Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Feb 3rd 2009, 3:58 am
#1
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 29
Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Hey guys,
I've been on a long and dragged out road to get myself and my same sex partner to Perth.
Only route is the study route and from the July 1st the law changes to accept same sex couples = one studies while the other works.
Jay is enrolled on a course starting on the 20th of July.
The Visa Office has told us we can enter Oz on a holiday visa (but we must holiday) and then apply for a student visa on-shore.
Has anybody done this before?
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
What was the processing time?
We fall under level 1.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Can't believe it's Feb already - where do the years go - scary
Warm regards,
I've been on a long and dragged out road to get myself and my same sex partner to Perth.
Only route is the study route and from the July 1st the law changes to accept same sex couples = one studies while the other works.
Jay is enrolled on a course starting on the 20th of July.
The Visa Office has told us we can enter Oz on a holiday visa (but we must holiday) and then apply for a student visa on-shore.
Has anybody done this before?
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
What was the processing time?
We fall under level 1.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Can't believe it's Feb already - where do the years go - scary
Warm regards,
Feb 3rd 2009, 10:42 am
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2006
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 3,162
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Congrats on them changing the rules, it never did make sence.
We are going to do just that, arrive 6 months before the course, pick up the dog from quarantine, buy a camper van and travel. Unfortunetly our first time 'cash' buyer who wanted to be in within a month took 5.5 months, so we didn't get to have any holiday before hand.
We applied online from the UK and it only took 2 weeks, so onshore it can't be much different.
We are married, (less than a year when we applied) and the only info they asked for was our marriage cert. I had expected them to ask for more, but no. They barely asked for anything, just the wedding cert and copies of passports, nothing else.
Good luck
We are going to do just that, arrive 6 months before the course, pick up the dog from quarantine, buy a camper van and travel. Unfortunetly our first time 'cash' buyer who wanted to be in within a month took 5.5 months, so we didn't get to have any holiday before hand.
We applied online from the UK and it only took 2 weeks, so onshore it can't be much different.
We are married, (less than a year when we applied) and the only info they asked for was our marriage cert. I had expected them to ask for more, but no. They barely asked for anything, just the wedding cert and copies of passports, nothing else.
Good luck
Feb 3rd 2009, 11:04 am
#3
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Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Brisbane, QLD
Posts: 2,046
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Onshore student visas are pretty fast - my last one took 2 days! Make sure you have proof of funds for the first year (at least). Also you will need a medical - they're cheaper in Australia than UK so you may as well wait until you arrive.
Good luck!
Good luck!
Feb 3rd 2009, 11:50 am
#4
Forum Regular
Joined: Nov 2007
Location: england
Posts: 181
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
hi, how much funds do you need to show for a family of 5 if coming on student visa? Where can I get this info? thanks a lot
Feb 3rd 2009, 12:09 pm
#5
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Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Brisbane, QLD
Posts: 2,046
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
You need to show your course fees and also a living costs amount which is $12,000 for you, $4,200 for your spouse and $2,100 for child number 1 and $1800 for children 2- 5. So that's $26,100 and you also need to show you can pay for the kids schooling - so that's $8000 per kid that's old enough for school.
Source: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1160i.pdf
Source: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1160i.pdf
Feb 3rd 2009, 2:30 pm
#6
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Joined: Sep 2007
Location: Gold Coast
Posts: 659
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
You need to show your course fees and also a living costs amount which is $12,000 for you, $4,200 for your spouse and $2,100 for child number 1 and $1800 for children 2- 5. So that's $26,100 and you also need to show you can pay for the kids schooling - so that's $8000 per kid that's old enough for school.
Source: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1160i.pdf
Source: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1160i.pdf
fab news sparkmarkirl, good luck with everything!!
Cheers
Mandy
Feb 3rd 2009, 2:51 pm
#7
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2006
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 3,162
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
I didn't even need to write a letter and didn't tell them how much money we had! Again off shore though.
Feb 3rd 2009, 3:08 pm
#8
Forum Regular
Joined: Jun 2008
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 68
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Has anybody done this before?
Yes: We did exactly this - arrived on a working holiday visa in 2006. 3 months after arrival we applied for a student visas onshore (I was studying, partner was defacto on student visa). We did our meds in Australia too.
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
Applied in person - or at least made an appointment to get our visa assessed in person in the Melbourne office and brought all the completed paperwork, medical etc with us. Visa was granted and we left with sticker in passports :-)
I think this was because at the time if there was more than one person on the application (partner/ dependents) applying online was not an option.
What was the processing time?
A couple of weeks to get appointment I believe. Getting the meds took a while, prob took about a month after doing them to get the results (in sealed envelope) posted to us. Processing time when we went to the DIAC office was under 2 hours (most of which was waiting time
We fall under level 1.
At the time I think I was level 1 (Ireland) and partner was level 2 (UK), or maybe it was visa versa.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Yes visa was easy to get, a fair bit of document getting and form filling, but with all the t's crossed and i's dotted actually getting the visa was very straightforward in the end.
Before seeing the immigration officer with all our paperwork, we were getting ourselves all worked up about what they may ask us. We thought maybe we'd be separated and grilled on each others fav color, mothers maiden names and other mundanities that we wouldn't be able to answer. We actually tried to learn answers to these sort of silly questions that we hadn't learned in the 4 years of living together before applying for visa. But in truth it was all processed very politely and there was no grilling whatsoever. The officer simple when through all the requirements step by step, eg "do you have overseas health cover?", We'd help him by pulling out the letter from the insurer out of the pile, he'd enter things in his computer and then come back with the next document request etc.
There was one tense moment at the start were our immigration officer failed to find our application appointment on his computer for several minutes...he then turned to us an went "sorry who is the main applicant?" I (who happen to be female) responded and his gave us a look of surprise and came out with "Oh! so you're the engineer and he's the care worker - I was putting the wrong passport number in" (makes the Australia values statement which prattles on about gender equality rather ironic :-)
Re: What proof did you have to supply? for defacto we had utility bills & tax returns from the same address spanning about 3 years of the 4 we'd lived together. For proof of enough funds to cover us we showed scholarship offer letters and bank statements i think.
Best of luck with your application, and no need to worry too much, just start gathering all the requires paperwork asap (lists of what you need on immi.gov.au website)
Yes: We did exactly this - arrived on a working holiday visa in 2006. 3 months after arrival we applied for a student visas onshore (I was studying, partner was defacto on student visa). We did our meds in Australia too.
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
Applied in person - or at least made an appointment to get our visa assessed in person in the Melbourne office and brought all the completed paperwork, medical etc with us. Visa was granted and we left with sticker in passports :-)
I think this was because at the time if there was more than one person on the application (partner/ dependents) applying online was not an option.
What was the processing time?
A couple of weeks to get appointment I believe. Getting the meds took a while, prob took about a month after doing them to get the results (in sealed envelope) posted to us. Processing time when we went to the DIAC office was under 2 hours (most of which was waiting time
We fall under level 1.
At the time I think I was level 1 (Ireland) and partner was level 2 (UK), or maybe it was visa versa.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Yes visa was easy to get, a fair bit of document getting and form filling, but with all the t's crossed and i's dotted actually getting the visa was very straightforward in the end.
Before seeing the immigration officer with all our paperwork, we were getting ourselves all worked up about what they may ask us. We thought maybe we'd be separated and grilled on each others fav color, mothers maiden names and other mundanities that we wouldn't be able to answer. We actually tried to learn answers to these sort of silly questions that we hadn't learned in the 4 years of living together before applying for visa. But in truth it was all processed very politely and there was no grilling whatsoever. The officer simple when through all the requirements step by step, eg "do you have overseas health cover?", We'd help him by pulling out the letter from the insurer out of the pile, he'd enter things in his computer and then come back with the next document request etc.
There was one tense moment at the start were our immigration officer failed to find our application appointment on his computer for several minutes...he then turned to us an went "sorry who is the main applicant?" I (who happen to be female) responded and his gave us a look of surprise and came out with "Oh! so you're the engineer and he's the care worker - I was putting the wrong passport number in" (makes the Australia values statement which prattles on about gender equality rather ironic :-)
Re: What proof did you have to supply? for defacto we had utility bills & tax returns from the same address spanning about 3 years of the 4 we'd lived together. For proof of enough funds to cover us we showed scholarship offer letters and bank statements i think.
Best of luck with your application, and no need to worry too much, just start gathering all the requires paperwork asap (lists of what you need on immi.gov.au website)
Feb 4th 2009, 6:23 am
#9
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 29
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Has anybody done this before?
Yes: We did exactly this - arrived on a working holiday visa in 2006. 3 months after arrival we applied for a student visas onshore (I was studying, partner was defacto on student visa). We did our meds in Australia too.
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
Applied in person - or at least made an appointment to get our visa assessed in person in the Melbourne office and brought all the completed paperwork, medical etc with us. Visa was granted and we left with sticker in passports :-)
I think this was because at the time if there was more than one person on the application (partner/ dependents) applying online was not an option.
What was the processing time?
A couple of weeks to get appointment I believe. Getting the meds took a while, prob took about a month after doing them to get the results (in sealed envelope) posted to us. Processing time when we went to the DIAC office was under 2 hours (most of which was waiting time
We fall under level 1.
At the time I think I was level 1 (Ireland) and partner was level 2 (UK), or maybe it was visa versa.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Yes visa was easy to get, a fair bit of document getting and form filling, but with all the t's crossed and i's dotted actually getting the visa was very straightforward in the end.
Before seeing the immigration officer with all our paperwork, we were getting ourselves all worked up about what they may ask us. We thought maybe we'd be separated and grilled on each others fav color, mothers maiden names and other mundanities that we wouldn't be able to answer. We actually tried to learn answers to these sort of silly questions that we hadn't learned in the 4 years of living together before applying for visa. But in truth it was all processed very politely and there was no grilling whatsoever. The officer simple when through all the requirements step by step, eg "do you have overseas health cover?", We'd help him by pulling out the letter from the insurer out of the pile, he'd enter things in his computer and then come back with the next document request etc.
There was one tense moment at the start were our immigration officer failed to find our application appointment on his computer for several minutes...he then turned to us an went "sorry who is the main applicant?" I (who happen to be female) responded and his gave us a look of surprise and came out with "Oh! so you're the engineer and he's the care worker - I was putting the wrong passport number in" (makes the Australia values statement which prattles on about gender equality rather ironic :-)
Re: What proof did you have to supply? for defacto we had utility bills & tax returns from the same address spanning about 3 years of the 4 we'd lived together. For proof of enough funds to cover us we showed scholarship offer letters and bank statements i think.
Best of luck with your application, and no need to worry too much, just start gathering all the requires paperwork asap (lists of what you need on immi.gov.au website)
Yes: We did exactly this - arrived on a working holiday visa in 2006. 3 months after arrival we applied for a student visas onshore (I was studying, partner was defacto on student visa). We did our meds in Australia too.
If so...
Did you apply on-line or in person?
Applied in person - or at least made an appointment to get our visa assessed in person in the Melbourne office and brought all the completed paperwork, medical etc with us. Visa was granted and we left with sticker in passports :-)
I think this was because at the time if there was more than one person on the application (partner/ dependents) applying online was not an option.
What was the processing time?
A couple of weeks to get appointment I believe. Getting the meds took a while, prob took about a month after doing them to get the results (in sealed envelope) posted to us. Processing time when we went to the DIAC office was under 2 hours (most of which was waiting time
We fall under level 1.
At the time I think I was level 1 (Ireland) and partner was level 2 (UK), or maybe it was visa versa.
Any suggestions or past stories would be greatly welcomed
Esp if you have gone on a student visa with your de-facto partner -
Was the visa easy to get?
What proof did you have to supply?
What did they ask you?
Yes visa was easy to get, a fair bit of document getting and form filling, but with all the t's crossed and i's dotted actually getting the visa was very straightforward in the end.
Before seeing the immigration officer with all our paperwork, we were getting ourselves all worked up about what they may ask us. We thought maybe we'd be separated and grilled on each others fav color, mothers maiden names and other mundanities that we wouldn't be able to answer. We actually tried to learn answers to these sort of silly questions that we hadn't learned in the 4 years of living together before applying for visa. But in truth it was all processed very politely and there was no grilling whatsoever. The officer simple when through all the requirements step by step, eg "do you have overseas health cover?", We'd help him by pulling out the letter from the insurer out of the pile, he'd enter things in his computer and then come back with the next document request etc.
There was one tense moment at the start were our immigration officer failed to find our application appointment on his computer for several minutes...he then turned to us an went "sorry who is the main applicant?" I (who happen to be female) responded and his gave us a look of surprise and came out with "Oh! so you're the engineer and he's the care worker - I was putting the wrong passport number in" (makes the Australia values statement which prattles on about gender equality rather ironic :-)
Re: What proof did you have to supply? for defacto we had utility bills & tax returns from the same address spanning about 3 years of the 4 we'd lived together. For proof of enough funds to cover us we showed scholarship offer letters and bank statements i think.
Best of luck with your application, and no need to worry too much, just start gathering all the requires paperwork asap (lists of what you need on immi.gov.au website)
Hey all thanks for all your info, kind words and support - seems pretty straight forward - we're going to head over half way through May for a holiday and on the 1st of July when the law changes we'll apply for the student visa - just have to make sure we have all the paper work and proof of relationship in place!!!
I will up-date as we go - not long now woop woop woop !!!!!
Jul 13th 2009, 6:20 pm
#10
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 29
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Hey just to fill you guys in - Jason and myself applied on-shore for a student visa on the 1st of July. Jason's visa was granted the following day - I'm still in a bridging visa until a decision on me has been made.
The student visa is under Jason and I am listed as his de-facto same sex partner.
They granted Jason's visa without a medical (but we had already paid for one in advance and have since gone for it).
Both our old TFN (Tax File Numbers) are now active.
So it would appear same sex de-facto partners on a student visa are all good (although we are still waiting on my final grant).
Hope everybody else is going good!!!
Next step will be PR in 2 years!!!!!!!!!
The student visa is under Jason and I am listed as his de-facto same sex partner.
They granted Jason's visa without a medical (but we had already paid for one in advance and have since gone for it).
Both our old TFN (Tax File Numbers) are now active.
So it would appear same sex de-facto partners on a student visa are all good (although we are still waiting on my final grant).
Hope everybody else is going good!!!
Next step will be PR in 2 years!!!!!!!!!
Jul 13th 2009, 6:26 pm
#11
Forum Regular
Joined: Jun 2008
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 68
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
excellent news :-)
Jul 13th 2009, 8:35 pm
#12
Still alive
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 28,995
Re: Madness or what? On-shore student visa application
Hey just to fill you guys in - Jason and myself applied on-shore for a student visa on the 1st of July. Jason's visa was granted the following day - I'm still in a bridging visa until a decision on me has been made.
The student visa is under Jason and I am listed as his de-facto same sex partner.
They granted Jason's visa without a medical (but we had already paid for one in advance and have since gone for it).
Both our old TFN (Tax File Numbers) are now active.
So it would appear same sex de-facto partners on a student visa are all good (although we are still waiting on my final grant).
Hope everybody else is going good!!!
Next step will be PR in 2 years!!!!!!!!!
The student visa is under Jason and I am listed as his de-facto same sex partner.
They granted Jason's visa without a medical (but we had already paid for one in advance and have since gone for it).
Both our old TFN (Tax File Numbers) are now active.
So it would appear same sex de-facto partners on a student visa are all good (although we are still waiting on my final grant).
Hope everybody else is going good!!!
Next step will be PR in 2 years!!!!!!!!!
