 Hello, welcome to how to make a student visa application outside the UK. My name is John Hitchman, I'm the Student Advice Service Manager at Seras. We provide all the non-academic advice about things such as finance, immigration and accommodation. But today we're talking about specifically immigration and how to apply for a student visa outside the UK. Now as well as this webinar, we also have resources that you can use on the Seras website and they should be easy to find or you'll be sent links to them once you start applying for a visa or requesting a CAS. And these guides will help you with step by step guide to making the online student visa application but also the documents that you're going to need as well to make the application. So this is what we're going to be talking about today. How, where, when should you apply for your student visa? What documents do you need to show? How much money will you need to show? That's a big question. And then can you bring your family members? And if you have any questions, I'm afraid this is just me recording this by myself. So I've got to answer them at the moment, but we will be able to answer your questions later on. So how to make a student visa application? Who can apply for a student visa? Well, you must have accepted an unconditional offer at Seras. And before you apply, you will need a thing called a CAS or a confirmation of acceptance for studies. Now CAS is an electronic document that contains all the details of your visa sponsorship at Seras, including your program and details that you provide about your passport. Now the CAS is uploaded onto a system that UK visas and immigration have access to. So UK visas and immigration, UK VI, they're the people that will grant your visa. So once you have that, you've got the document you need to make a visa on application online. And you're also going to need to meet the maintenance requirement. And that means you have to have enough money for your application. And we'll go into a lot more detail about both of these things as we go through. So how do you apply for a student visa? Well, you use an online application system. And then you pay a thing called the immigration health surcharge. So this is a payment towards the cost of the NHS National Health Service. That's the nationalised healthcare system that we have in the United Kingdom. So by paying that, you have access to that service throughout the duration of your studies at Seras. And that costs £470 per year of leave. So when we say leave, we mean per year of your visa. But there's an asterisk there, as you can see. And that's because some people, specifically EU nationals with a thing called an EHIC card, may be entitled to a refund of this thing called the immigration health surcharge. So you're starting your program this coming year. And you have the EHIC card that was issued in your EU country of residence. But I think the other key thing about qualifying for this refund is you don't intend to work while you're studying. So if you're only coming to the UK to study your program but do no parts on work, no other sort of work at all, then you may be able to get a refund from the IHS. OK, so to carry on, the application fee is £348 or 568 is for an expedited service. Now that service, you need to check the availability of that. And it may depend on what area you're applying in as to whether you can access that. You're likely going to need to upload some supporting documents. And then some people are going to need to attend a biometric appointment. Some people, specifically EU nationals at the moment, but it may be rolled out to other nationalities, will be able to use an app. And then this app collects your biometric data from your biometric passport and uses it again. So you don't need to attend a biometric appointment. But a lot of people do need to attend one. And then interview there. We've also got an asterisk. Some people will be asked to an interview. When we say asked to an interview, this would probably be most likely being remote. But it may be that you attend somewhere else and then attend the interview online. The interview is a very simple process at UK VR use just to ask some simple questions about why you wanted to study it. So as why you wanted to study in the UK is nothing to be worried about very straightforward. And then some of you are going to need to provide a TB test as well. So here from certain countries in the world where TB is still an issue, then you're going to need to provide a TB test as part of your application process before you can get your visa granted. So where can you apply for your student visa? So the usual place to apply is in your country of nationality, the country of your passport. But we've also got where you are living with inverted commas. And that's really because that's a UK VI definition of living. So what they mean by that is a country where you are resident. So if you're perhaps studying somewhere else and not in your country of nationality, not in the UK or working in another country or a third country, then you will have a visa that's probably a student or worker visa. And that would allow you to make the application for your UK student visa in that country. But if you're just visiting a country or visiting a number of countries and you're going to be there as a tourist or a visitor, that wouldn't be classified as living and that visa type wouldn't allow you to apply for your student visa. So that's the case. You're travelling around. You need to plan a return to your country of nationality in order to apply for your student visa. And once you've completed the online application, then you can usually book an appointment if you need to attend one. As we said, some people won't need to. And you can read the instructions where to go for that locally. So some of you, this appointment will include biometrics and some of it an interview. And for some of you, you may not need to attend an appointment at all. And for many people, you'll be issued a 90 day visa thing yet. So that's a visa sticker, which is that you may have seen those and the page stuck in your passport. It's stuck into a page for your passport that allows you travel to the UK. The 90 days allow some flexibility. That's been there since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But dates of travel won't be so flexible, hopefully in the future because we'll be getting back to a sort of normality of studying. So should be arriving well in time for the start of the academic year in 2022. Normally, if you've got the vignette, you'll be collecting your biometric residence permit. So once you're in the UK, that's a plastic card that contains your biometric data. And the vignette is for traveling into the UK once. But the BRP or biometric residence permit is the document that you use from then on as your visa. And it also proves the conditions of your stay. So things like working, your right to work in the UK and the duration of your visa that's all included on your BRP. But if you're somebody, any national that was able to use this app to apply for your visa, you don't have a BRP. You'll have a digital status. So that's something you can log into on a website to look at. But it's associated with your passport then. So when you travel through the border, you just show your passport or even touch your passport on an eGate. And the eGate will read your visa and allow you entry on that basis. So when should you apply for your student visa? So you can actually apply up to six months before your course or program start date. But as we've said, you need to have a CAS. So you need to have that thing, a confirmation of acceptance for studies. And it's important before you apply to make sure you have all the listed academic documents. But that's now for students out who are studying below degree level. We know that's a few of you out there. And to make sure that you meet the financial requirements and have the correct documents to show that as well. So more people are going to require that. And we'll explain what those documents are shortly. So as an overview of the whole documentary requirement, you'll need a valid passport. Our general advice is to have six months of validity. This skips the admissions team time to issue your CAS. And your passport remains valid on the day you travel to the UK, which is essential. If your passport expires once you're in the UK, you can apply for replacement. But it needs to be valid on the day you travel. You need that thing, the CAS that I keep mentioning and confirmation acceptance for studies. And then you need the qualifications that are listed in your CAS statement, but only if you're studying below degree level. And you may need proof of English language ability. So there are different tests. You can sit to prove that on the service website that I mentioned. But you only need to show those if you're studying below degree level as well. A proof of maintenance is more likely that you are going to need that. So that's proof to show that you meet the financial requirement of the visa. And then if you have any documents that you're submitting to support your application that are not written in English, you're going to need to get official translation of those documents. So it needs to be done by a professional translator. You can't do that yourself. And then you submit those translations to. And then some of you will be from countries that are classified as low risk. So we're saying that you need to prove maintenance or provide some academic documents, maybe in certain situations. If you're low risk, you don't need to submit those documents with your application. However, those documents can be requested and you're completing a visa application to say you have them and that you meet the requirements that these documents prove. So it's really important that you're prepared to submit them because they may be requested later. And it's also important that you're completing a form honestly and you form accurately to reflect your situation. So CAS, how do you get one of those? So your CAS can be issued in, well, there's two separate situations. So if you're an undergrad, you have affirmed your unconditional offer. If you're a postgrad, research or tour, you've accepted an unconditional offer and you've paid the £2,000 deposit. You must inform the admissions team about scholarships you've been awarded. They can be put onto your CAS if those have been dispersed through SOAS or the SOAS scholarships. The earlier you can use your CAS and apply for your visa is up to six months before your course start date as we've discussed. So if you're an undergraduate student, when you're completing a new UCAS application, you would have indicated whether you need the student visa. And once you've firmed your offer or once you've firmed off a sort of becomes unconditional, you can complete the online CAS request form. And then in that form, you need to submit documents to support your CAS application or just say it's all the information that colleagues in the admissions team need. So colour scan of your passport, evidence of your scholarship if it's one that SOAS is administering or SOAS scholarship, evidence of your tuition fee payment if you've paid them. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later when we talk about maintenance. Previous UK visas if you've travelled to the UK and studied in the UK before. Parental consent form as well if you're under 18 years of age. And as I said, the advice is to have a passport with six months of validity on it, which gives you enough time to have your CAS issued and travelled to the UK before your passport expires. And then there's a deadline to request your CAS and that will be 30 days before the start of your programme. So if you're a post-grad student, a slightly different situation. If you're signed to your CAS, you will need an unconditional offer. You need to have accepted the offer, pay the deposit, provide the official evidence that you've been awarded a scholarship or are being sponsored by a recognised sponsor, your home government, international organisation or international government. So partly you're proving a scholarship because you're proving to SOAS how you're going to pay your fees, but if it's a scholarship that has been issued through SOAS then it's possible to put that on your CAS and that's a way to prove on your CAS that you have the finances that you need. So post-graduate students to be signed to your CAS you need to complete the CAS request form, similar to undergrads, provide a similar supporting document. So it's kind of possible. Evidence of scholarship if it's relevant. Evidence of your tuition fee payments they've been paid at that point. Previous UK student visas if you studied in the UK before. Your parental consent form if you're under 18 and a valid passport for six months. And again, 30 days before the course start they will be the deadline to apply. Please check your CAS both under grad and post-grad and make sure the details are correct. It's really important that you don't have any mistakes, any differences between, for instance, your passport has the date of birth, your name, everything needs to be absolutely correct. If you see any errors, contact the CAS request team and they will be able to amend that for you. Okay, so we've covered the documents that you need in general. But let's look a little bit more specifically now how much money will you need to show. So if you're studying a program that's longer than eight months in length that will include our degree programs at SOAS. Then you'll need to show that your full fees for one year have been paid and you'll need maintenance of £12,006. Okay, so you don't need full fees for the whole of your program just for one year and you need to show maintenance of £12,006. So the program is shorter than eight months. You need to show the full fees for the program plus £1,334 for each month or partial month. And what that means is if you say for instance you were studying for three and a half months you would need to show £1,334 multiply by three but round it up to four because it's always rounded up. So you would show £1,334 for four months even though it's for three and a half months. So if it's a partial month you round it up to the next month. If your fees are shown as paid on your CAS you don't need to show that money held in any other way. Now if you're sponsored or receiving loans then you're going to need to show you some documentation of those but if your sponsorship is via SOAS that is something that can be shown on your CAS but again you need to check your CAS and make sure it's on there and it accurately reflects what you're receiving and has a detail about your sponsorship. So if your sponsorship or loans don't cover the full cost of your tuition fees and maintenance is outlined above then you'll need to show the remainder in your bank account and for everybody else that isn't getting fees and loans and sponsorship you'll need to show all the money in your bank account. So the money can be in a bank account in your name or the name of a parent and the money needs to be held for consecutive 28-day period before the day that you apply it. Now the date that you apply is the date that you pay online for your visa application. It's not the date that you visit the visa application centre or any other date the date that you pay online so the date that you pay the fee and if you're using money in your parent's account or it could be a legal guardian's account too you'll need some evidence so you either need your birth certificate to prove your relationship with your parent or a court document or legal document to prove your legal guardianship and you'll also need a little permission from your parent or legal guardian as well. Now if money is being paid for accommodation that can't be deducted so in the visa application form it will ask if you've paid money for accommodation whether you have or not unfortunately you can't deduct that from the amount of money that you need to show because SOAS doesn't own the accommodation the accommodation is all owned by third party providers so please don't rely on deducting any money because you've already paid for accommodation. So can you bring your family so if you're a full-time post-grad programme or if you're studying a full-time post-grad programme of over nine months in length or your government sponsored student and your programme is over six months then yes you can and who qualifies as a family member or what we call dependent that you can bring with you so that could be your husband, your wife your civil partner, your unmarried partner your child under 18 if you're bringing your unmarried partner you'd need to be in a relationship and prove that relationship that was similar to marriage so living together for a two-year period before you apply for this visa and the maintenance requirement is slightly smaller so you need £7,605 per dependent if the programme is longer than eight months or £845 for each month or partial month Can you bring your accommodation now? So this session is being recorded for January 2022 so accommodation applications won't be open at the moment but when they do you can apply as soon as you have a firmed offer you can apply via the seller's website and after viewing all the options that are listed there you'll then receive an offer of accommodation and a short time limit to accept it so you need to be quite quick to grab that offer if you want it so you need to pay a deposit to hold that offer so the amount that you paid will depend on which one of our accommodation providers you are booking with so accommodation is guaranteed for all first-year students and contracts start in September 2022 so at the moment as I said applications you can check our website applications will be opening but probably around March but you can email accommodation with any queries but have a look at the website first to get a good idea of what we have available and then once your visa is granted you can check that the details are correct this is really important that you do this quite quickly so if you're studying a degree level programme you should have 20 hours per week of work allowed with full time work during the vacation and if your programme is one year or more in length you should have 4 months after the course end date of the programme of duration on your visa if your programme is between 6 and 12 months you should have 2 months of duration after the course end date if any of this isn't correct you can report the areas the best way to do this would be to report them to the visa application centre in your home country before you travel but if you're unable to do that in time if you're in the UK report a BRP error within 10 days of collecting your BRP then post office and while Covid-19 is probably less of a problem now than it has been we've got a very strong vaccination programme in the UK it is still an issue and it's still having an impact on travel as I'm sure it is in your home country so it's a good idea to check the gov.uk border control website just to get an idea of what you may need to do before you travel to the UK with Covid-19 in mind so that's really the end of this presentation I hope it's been useful you should give a good idea of how to apply for a UK visa once you've used the presentation look at all our supporting documents and guidance then we look forward to seeing you at SOAS in September 2022 just before you go I'd like to just briefly mention the graduate route so you may have heard of this this is a new visa that started just this year in July and it's a post-study work visa it's a visa that allows you to work for either two or three years after you've completed your degree and you must have completed an undergraduate, postgraduate or research degree for an undergraduate bachelor's degree or a postgraduate master's degree you can get a two-year post-study work visa and for a research degree PhD you can get a three-year post-study work visa and you can apply once you've completed successfully your programme and your successful completion has been uploaded by SOAS to UKVI if you have dependence in the UK they can also apply at the same time as you and we'll tell you a lot more about this during the duration of your course so that's the end of my presentation as I said we don't have any questions today but we'll be contacting you soon with some live sessions and other ways that you can get in touch with us so I hope it was useful and thanks very much for listening