A Guide To Preparing Your Student Visa Application

The process of applying for a student visa to study abroad is a stressful one, as the governments of two different countries have to co-ordinate documents, identity confirmations, travel dates, and more. The result is, of course, a life-changing experience had overseas and a new knowledge of a subject you are passionate about, as well as new languages, cultures, cuisines and friends to fill your life with colour and wonderment. And who knows, you might even find a way to setup your own business in Australia too.

These things are what make studying abroad so intriguing, and aside from the elite courses available in other countries, the experience of the study itself is a big draw card for many students. The process can be as complex as a months-long correspondence with governing bodies and many late nights spent blindly trying to find your way through relevant websites, or as simple as searching for Cosmos Consultancy, a team of migration agents located in Melbourne, and running through the process with them.

Really, the step-by-step process of arranging your student visa application is simple, but there are many things you need to be aware of before, during, and after your application process, which is why we’ve put together a guide to preparing your student visa application.

Check Your Documents

First and foremost is the importance of your identifying documents. A foreign government needs to have confirmation that you are who you say you are, and your government needs to back that up with certified identity documents and relevant and current mailing addresses, birth certificates, and licenses.

The important thing about these documents is that they have all been updated where needed and they all reflect the same information, so if you license bears the previous address you lived at, make sure to have it updated before photocopying it to send through, and if your passport is near expiry you should definitely update it before submitting it, and before travelling.

Your overseas adventure could be disrupted if your passport number changes halfway through your time over there, and there is a unique level of difficulty associated with securing an Australian passport when living in another country.

Confirm All Your Details

Your student details and enrolment will all need to be confirmed with your relevant migration documents before you embark on this journey of a lifetime. The most important to thing to keep in mind is that all of your course-relevant details will be included on your immigration documents in order to keep track of why you’re in the country, and your student visa will need to be kept up to date with your study progress.

If, for instance, you fall behind and need to take more time to repeat a section of your study, you have to apply to extend your student visa to reflect that extra time needed, otherwise, you stand a very real chance of being deported back to Australia before you can finish your study.

Prepare Your Statement

Part of the process of preparing your visa is writing an explanatory statement to clarify why it is you want to study at that institution and why it is that the campus in that particular country should take you in. A way of putting it would be to think of selling them on the idea of you studying there. State the relevant reasons you chose that place as your place of study, why the course there appeals to you more than anywhere else, and why you should be granted access to a place in this course.

These statements are not necessary, but they go far to helping your application and show that you are really committed to your overseas study.

Triple Check Before Submitting

Finally, when you have your entire student visa application ready, check over the whole thing with a fine tooth comb. Check it over yourself once, then once with a friend and a checklist of everything needed for a successful application, then get an objective third party to check it with the checklist too.

Making sure you haven’t missed anything is crucial, and a third party won’t have been looking at it for months on end, so are more capable of reading what’s on the page in front of them, instead of what’s related in the context of your mind. You might look at a note on a page and know that that refers to the six or seven points in your mind, and then forget to put those point down on paper. An objective person will only see the one note, and ask for clarification.

With this, you’re ready to submit your student application, and get stuck into the world of overseas study! There’s no reason to delay, a whole new country of possibilities lies only an application away.