Visa for International Students: Preparation, Documents needed, Visa Interview and more. (1 of 2)

Obtaining a visa to the United states and other developed countries is one of the most frustrating things a prospective international student will ever face.

All too often, a prospective student applies for college, is admitted and is ready to go, only to be denied a Visa for various reasons. You'll often hear heart breaking stories of people spending lots of time and money in preparation only to be denied a visa.

A visa gives you the privilege to travel to the desired country to pursue your studies or whatever else you want to do. If a visa is granted, a large part of your obstacles will be solved and you will be able to travel to the college of your choice and pursue your dreams.

Many prospective international students are denied a visa for several reasons. Some of the reasons are out of your control, but others are well within your control. I will explain how you can improve your chances of getting a visa.

There are often rumors that foreign embassies have certain quotas for the Visas they grant to people from certain countries per year. This is true. So if you apply for visa when they have met their quota, you are likely to be denied. A way to go around this is try to schedule your visa interview at the beginning of the year when they have not met the quota for that year. Plan to Start school in the fall semester (around August) hence you will be interviewing for visa in the first 5 months of the year when the annual quota is not likely to have been filled.

The next thing is to prepare thoroughly for your Visa Interview. After you get your I-20 from your college, you should contact the Embassy and ask for the visa application process. You may have to do that through email. They'll give you their email address which you'll use to communicate with them.

Below are some of the documents you need to have before going for a visa interview.

College admission documents including the I-20.
Passport from your country.
Passport size pictures.
Your previous high school or college's transcripts.
Prove of financial support. This includes bank statements of people paying for your college showing they have enough money. They will check with the bank if these statements are valid. So make sure there is real money in the bank. If your Sponsor lives in the Destination country, they may need his/her proof of employment and earnings.
Documents showing you have stable connections to your country. This may include documents of your family's assets, employment and other things that show that you will want to return to your country after finishing your studies.
They may also require medical checks for communicable diseases like AIDS, although this varies from country to country.

You'll also need Money to pay Visa Fees.

After you've collected all the required documents, they'll give you a specific day to come for the Visa interview. Visa interviews are usually conducted in the morning hours and successful candidates will be asked to collect their visas in the afternoon.

A lot of people fail the visa interview because of nervousness and lack of preparation. I will show you how to prepare for your visa interview.

Visa for International Students: Preparation, Documents needed, Visa Interview and more. (1 of 2)

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