After getting ink in the printer (courtesy of mom - thanks mom!), I applied for my visa this evening. I filled out and submitted an online form, paid an exorbitant application fee, and made an appointment to get my biometrics taken next Friday, all in one fell swoop. I also printed out the almighty Appendix 8 and filled that out by hand, because it'll be sent to the embassy in New York along with all of my supporting documents. I also printed out the VAF9 Personal Details form, but I'm really not sure whether I'm supposed to fill that out by hand as well or not, because it asks all the same questions that the online application just asked. Time to email the guy at Uni of Ed's international office again, I suppose.
Next step is getting all of my supporting documents together, which means I need to figure out how to get my diploma from UNC out of its frame (it seems to be glued in there). I think it would also be helpful (though not necessary) if I could find my old expired passport. I'd like to have everything together and ready to go by next Friday, so when my biometrics appointment is over I can just stick everything in an envelope and send it on its way.
Coming attractions: giving notice at work, scheduling doctors' appointments, booking a flight, and finding a place to live!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Preparing to apply for the visa.
I got my CAS number today, which is exciting, because it means that I now officially exist in the eyes of the UK Border Agency. The visa I am applying for is a Tier 4 (General) Student Visa. The next steps are as follows: 1) Fill out the online application, print out the one bit that must be printed out and filled out by hand, and pay the application fee.
2) Go get my biometric data (all ten fingerprints and a digital photograph) taken.
3) Ship All The Things to the consulate in New York. This includes the printed-out part of the application, my original diploma and/or transcript from UNC (I might only have to send one of these things in, but I'm not clear on that just yet), my passport, two recent passport-sized photographs, and a bank statement.
And with that, we come to the subject of money, and also the first snag I have hit.
My fees for this program amount to £12,200. I am also expected to show living expenses amounting to £5,400 - assurance that I won't be going on public funds once I get to the UK. So all told, I have to show that I have access to the equivalent of £17,600, or $28,302.56, before I can get my visa. I knew this already. What I just found out today is that not only do I have to show that money, but I have to show that I have had that money for the past 28 days before I can apply.
I wish I had known this, like, a month ago.
From what I can see, I essentially have three options here:
1) Acquire said money as quickly as possible via bank transfers and loans, sit on it for 28 days, apply July 20 or so, and potentially not have my visa in time to fly over when I want to (around the third or fourth week of August), since visa processing is probably going to take 4-6 weeks. Will this be the end of the world? No. Will it be a serious bummer? Yes.
2) Go ahead and pay off as much of my tuition as I can, so that the amount I have to show is lower. This will make my life easier once I actually get over there, but time-wise, this doesn't really help my situation.
3) Enlist help from the parental units. I am allowed to show my parents' funds in place of my own, but I have to send my birth certificate and a letter from my parents saying that yes, they ARE in fact my parents, and yes, I have permission to use their money to the consulate along with everything else. Time-wise, this is the neatest solution, but there's a part of me that balks at relying on mommy and daddy's money at my age, y'know? I won't ACTUALLY be using it of course, with the exception of what's left in the college account, but that's how it'll seem to Those Who Are They at the Border Agency. But if I want things to happen in a timely manner, I'll just have to get over it. And also, who says they're going to agree to it anyway? :P
2) Go get my biometric data (all ten fingerprints and a digital photograph) taken.
3) Ship All The Things to the consulate in New York. This includes the printed-out part of the application, my original diploma and/or transcript from UNC (I might only have to send one of these things in, but I'm not clear on that just yet), my passport, two recent passport-sized photographs, and a bank statement.
And with that, we come to the subject of money, and also the first snag I have hit.
My fees for this program amount to £12,200. I am also expected to show living expenses amounting to £5,400 - assurance that I won't be going on public funds once I get to the UK. So all told, I have to show that I have access to the equivalent of £17,600, or $28,302.56, before I can get my visa. I knew this already. What I just found out today is that not only do I have to show that money, but I have to show that I have had that money for the past 28 days before I can apply.
I wish I had known this, like, a month ago.
From what I can see, I essentially have three options here:
1) Acquire said money as quickly as possible via bank transfers and loans, sit on it for 28 days, apply July 20 or so, and potentially not have my visa in time to fly over when I want to (around the third or fourth week of August), since visa processing is probably going to take 4-6 weeks. Will this be the end of the world? No. Will it be a serious bummer? Yes.
2) Go ahead and pay off as much of my tuition as I can, so that the amount I have to show is lower. This will make my life easier once I actually get over there, but time-wise, this doesn't really help my situation.
3) Enlist help from the parental units. I am allowed to show my parents' funds in place of my own, but I have to send my birth certificate and a letter from my parents saying that yes, they ARE in fact my parents, and yes, I have permission to use their money to the consulate along with everything else. Time-wise, this is the neatest solution, but there's a part of me that balks at relying on mommy and daddy's money at my age, y'know? I won't ACTUALLY be using it of course, with the exception of what's left in the college account, but that's how it'll seem to Those Who Are They at the Border Agency. But if I want things to happen in a timely manner, I'll just have to get over it. And also, who says they're going to agree to it anyway? :P
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The Notifying of Absolutely Everyone.
So far, apart from the obligatory status update on Facebook, I have sent emails to the personnel manager at the symphony I play with, former music teachers, present music colleagues, past employers, and some distant family members in Stapleford, England. Letting everyone know is going to be a heck of a job, because I actually didn't tell that many people that I was applying. I figured that the number of people who knew was going to equal the number of times I'd have to relive the disappointment if I didn't get in.
I'm also trying to sort out the sequence of What Happens Next. Before I can do anything, I have to wait for the University of Edinburgh to send me my CAS (confirmation of acceptance for studies) number. This is a magical number that I have to put on my visa application form, so nothing can really happen until I get it. One thing I can (and should) do this week is have a long talk with my bank. I have access to the funds to cover some, but not all, of the cost of this whole enterprise, so I'm going to need some kind of loan. And I just found out today that I won't know whether I'm going to get the Saltire Scholarship until the end of July, so I'm going to have to operate under the assumption that I'm NOT going to get it until then. Yay debt!
In conclusion, some explanation about the format: The title is the title of my favorite Scottish folk song, the Loch Tay Boat Song, and the background photo is one I took this past January, in the Cuillin Hills on the Isle of Skye.
I'm also trying to sort out the sequence of What Happens Next. Before I can do anything, I have to wait for the University of Edinburgh to send me my CAS (confirmation of acceptance for studies) number. This is a magical number that I have to put on my visa application form, so nothing can really happen until I get it. One thing I can (and should) do this week is have a long talk with my bank. I have access to the funds to cover some, but not all, of the cost of this whole enterprise, so I'm going to need some kind of loan. And I just found out today that I won't know whether I'm going to get the Saltire Scholarship until the end of July, so I'm going to have to operate under the assumption that I'm NOT going to get it until then. Yay debt!
In conclusion, some explanation about the format: The title is the title of my favorite Scottish folk song, the Loch Tay Boat Song, and the background photo is one I took this past January, in the Cuillin Hills on the Isle of Skye.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
I've always heard it's best to begin at the beginning.
We're living in a world with a generally short attention-span, so I'll give the Reader's Digest version first: My name is Lauren, I'm 23 years old, I was accepted into graduate school today, and I will be using this blog to chronicle my impending move from Durham, North Carolina, USA, to Edinburgh, Scotland, and my life as a grad student and an expat thereafter.
To give the context for all this, I have to turn the clock back about two years. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May of 2009 with a BA in psychology and a minor in music. Nine days after graduation, I boarded a plane bound for Dublin, Ireland and spent the next three months backpacking through Europe with various companions, including my best friend, my favorite cousin, my cousin's cousin, and for nine memorable days, a motley assortment of other 20-something backpackers. It was an incredible trip.
The highlight of that trip, thanks in no small part to the lovely and amazing people at Wild in Scotland, was the two weeks I spent in Scotland. I do not possess the vocabulary to describe how beautiful that country is, and won't attempt to do so just now. All I will say is that I missed it badly enough when I was gone to make two return trips: one in April 2010, and one this past January. My plan is to post stories and photos from all three of these trips intermittently over the coming months, but for now, on with the narrative!
Relocating to the UK has crossed my mind multiple times, and I investigated all the visa options I could find, only to discover that basically none of them are available to Americans. The Youth Mobility Scheme? Not available to Americans. An ancestry visa (my paternal grandmother was born in England, so I'd theoretically be eligible for this)? Not available to Americans. An internship with BUNAC? I was already too long out of school for that. From what I could see, the only open avenue would be WWOOFing, which is technically volunteer work and therefore allowable on a tourist visa, but I have zero experience working on farms, and no idea of whether I'd turn out to have any aptitude for it if I tried. And the tourist visa would run out in six months, anyway.
Cut to late January, 2011. It was my final day in Edinburgh before I would be returning home via London. Feeling peckish, I popped into a coffee shop on the Royal Mile. The guy behind the counter had an American accent, so I eagerly asked him how he'd managed to get a work visa. He responded that he was living in the UK on a student visa, which permitted him to work for 20 hours per week.
I had looked at going to school in the UK before this, but all the programs I found were either beyond my qualifications to get into, or of no interest to me. So it was almost on a whim that I logged onto the University of Edinburgh's website in the first week of February, when I was freshly back in the US and pining heavily for Scotland, to look at psychology programs. Lo and behold, what should I find but a year-long MSc program in performance psychology, beginning in September 2011, for which I was qualified and to which applications were still open.
At this point, it would be helpful for me to state that I am a musician. I've been playing the piano since I was six and the oboe since I was thirteen, and now play the oboe professionally. So a program in performance psychology seemed like it would be a natural fit for me. My understanding is that I will be somewhat of an anomaly in the field, since most of the existing research is in athletics and I want to study the performing arts, but as an oboe-playing colleague of mine said to me earlier today, "Tennis and music, same thing!"
So I applied. Filled out the application, wrote an essay, got a former professor and a former employer to write reference letters, wham bam thank you ma'am, done. The final piece of my application was submitted on May 12, and today I got my offer of admission.
And now the feverish planning for the move can commence! Classes start September 19, and my tentative plan at the moment is to fly to Edinburgh sometime in the second half of August. All the things which need to be done between now and then have been flying through my head all day, but mostly I've just been savoring the feeling of having gotten into grad school, and being about to move to a place I love. I'll be documenting the process as it unfolds here, so stay tuned!
In conclusion, here is a photo of me:
To give the context for all this, I have to turn the clock back about two years. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May of 2009 with a BA in psychology and a minor in music. Nine days after graduation, I boarded a plane bound for Dublin, Ireland and spent the next three months backpacking through Europe with various companions, including my best friend, my favorite cousin, my cousin's cousin, and for nine memorable days, a motley assortment of other 20-something backpackers. It was an incredible trip.
The highlight of that trip, thanks in no small part to the lovely and amazing people at Wild in Scotland, was the two weeks I spent in Scotland. I do not possess the vocabulary to describe how beautiful that country is, and won't attempt to do so just now. All I will say is that I missed it badly enough when I was gone to make two return trips: one in April 2010, and one this past January. My plan is to post stories and photos from all three of these trips intermittently over the coming months, but for now, on with the narrative!
Relocating to the UK has crossed my mind multiple times, and I investigated all the visa options I could find, only to discover that basically none of them are available to Americans. The Youth Mobility Scheme? Not available to Americans. An ancestry visa (my paternal grandmother was born in England, so I'd theoretically be eligible for this)? Not available to Americans. An internship with BUNAC? I was already too long out of school for that. From what I could see, the only open avenue would be WWOOFing, which is technically volunteer work and therefore allowable on a tourist visa, but I have zero experience working on farms, and no idea of whether I'd turn out to have any aptitude for it if I tried. And the tourist visa would run out in six months, anyway.
Cut to late January, 2011. It was my final day in Edinburgh before I would be returning home via London. Feeling peckish, I popped into a coffee shop on the Royal Mile. The guy behind the counter had an American accent, so I eagerly asked him how he'd managed to get a work visa. He responded that he was living in the UK on a student visa, which permitted him to work for 20 hours per week.
I had looked at going to school in the UK before this, but all the programs I found were either beyond my qualifications to get into, or of no interest to me. So it was almost on a whim that I logged onto the University of Edinburgh's website in the first week of February, when I was freshly back in the US and pining heavily for Scotland, to look at psychology programs. Lo and behold, what should I find but a year-long MSc program in performance psychology, beginning in September 2011, for which I was qualified and to which applications were still open.
At this point, it would be helpful for me to state that I am a musician. I've been playing the piano since I was six and the oboe since I was thirteen, and now play the oboe professionally. So a program in performance psychology seemed like it would be a natural fit for me. My understanding is that I will be somewhat of an anomaly in the field, since most of the existing research is in athletics and I want to study the performing arts, but as an oboe-playing colleague of mine said to me earlier today, "Tennis and music, same thing!"
So I applied. Filled out the application, wrote an essay, got a former professor and a former employer to write reference letters, wham bam thank you ma'am, done. The final piece of my application was submitted on May 12, and today I got my offer of admission.
And now the feverish planning for the move can commence! Classes start September 19, and my tentative plan at the moment is to fly to Edinburgh sometime in the second half of August. All the things which need to be done between now and then have been flying through my head all day, but mostly I've just been savoring the feeling of having gotten into grad school, and being about to move to a place I love. I'll be documenting the process as it unfolds here, so stay tuned!
In conclusion, here is a photo of me:
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