Well, consider this an open letter to the UK Visas and Immigration department worldwide. If you belong to any third world country; visa applications and waiting in long queues for long periods for such reasons will be a lifelong problem unless you are politician who can corrupt some millions from the economy to create a lush and luxury lifestyle for yourself throughout the world and gaining immense amount of hatred from your own people which doesn't effect anything.
This doesn't stop ordinary people from travelling for different reasons like business trips, leisure trips, special health treatment and most importantly higher education. I am someone who has studied abroad for most of his life and have always been in the trap of getting visa renewals and preparing applications and ensuring no documents are forgotten. You just want to make sure that everything goes alright and every little thing in the application requirement becomes significant. I have applied for visas for almost all the developed countries including USA, Canada, Schengen, Australia, South Africa, Japan, China and many more for different reasons. Each of these countries have long and tiring procedures especially with the document preparation but more than that they have minimum bank balance demands that you must fulfil as they highly fear their jobs being taken over, even more than the self checkout machines. Being blessed enough, I was able to abide by those demand and successfully got visas for these countries several times without any problems.
Real problems popped up when I applied for UK Tier 4 general student visa. They have a very different system for you to apply and created just for your extra comfort and assist. Every country will give you an instant reply if you are eligible for their visa as you are in the application centre and then will keep you waiting for your passports to arrive with their visa. Every country will assure their final decision as you apply so that you don't have any impractical expectations and to be very honest it is a 'yes' or 'no' question. What UK Visas department does is makes you wait. Whether you fall for their demands or no, they will accept your application either way without any kind of advise or assistance and make you wait for 20 working days which will turn out to be over a month. It is a lot worse if you apply from Pakistan like myself as they pass new laws that are no where in the internet or knowledge of anyone from the department and the only way you can contact them is by visiting them with an appointment of application submission, so basically no way at all. I was told to take a set of original documents and two sets of copy documents. Upon arrival I was informed that only the copy documents will be taken and nothing else. It sounded fine until I realised that financial statements can always be scanned and the values can be changed with ease upon requirement. I quickly requested the department official to take in the original statements as I don't want to face any problems ahead and also because it states on the UK Government website that the original documents will be required. The official was rigid onto his decision and completely ignored my comments. I once again repeated my request and kept the original documents ahead on the table. He picked and handed them back to me showing his expertise in the department and repeating himself that we are sure that only the copied documents are required.
With not much choice left, I decided to believe him and tried leaving with comfort. Everything changed when my travel agent called and said that "your visa will definitely be rejected because only original documents are required, You should have begged him to take as they have quota of the number of visas allowed to be granted and finding ways to reject." I further enquired with my friends who had recently applied and all had the same story that the original documents must be submitted as they will return. Visa refusal would mean I will have to defer my studies one more year. What was not pleasing is that I have everything needed for a UK visa, whether its the funds or a reputable education sponsor so a pointless refusal at this stage would be very disappointing. Well you as a reader must be expecting a climax by this time of my story but I am still waiting for the result anxiously, therefore please pray for me!
This doesn't stop ordinary people from travelling for different reasons like business trips, leisure trips, special health treatment and most importantly higher education. I am someone who has studied abroad for most of his life and have always been in the trap of getting visa renewals and preparing applications and ensuring no documents are forgotten. You just want to make sure that everything goes alright and every little thing in the application requirement becomes significant. I have applied for visas for almost all the developed countries including USA, Canada, Schengen, Australia, South Africa, Japan, China and many more for different reasons. Each of these countries have long and tiring procedures especially with the document preparation but more than that they have minimum bank balance demands that you must fulfil as they highly fear their jobs being taken over, even more than the self checkout machines. Being blessed enough, I was able to abide by those demand and successfully got visas for these countries several times without any problems.
Real problems popped up when I applied for UK Tier 4 general student visa. They have a very different system for you to apply and created just for your extra comfort and assist. Every country will give you an instant reply if you are eligible for their visa as you are in the application centre and then will keep you waiting for your passports to arrive with their visa. Every country will assure their final decision as you apply so that you don't have any impractical expectations and to be very honest it is a 'yes' or 'no' question. What UK Visas department does is makes you wait. Whether you fall for their demands or no, they will accept your application either way without any kind of advise or assistance and make you wait for 20 working days which will turn out to be over a month. It is a lot worse if you apply from Pakistan like myself as they pass new laws that are no where in the internet or knowledge of anyone from the department and the only way you can contact them is by visiting them with an appointment of application submission, so basically no way at all. I was told to take a set of original documents and two sets of copy documents. Upon arrival I was informed that only the copy documents will be taken and nothing else. It sounded fine until I realised that financial statements can always be scanned and the values can be changed with ease upon requirement. I quickly requested the department official to take in the original statements as I don't want to face any problems ahead and also because it states on the UK Government website that the original documents will be required. The official was rigid onto his decision and completely ignored my comments. I once again repeated my request and kept the original documents ahead on the table. He picked and handed them back to me showing his expertise in the department and repeating himself that we are sure that only the copied documents are required.
With not much choice left, I decided to believe him and tried leaving with comfort. Everything changed when my travel agent called and said that "your visa will definitely be rejected because only original documents are required, You should have begged him to take as they have quota of the number of visas allowed to be granted and finding ways to reject." I further enquired with my friends who had recently applied and all had the same story that the original documents must be submitted as they will return. Visa refusal would mean I will have to defer my studies one more year. What was not pleasing is that I have everything needed for a UK visa, whether its the funds or a reputable education sponsor so a pointless refusal at this stage would be very disappointing. Well you as a reader must be expecting a climax by this time of my story but I am still waiting for the result anxiously, therefore please pray for me!
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