USCIS has announced that a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap for FY 2017 have been received as of April 7, 2016. USCIS has also received more than 20,000 H-1B petitions on behalf of persons exempt from the cap under the advanced degree exemption. Once the initial intake process for all petitions filed has been completed, USCIS will conduct a lottery for the random selection of petitions for processing.