Student? You worth 2 Years...

Here it comes,what we were waiting 4.....

On 1st of July UK Home office announce some new changes in immigration category Tier 1. The changes i will be discussing here are for students.
If you are in UK finishing study or have finished your study, here is something you should be proud of, now Science & Engineering Graduate Scheme and International Graduate scheme are converted in to "Post-Study workers", normally we do not like change, but this change is good and with this scheme you can stay and work for 2 years after graduation. You must meet requirements i have posted in the end of this blog.

There is a very good thing Home office has done is that they have provided us with a self assessment tool (the link to this tool is in the end fo blog) where you can go and check yourself, but always there are some tricky bits...the good thing about this immigration category is that you don't need to do anything for proof of english if you have finished your study in UK ( it is point 'D' in requirement in the end of this blog). But you need at least 800 pounds in your bank account if you are applying within UK and £2800 if you are applying from outside UK as maintenance (it is point 'E' in the end of this blog). The tricky bit here is when you send you application you send your financial means, e.g. bank statement as well, you need to show that the amount (800 or 2800) you show must be in your account for at least three months as they require bank statement of last three months.

One thing is still same that you have to apply for post-study work withing one year of finishing your study. Another good point here is if you are living in Scotland and You finish HND which is higher national diploma even then you can apply for post-study work. If you have done post graduate diploma even then you can apply for post study work visa.

If you are re-sitting in exams or writing thesis and you want to apply for post-study work, now you can, you just need to get a confirmation letter of your study circumstance from your institute.

Visa fees is £400, which i think worth paying for 2 years. The visa application form is on 44 pages, from which you might fill 10 or 15 pages, and remaining normally students will not use. But we all know it is administration and paper work we have to do.

So its all good news, if you are already in UK on IGS or SEGS you can further extend your stay.


My advice:
Always provide valid documents, try to make your self highly skilled, as highly skilled people are welcome everywhere, even canada has passed a law where highly skilled people will have priority over normal application processing time, which currently takes at least 2 years.

Do not hesitate to write comments here or ask question and share you thoughts. we all can help each other by doing a little bit.

Here is the link of the tool, which you can use as self assessment,
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/tier1/poststudy/applying/selfassessment/


Points are available on Home office website (http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/part6a/)