dbr84

It took me an hour during my visit to the SSA. They did not retain any documents. I did it the day after I landed (last Thurs!) - not received the number yet. Not sure what the day 10 wait is about, the i94 record shows everything they needed to enter my details. I'll let you know if I get it before the 10 day elapses out of interest.

Pulaski

It used to take a few days to "get your name into the system", and if you didn't wait until your name was "in" then you were likely to derail the process and have your name diverted into the manual process which IIRC took 4-6 weeks.

It was reported at least a year ago that the "wait ten days" advice is no longer necessary.

mrken30

My daughter got her card within a week of being born. It appears SSNs are allocated locally. Does that mean some areas are quicker than others. I still don't understand why I was given my SSN on the day. Is it because I came in on and IR1? Maybe they were aware of the next number to be allocated, who knows?