 Thank you so much for joining us today. Today we are joined by John who is our student advice service manager and he will be running through a presentation on how to make a student visa application from outside the UK. We are also joined by Rachel, Amy, Lisa and Kim from our student recruitment team and they're here to answer all your questions. If you do have any questions throughout the presentation or afterwards during our Q&A session you can just type them in the questions function and they will be aiming to answer as many as they can. So I'll just hand over to you now John, thank you. Thanks very much Katie. So I'm going to be talking to you today about how to make a student visa application outside the UK and this is me. I'm John Hitchman, I'm the student advice service manager. We have a small team who provide support with all the non-academic things you might need. So accommodation, finance and in this case immigration. So we give you that sort of support. You can provide that support before you come to SOAS and we're going into a lot of detail about this whole process and the presentation probably takes about 15 minutes and then we've got loads of time afterwards for questions about anything you want to talk about. So as well as the presentation and questions afterwards we also have some very detailed online guidance that will send you a link for when we send you a recording of the webinar. So yeah bear in mind it's being recorded so you'll be able to go back over it if there's things that you didn't catch you can rewind later and watch it at your own leisure. But yeah we've got the online guidance as a step by step guide to doing the online student visa application and there's also a guide about documents. We also have a guide about the immigration health surcharge as well which is something we'll talk about in the presentation. So to crack on, yes this is how you make the student visa application. We're going to cover how you do it, how do you apply for this visa, where can I apply for the visa and particularly when should you apply and then what documents do you need as well and then a question that's probably one of the big ones is how much money do you need to show that you have in order to get the visa and then we'll talk about whether you can bring your family members with you and get a visa for them as well and then as I said at the end there was to be plenty of time for question. So who can apply for a student visa? So to apply you must have accepted an unconditional offer at SOAS and before you apply you're going to need two things. You're going to need a CAD which is a confirmation of acceptance for studies. Now that's an electronic document that SOAS issue but using the UK VI or UK government computer system. So this document will allow you to make the visa application and it means we're confirming that you're a student and that we want you to come and study with us for visa purposes. And then secondly need to meet the maintenance requirements. So when you hear this word maintenance what that really means is money. You need to show that you have a certain amount of money. We'll go into a lot more detail about that shortly. So how do I apply? You use the online application system and there are things you have to do as part of this process. You have to pay the immigration health care charge. Now this is a charge oh excuse me hold on a second. This is a charge that allows you to access the NHS and the NHS is our national health service. It means you can get any health care that you need except for a non-urgent operation. So everything else will be completely covered for the whole duration of your student visa and that costs £470 per year of leave. So that's per year of the length of your visa not the length of your course. However there's an asterisk there and that asterisk is there because if you're an EU national and you have an EHIC card, the European Health Care Insurance Card, and that was issued in your EU country and you're applying for your visa this year so after the 1st January. You may be entitled to a refund but I think the important thing to bear in mind here is this is just for people who aren't intending to work whilst studying. So you plan to do any part-time work at all this unfortunately isn't going to apply to you but otherwise you may be entitled to a refund. You can find out more on the gov.uk website. You'll be able to claim that refund in January 2022 so in a few months time. So you pay the IHS everybody's got to pay that but you know EU nationals may be able to get a refund. Then you also pay the application fee so the £348 is the standard fee and that will give you the 15 day service so that is a processing time of 15 working days turn your visa around. Now if you want to get your visa a bit quicker and you're happy to pay more you can pay £568 for the five-day expedited service. This is available in most countries but you need to check local services which you can find online. As part of the process you're going to be uploading documents and then you may have to attend the biometric appointment and this is to provide your fingerprints and a scan of your face and you may need to attend a brief online interview as well. Now the interviews nothing to worry about it's a very simple process and probably just take 10-15 minutes where you ask a few questions about why you're studying in the UK but the interviewing it will not be all students and the biometric appointment will be applied to some students but I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second and then depending on what country you've been living in or your country of nationality that you live in you may also need to provide a TB test as part of your student visa application. Okay so where can you apply? So you could apply most people would be applying in their country of nationality or where you're living and we've got living there in inverted commas. So the idea is if you were in another country so that's of your nationality but you are perhaps there as a worker so a work visa or perhaps you're already a student in a different country a third country not your home country then that would one of a working or student visa or some sort of residence card would allow you to apply for a visa there. If you're just traveling or there is a visitor on a short-term tourist type of visa you wouldn't be able to make your student visa application and you'd have to return to your country of nationality to apply. So at the end of your online application you need to book an appointment usually and that appointment will probably be to give you a biometrics and you can read instructions about how to do that. Now some of these these appointment arrangements may be slightly different due to the pandemic and how that's impacting locally to you. So as I said biometric appointment that will be for some students and the interview appointment again is only going to be for certain students and once your visa is issued you're going to be getting a 90-day being yet so that's a three-month visa stamp in your in your passport that allows you to travel to the UK and it gives you a bit of flexibility in case you're having or facing any sort of delays because obviously over the past year travel has been quite messed up and I know things are getting back to normal for most people but in some areas you may still have some delays. So the 90-day being yet just gives you a bit of flexibility when traveling to the UK and then once you're in the UK the vignette allows you to get into the UK once you're in the country you can collect your biometric residence permit and that's a plastic card with your visa details on it and you normally collect that from a post office which would be near to so as in most cases but the exception to that would be EU nationals who have a biometric passport so you won't be attending a biometric appointment and you will actually use an app as part of the application process to scan your biometric passport and the biometric details will be taken from that and instead of a vignette a 90-day vignette you'll be granted a 90-day digital status so you won't be able to see your visa but it will be attached to your passport and if this is the case for you if this is the kind of visa that you have you need to keep some evidence of your travel into the UK that's going to be useful for enrollment because you're not going to have a visa stamp or anything to show the duration and period in which you could travel to the UK okay so when should you apply for the visa so you can actually apply now up to six months before the course start date so you could really apply at any time from now but it's important before you apply to make sure that you're you're ready to do that so make sure you have all the listed academic documents in your CAS so if for instance you're coming to study a master's program at SOAS you've most likely done an undergraduate program somewhere else now at SOAS academically we need to see evidence of that undergrad to give you a place on the master's and there may be other things but that would be a quite a normal document you're probably going to need to upload a copy of that and in some cases you may need to show the original document at some stage as part of your visa application process and then the other thing that we keep coming back to is making sure that you meet the financial requirements but also having the correct documents to show that so just having the money isn't enough you have to have the right documents that the UK government demand okay so what documents do you need so a valid passport we would recommend it's not it's not a requirement but we would suggest that you have a passport validity of six months just to allow travel flexibility so when you request your CAS if you've got six months definitely a passport that's great you need your confirmation of acceptance to studies and you need qualifications that are listed in your CAS as well so we've covered that a little bit just now now proof of English language ability you're going to need to show that in order to get a place on your course here but actually unless you're studying below degree level you won't need to provide any evidence of that in your visa application and then proof of maintenance as we keep saying is showing that you've got the funds to support yourself whilst in the UK that's the money and then finally you may be a national of a country that's listed as low risk it's sometimes called differentiation as well so if you're a low risk national what that means is the UK government they don't want to see evidence of your finances or your academic qualifications when you apply for your visa however they retain the right to ask for them so we would always suggest that you have those documents prepared and ready but you just don't submit them in case they're requested because normally if documents are requested later which they are sometimes you haven't got a very long period of time in which to respond and get those back to the person looking at the case work assessing your visa so a CAS confirmation of acceptance to study so let's go a bit more detail into that so CAS can only be issued if you're an undergrad student you need to affirm your unconditional offer and if you're a postgraduate taught student you've accepted an unconditional offer and paid a thousand pounds to deposit um you must have formed the admissions team about any scholarships you've been awarded this is so that they can be added to your CAS if you have a scholarship that's being paid to you via SOAS that money can be put on your CAS and it means you won't have to show bank statements to cover that amount and the earliest you could use your CAS to apply as we've said is six months before the start date of your course if you're an undergraduate student when completing your UCAS application you would have indicated whether you need a student visa and once you have a firm to offer and your firm to offer becomes unconditional you can complete the online CAS request now my understanding is if you didn't make it clear you needed a student visa in your UCAS application you can still request one via the online form and in your CAS request you provide some supporting documents so you need a color scan of your passport everyone's going to need that evidence of scholarship if you're if you're lucky enough to have one um evidence is evidence of tuition fees paid if applicable so if you've already paid your fees to SOAS at the point that your CAS is issued they can be shown as paid and then you don't have to show that money in your bank account or anywhere else when you're making your visa application and then your previous UK student visas or tier four visas that you've had in the past so if you've traveled to the UK as a student before the admissions team would like to see copies of those and finally if you're under 18 you'll need a completed parental consent form completed by your parents and as I keep saying we advise that your passport needs to be valid for at least six months when you request your CAS and the deadline to request the CAS is 30 days before the start date of your program so postgraduate students it's quite similar situation to be assigned a CAS you need an unconditional offer you need to have accepted that offer paid the deposit or provided official evidence that you've been awarded scholarship or being sponsored by a recognized sponsor that could include your home government an international organization or company so if your sponsor's covering your full fees then you wouldn't be required to pay a deposit you could just show that they're going to be paying for your tuition at SOAS and to go into a bit more detail about postgraduate students to be assigned a CAS you're going to need to complete the CAS request form online and in the CAS request it's similar documents to undergrad so you're going to need a color scan of your passport evidence of a scholarship if you have one evidence of tuition fees paid if applicable previous UK student visas if you've traveled to the UK before parental consent form if you're under 18 and as I like to say we advise that your passport needs to be valid for at least six months before you request your CAS and the deadline again is 30 days before the start date of your course so that's the deadline to request your CAS and admissions will send your CAS by email please check the details in your CAS statement if there are any mistakes please contact CAS request outside of the UK to get those amended as soon as possible okay so we've talked about CAS is low risk nationals I think it's time to move on to the next slide so finally get to that the money bit so how much money will you need to show so your program is longer than eight months you're going to need to show 12,006 pounds of maintenance so this is the amount that the UK government say that you need to live in London for nine months but it's actually the amount you need for any period over eight months and if your program is shorter than eight months then you need to show that you have 1,334 pounds for each partial month or each month or partial month so if you were studying a program that was say six and a half months long you'd need to show 1,334 pounds times seven months so as well as that you need to also show that you have the full fees as well as the maintenance as I said before the fees could be shown as paid on your CAS and then you don't need to show that money in the bank if they're fully paid or partially paid you'd need to show the rest of that money in your bank account or in some other form perhaps sponsorship or loans now if you have a sponsorship or scholarship or an educational loan that doesn't cover your full living costs and tuition fees you may need to balance out the difference with money in your own bank account or if you are just paying funding yourself or your parents are funding you then all that money will need to be shown in a bank account now the account can be in your name or a parents name if you're going to use your parents account you're going to need written permission from them that could be a very simple letter doesn't have to be complicated just signed signed and dated by your parents given permission for you to use the money and you'll also need to provide your original birth certificate confirming your relationship and the money must be held in the bank for at least 28 consecutive days before the date that you apply and the 28 day period must end less than one month before the day you apply and when we say the day that you apply what we mean by that is the day that you pay for your visa fee online so that's your application date not the date that you maybe go for for an interview or anything like that even though that may feel more like the application date is the day that you pay online for your visa so can you bring your family with you well um you can if you're a full-time postgraduate student on a program that's over nine months in length or if your government sponsors student and the program is longer than six months and family members would include your husband your wife your civil partner unmarried partner or child under 18 and the maintenance the finances you need to show that you have some funds to support that person or that they have their own funds if they're an adult but the amount is slightly less so it's 7605 for a program over eight months or 845 pounds per month if the program is less than eight months in duration okay can i book my accommodation now um yeah you can you can apply as soon as you have a firm to offer and you can apply via the so as accommodation web page and after viewing the options that are there you'll you'll receive an offer of accommodation and a short time limit in which to accept it and then you'll need to pay a deposit and this varies between providers and you can um if you're a first-year your your accommodation is guaranteed so um it's good i did start looking for that now and um contract start in september if you have any questions about accommodation you can contact my colleague joe hogan our accommodation manager and her email address is accommodation at saras.ac.uk so once your visa is granted you've been through this process done the online application provided your documents and biometrics and other stuff that you have to do it's important that you check for the details are correct so you'll usually be receiving an email that confirms your visa and i think an important thing to remember is if you're doing a degree level program so if it's undergrad degree or above you should have 20 hours of week 20 hours of work per week allowed that should be clearly laid out on your visa email and then if your program is a year long so 365 days or more you should have four months of visa validity after your course end date on the cast so check that in case and the errors have been made and if your programs between six and 12 months you would get two months after the course end date and the easiest thing to do would be to report this error to your visa application centre soon as you see it but if you don't notice this until you're in the UK and when you if you pick up your BRP then you must report an error on your BRP within 10 days of receiving it and then once visa is all okay and you're ready to travel then please just check travel arrangements to the UK obviously coronavirus is still having an impact even though things are greatly improved in the United Kingdom so before you leave check this website gov.uk board control we'll send your link to this and i think the key things to take away are that everybody that's flying to the UK or traveling to the UK must provide a negative Covid test taken three days before you travel and you also need to complete a thing called a passenger locator form which just really gives your UK address on arrival and another contact details and then we have a sort of colour coding system depending on where you're traveling from so if you've been in a country or countries in the 10 days prior to traveling the countries are coded as follows so there's a green list of countries so you could arrive in the UK but you must take a Covid test on day two after you arrive okay that's what you have to do from a green country from an ambulance country on arrival you must quarantine in the place you are staying so actually include your university halls and for two weeks you need to stay there and then if you arrive from a red list country you need to quarantine in a government hotel so you have to pay for that and also take two Covid tests during that period so it's a really good idea to have a look at this now to get an idea of how your travel plans might be looking also please bear in mind these things change quite frequently and you know in general things are improving but you know keep your eye on this web page regularly for updates okay so that's pretty much the end of it not quite but sort of being through the whole process now once you've followed our guidance you know use the resources you should find it fairly straightforward get your visa plan your travel and we look forward to seeing you at SOAS that'll be brilliant and then once you've done your degree we have a new visa that's actually starting in about two weeks time called the graduate route and this visa will allow you to stay in the UK after you've graduated or after you've finished your degree to work for two or three years after your program and if you're if you're studying to qualify for this you need to be studying a degree program so an undergrad or postgrad or research degree if you're doing an undergrad or postgrad taught degree you can stay for two years and if you're doing a research degree then you'll be able to get a visa for three years to stay and work and the visa would allow work for any employer it's not sponsored by a particular employee you don't have to have a job to get this visa so you can apply once you've completed your program and if you have dependents in the UK they could also apply with you so details are still to be confirmed because we're not exactly sure of all the fine fine tuning but we know it's going ahead and we know it's going to be running for the foreseeable future so that's the end of my presentation thanks for listening and now it's time to open the floor for your questions thank you thanks for that John so the team have been answering questions as we've been going through the through the event today and we will continue to answer more questions so do feel free to pop as many questions as you would like into the the questions box I will go through a few questions that I could see were occurring questions so it might be helpful to everybody and we have put all the answers for everybody to see but I think it might be worth going through some of them with you through the audio so I think one of the main questions that we had come up both in this session this evening and also in the earlier session today was can international students come to the UK if they are coming from a red list country so I know that there has been a little bit of confusion about this I think when you read various different websites or different media outlets but as a student you will have a residency status so you can come to the UK if you're coming from a red list country what it will mean though is that you do have to quarantine and at the moment that quarantine would need to be within a government recognized hotel as universities across the UK we are lobbying to see if it would be possible for students to quarantine in their university accommodation or in other accommodations that they have chosen but at the moment the rule is that you would have to quarantine in a government recognized hotel but it does mean that you can still come into the country and it does mean that you can still apply for your visas to come to the UK. Another question that we've had that's kind of connected to that is what if you don't want to come for term one or what if you can't travel to the UK in term one through any number of things like delays in visa processing or it could be just in terms of actual travel with flights it could be that you are a high you're in a high-risk category so you don't want to travel currently so the university's policy on this is that for term one everything that we offer in person so that's the seminars and the tutorials which are small group teaching we will also offer an online version of that and so from the university's perspective it is possible for you to join us after term one for term two what we're just waiting on is some further guidance from the UK VI on what that means for your visa processing so we're just waiting for them to give us the last possible date that you can enter into the UK to start your programs and we will be communicating that out to all the students as soon as we have that and we're hopeful that we might get that update before the end of June and that leads me on to the next question which I know many students have posed both here and also through the other channels that we have such as our Facebook off-holders group and that is that we have made the decision to process all the CAS requests from the 1st of July we will definitely be processing all the requests from that date if we get an update from the UK VI earlier than that then we would also start processing them earlier but that allows us to one make sure that all of the information we have from the UK VI is up to date as possible so that we're giving all of you the correct information and allowing you to make the right decisions in terms of when you'll apply for your visas the other thing that that also allows is that many students still waiting for their final transcripts for their final certificates and that allows you more time to get those into us and finally a lot of the scholarships that are awarded are awarded towards the end of June and the start of July so again whether those be internal or external scholarships that will allow us to include those into your CAS and with the inclusion of that into your CAS if they're ones that are internal say through the university we will be able to include them into your CAS if you if you know about the outcome of them before you apply for your CAS but we'll also be able to include them after you've got your CAS but what we do there is as long as your CAS is not what we call it in play which means that you haven't actually started that process of applying for your visa then we can update it with that information rather than giving you a whole new CAS so we can update that information so those are just a few of the questions that came in through the chat I'm just going to scroll through and see if there is any others I think John there is actually quite a few students who were asking about applying for their visas from the UK so we have a student who says that they're already doing a previous qualification in the UK we have another student who notes that they are currently on a dependence visa in the UK and then we have one final student who is in the UK but is in Switzerland and has been working in Switzerland and is wondering if he will have to go back to Pakistan to do his visa or whether he can do it from Switzerland so maybe you can talk about where they're applying from and how that works yeah yeah thank you so I'll start with a Switzerland one first because that's probably the easiest if you're a Pakistani or a non-EA national but you're in a well if you're in another country with a visa to allow you to be there to do anything other than be a tourist so if you're working then you have a work visa then you should be able to make your student visa application in Switzerland it would only be if you're there as a tourist or a visitor that you'd be stopped from applying so I think that should be pretty straightforward now if you're already studying a degree in the United Kingdom and you want to make your visa application here that gets a little bit more complicated but I'll try and do a sort of broad overview to cover the situations I can think of so if you're studying an undergraduate program at the moment essentially we have a thing called well it's what the UK visa is an information called academic progression and it's a bit of a misnomer but what it really means is they want to see that you've completed the course for which your current visa was granted before they'll let you apply for a new student visa in the UK so if you're doing an undergrad somewhere outside of SOAS and you're planning to come to SOAS to do a master's degree if you get your undergraduate degree results before you start the course at SOAS then you can apply for your visa and you know essentially you meet the academic progression requirements now if you're coming from somewhere else and perhaps you're already doing a master's program and then you want to come to SOAS to do a second master's now it may be possible to justify that I think that's okay if it's sort of fits in with your career plans so that's acceptable to UKVI to stay at the same academic level in that instance but for you to make your visa application in the UK because you won't have completed your master's degree if it runs the same sort of period as ours September to September you're usually going to need a letter from your university that says you're highly likely to complete your degree okay now some universities are happy to write these letters and others are not so this is you know if you know your results for your master's come out after the start of the master's program at SOAS I would suggest getting in touch with your current university as soon as possible for advice about that because if you can't meet that requirement you will you will have to go home to make your visa application so it'll be good to know that sooner rather than later. Great thank you John and just related to that one of the comments you made there John is that and this is another question that's come up a number of students have been asking us about final transcripts and final certificates we do realise that there are a lot of delays the students are facing this year with COVID much like they did last year what we have allowed is that we can accept as John kind of mentioned there a provisional certificate and we can accept kind of final transcripts so again what it'd be worth doing is contacting the institution that you're currently at and asking them what they are able to provide you in lieu of a final certificate and then we would look at that and see as long as we feel that it shows that you have completed the program and it shows the final grade that you've been given then we will be able to accept that in order to make you unconditional so it's just a case of reaching out to your current your current institution and asking them what they are able to provide and similarly if you aren't if you are expecting your results to come through in kind of June July August but you think there might have been some delays with that or you hear in the next couple of weeks that there are any changes to that again what I would do is reach out to us here at SOAS so if you go to our international pages you will see that we have international recruitment managers for each region and their email addresses are on the website so if you reach out to them and you say I'm currently studying in Indonesia and my school and particularly the school board in which I sit won't have the results through until a certain date then as long as we know that we can make preparations for that so it's to try and keep us as up to dated as you can. All of our staff are already keeping up to date with what's happening in various different countries and also in various different provinces or regions of different countries because we do realise that in some areas it can be done on a state-by-state basis or a provincial basis and so we are keeping as up to date with that as possible and we we reach out to a lot of kind of joint associations to get that information but it also helps if you are able to provide us with that as well so if you think there are going to be any delays in your results or your final transcripts just reach out to your institution that you're at and reach out to us with that information and that will help us to find the best route for you in terms of confirming your place with us. I think there's been a couple of questions about scholarships and how the visa process works for scholarships so in most instances if you are getting a fully funded scholarship so say I know there's been note here of the Alan and Nesta scholarship and also the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship what normally happens with those scholarships is that once you have enrolled at the university either online or in person that enrollment serves as kind of the kickstart to you receiving those funds so many of the many of the organizations both internally and externally that we work with they want to know that you've been fully enrolled in a program before the funds are processed so what that means from a visa standpoint is that you may well have to pay the visa fees and any of the associated fees with your visa application ahead of receiving your scholarship and then once you have received that scholarship obviously the money that you get in that scholarship will cover a range of different parts so it could cover all of your living costs and all of your tuition fees but you would basically take the money from what's given to you to use that it normally isn't processed in advance of you making your visa application. Let me just scroll down and see if there's any more kind of common questions but as I can see the team have been answering the questions in the chat for you so hopefully you're finding this useful so I can see a few people have noted about the IELTS exam that they have an unconditional offer but they haven't taken the IELTS. In terms of so as we have a range of different ways in which we assess students English language ability and as a sponsor we are able to accept other English language qualifications as long as we can justify how we believe that you are showing your English language ability within that so you don't necessarily have to have an IELTS in order to be able to go ahead with your visa application as long as the university feels that the self that you have taken meets our requirements and we have included that into the CAS for you. So I think we've had a few more questions about the CAS so just to reconfirm that we have started we did process some CASs earlier on so if you applied for your CAS before June 1st we already processed the CAS request that came into us or kind of in the final stages of producing those CASs if you applied for your CAS after June 1st you will have received an email from us which stated that we aren't processing the CASs until July and so we are now looking to process all the CASs requested from after June 1st in from the 1st of July because we're just waiting for that visa guidance from the UKVI as opposed to what you would do if you want to come for Term 2 or what the latest date that you could enter into the UK is based on the visa application so we will be updating you on that as quickly as possible if we have an update ahead of the 1st of July then we will start processing those CASs earlier on if not we will definitely process them on the 1st of July and just give you what information we have at that point. What I would say is that we are already getting the files ready so if you've already submitted a CAS request and you've got that email notification it doesn't mean that on July 1st you have to put another request in the request you've put in already will already stand and we are already preparing the information for those CASs to process and send them out as soon as we hit July 1st. So again there's been a couple of questions about scholarships from institutions like Goodenough so basically if you provide us with information of the scholarships that you have been awarded and we would need to see the final award if they are scholarships they're external to us then we can include that in the CAS but also you'd be including that as part of your visa application so where we know ahead of time that you are in receipt of a scholarship and where we have seen evidence of that we can include it but also obviously that's something you need to think about including when you are making your visa application. So again I think we've got more questions about applying for a visa if you're already in the UK and hopefully John's response has already answered that for you. Let me see if there's anything else. So just to clarify it isn't CAS letters for your particular countries that aren't being sent out at the moment we aren't sending out any of the CAS letters or any countries at the moment unless you already had submitted your CAS request earlier on during the year so and it's just say that we can get the final award as much of an update from the UK VI as possible and have that ready for you as well and with processing times the processing times for visas depending on where you're applying from can vary usually between about two to three weeks and eight weeks and eight weeks is really kind of the much larger end of it and that doesn't tend to be the case for most students and there's also priority visa processing that you can do. So we've looked at the timeline and we do feel that that will still be adequate time for you to get your CAS apply for your visas and be in receipt of your visas in order to come and start on our program. So I think there's a couple of questions about how long it takes you to receive your CAS once you've accepted your unconditional offer and so as I say it's just about filling in the CAS request form on our website and once you fill that in as long as we're ahead or sorry as long as we're past July 1st we'll get those processed out as quickly as possible for you. We do have a team who will be working on them and as I say they are already preparing the files for them so we are very positive that we will be able to get the CASs out to you very quickly and effectively once we hit July 1st. So again I think there's a few more questions about again entering into the UK after term one so this is this is the main thing that we're talking about here is that we as an institution are happy for you to start your course in person in term two and do term one fully remotely. What we're just checking with with the UK VI is what date they see as the latest entry date for coming in to start the program and just making sure those two things match up as much as possible. There always is a period of time where students can arrive into the UK after they've got their visas and that has been extended because of Covid so it's the 90 day vignette but we're just making sure that all the information we give you is correct because obviously if you do apply for your visa say in July or August it might not that 90 days might not take you all the way up until that first couple of weeks of January so that's why we're checking on that for you. And all CAS requests we are processing all countries together so it's not like we'll process one country and then another and then another we're going to process them on a date by date basis for all students who have applied for them so not just based on which country you're coming from. I think there's a few quick questions here that are not so much related to the visas but are more related to scholarships so I know that there's a couple of questions with regards to the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship. If you have an offer with us we have extended the deadlines to accept those offers to the end of July and that's with various different scholarships in mind so it should be fine for you to await the confirmation of that in order to accept us once you know that you have been confirmed for that scholarship. I'm just going to quickly scroll through and see if there are any more questions that maybe it would be good for John to answer so let me have a quick look. Okay so John we do have a student who says I'm still a bit confused about the 28 day rule for finances can this be clarified further would you mind to go into it again John if that's okay? Sure kid thanks. So yes if you're showing money in the bank so you need to show if you say your fees are paid to so-as and they're shown on your cards then you need to show that for a program say a one-year program you have 12,000 and six pounds in the bank. To do that you need to hold that money for 28 consecutive days so you show a bank statement showing a 28 day period that you've held that money that balance has stayed the same or over that balance for 28 days it doesn't drop below that period for a 28 day period so it doesn't drop below that balance for a 28 day period and that 28 day period that could finish the day before you apply or pay online or it could finish up to one month before that day but if your statements are more than a month old on the day that you apply which is the day that you pay online for your visa application they won't be acceptable either so ideally if you can now get the money into a bank account it can be a savings account as long as you can access it but it does have to be cash funds it can't be an overdraft you can't use a credit card you can't use shares or any other financial instruments you know it has to be money in the bank that you could spend if you wanted to but ideally if you could put those funds into a separate account you know allowing a little bit for currency fluctuation as well if you know that your local currency does does go up and down you may need to put a little bit more in there just to allow for that but essentially it's a consecutive 28 day period that ends less than one month from the day that you pay online for your visa application. Right thanks thanks John and then I think we've had another question that says hi clarification on the 90 day vignette is this connected to the start date of my course can I enter the UK up to 90 days before the start date? Right thanks Kim so yeah it's good it's probably good to talk about that so no the 90 days is really designed for flexibility because of travel issues due to COVID but the vignette the earliest you could enter the UK would be up to one month before the start date because if you're doing a degree program of a year in length or more so you wouldn't be allowed to come into the UK any earlier than that I'm afraid but that should hopefully be enough time for you to get here you know get comfortable in your accommodation before you start studying. Thanks John and again that's why we're we're also looking at January and we're kind of looking at that 90 day vignette that you have and obviously making sure that we provide you with as much helpful information on when to apply for your visa. Sorry to jump in but what I would say about the 90 day vignette if we find that we can allow study remotely for term one so last year people occasionally their 90 day vignette would expire and you could apply for a replacement vignette so the vignette is a sort of travel document you already have the visa like the visa is granted to give you the vignette if the remote study is allowed and maybe your 90 day vignette expires in you know November or something like that you want to come in January and that's allowed which obviously at the moment we we're still waiting to hear but if it is you could apply for a replacement vignette which it costs about £150 so it adds a bit of cost but it doesn't mean your visa won't work you know your visa's still there you just need to replace that 90 day vignette Yeah exactly so we're just kind of waiting to see what those options are for you so whether it is that you get a cash which is looking at you coming in January or whether you use the cash that you have in September apply for your visa get your vignette and then get an extension to that so that's why we're kind of being very careful in terms of what when we produce the cash is and also making sure that we're just as up to date as possible from our university side. I think we've had a few students who've asked about English language requirements in regards to whether their degree that they took before will still be valid so with regards to our English language requirements if you've taken a undergraduate degree in the UK or you've taken an undergraduate degree in the medium of English in another country but it is clearly marked on your degree that that is in the medium of English language we will accept that for up to five years so if you've taken that degree within a five year period then we will accept that as your English language requirement if you've taken an English language test and that English language test was taken more than two years ago then you would have to retake the English language test so there are different periods depending on whether you took a full undergraduate degree or postgraduate degree or whether you've taken an English language test and then John there's another one on the finances here that just says what documents specifically do we need to request from a bank to prove the financial part? Okay I mean yeah I suppose the thing about UK visas immigration guidance is very much based on on the UK banking system so what we have here and what they're expecting to see is a chronological statement so that's a document that shows all the money that's come in or out of your account for that 28 day period and I think in some countries that you know the bank system looks quite similar to the UK in others very different now there may be other documents that are accepted so for instance in China there are sometimes a document called a certificate of deposit which does a similar thing but doesn't have the balance and that doesn't have the day-to-day balance on there but in general a statement a day-to-day statement is is the thing that's needed chronological statement but we'll send a link round to our guidance and our guidance goes into a lot of detail about exactly what documents are acceptable and exactly how they should look. I think a few students have asked if there is a vaccine requirement for the visa which there isn't so we can answer that one there for you and then maybe we'll have time for one more question so let me just have a look and see so I do see that there's been a couple of questions with regards to working in the UK whilst you're studying so just to say with this that you will still need to show the finances to fund your degree and your living costs when you're applying for your visa as opposed to showing part of the funding and then hoping to to work whilst you're studying and have covered some of the cost of living from that work it is possible to work whilst you study you can do up to 20 hours per week so usually we at the university don't suggest doing that many hours what I think you've got to do is see your either undergraduate course or postgraduate course as a full-time job in itself and then what I normally suggest to students is to do about 10 to 12 hours of work per week when they first arrive and see how they cope with that workload and then possibly there might be times of the year where they have a heavier workload or a lighter workload and so they can do a little bit more casual work or a bit less casual work but what I would say is that that work that you do it helps in terms of your comfort within the UK and it helps in terms of knowing that you have a buffer in terms of the cost but it's still very much suggested that you know that you have the money to cover the cost of your course and of your living costs pre-arriving in the UK so to already have that down I don't think that you can fund a UK degree and your living costs in the UK from casual work that you would do as an international student and so I do tend to stress that with students before they arrive because that can lead to complications once you are in the UK or it could mean that you aren't granted the visa in the first instance as well so you do have to think about how you're going to showcase those funds before you arrive in the UK and then anything you earn through part-time work can help to put your mind at rest whilst you're in the UK can possibly help you have a you know a bit more of a comfortable time in the UK or spend a bit more in the UK but it shouldn't be there to fund your studies because I don't think that it's really it's ever really going to fund your studies in terms of part-time work so I think that probably brings us to the end of the session now that's brilliant thank you so much Kim and thank you so much John for the presentation you'll all be receiving this recording via email and like John mentioned that'll also include a link to some more details and another guide for you so hopefully that will continue to help to answer your question if you have anything else you do think of that you want to ask or you need clarity on you can email study at soas.ac.uk and then we also have a live chat function on our website so you can just click on the question mark on our website and then speak to one of our advisors that way as well so thank you again to the presenters and everyone for coming and hope you have a good rest of the day thank you thank you and we will be providing for any of the questions that we weren't able to answer in the in the chat box today we will be going through all of the questions that have been submitted today and providing a follow-up FAQ as well which will be included in the emails that go out to you so if you haven't had any of your questions answered yet we will try and include all of them into the FAQs. Perfect thanks Kim take care everyone