - then the lottery for the 20,000 US Advanced Degree H-1B cap being conducted after.