New applicants are routinely confused by having two appointments on two different days at two different places. Here is what each one is actually for.
At the Visa Application Centre (called the OFC), staff capture your photograph and fingerprints and check your basic documents. There is no interview and no decision here. It is usually the shorter, calmer appointment — and the easier of the two to find a date for.
At the consulate (or the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi), a consular officer interviews you and decides the application. This is the appointment the queues, the waits and this entire website are about.
Order is fixed: OFC first, interview second. Your biometrics must be completed before your interview date — when you book or reschedule, always verify the pair still sits in that order (see our rescheduling guide).
They are usually on different days. Many applicants complete the OFC a few days before the interview; same-day pairing is not the norm, so plan travel around two visits, not one.
Carry the core set to both: your passport, the appointment confirmation, and your DS-160 confirmation page. Category documents (I-20 for F-1, approval notice for H-1B, financial and travel documents for B1/B2) belong at the interview — follow the current official instructions for your category for the full list.
The OFC location and the consulate are chosen through the portal as part of your appointment setup; applicants typically attend the VAC serving their consulate's area. Set both deliberately when you book — changing one later can disturb the other.
The interview, by far. OFC dates are comparatively plentiful; interview dates are the scarce resource every alert on SlotDost will identify by type — an alert always states which of the two it is about.
Do not just show up at the interview without biometrics — reschedule the OFC ahead of time through the portal, keeping it before your interview date, and use the official support channel if the portal cannot fix the ordering.