Tips To Study Abroad – Funding Your Education, Applying For Visa, Booking Tickets

Funding Your Education

You can either self fund your education, or you can find a sponsor to fund your education or you can get a loan for your education. It depends on your financial abilities. If you are looking for a Loan, go to different banks and enquire about their interest rates and conditions, then choose carefully. Take advice from experienced people if you know any of them. Many of the UK and European Universities offer scholarships if you have a good academic record. Contact your universities International office to get more information on the scholarships they provide and the details and requirements to achieve one.

• If you wish to take a loan for your education, look the interest rates of different banks and their conditions and choose an appropriate one for you
• Getting the loan sanctioned may take some time, so apply for it as soon as possible
• There are a lot of scholarship options available for bright students from top class universities, contact your international office regarding this; and they might help you find one.

Applying For Visa

I have applied for my visa in 2009, however with the new regulations there are some changes in the Visa Application process. You need to pay a certain amount of fee to apply for a visa. Checkout the below list to have an idea of what all things you need to prepare for obtaining a Visa.

• It was around 12500 Rs. for visa processing for me (the amount varies from time to time)
• Your certificates and necessary funding documents, unconditional offer letter/visa letter (loan letter or bank statement or sponsor details or things like that), including the passport
• You need to submit the originals of all the documents while applying for visa
• Make sure each and every document is perfect, because these days the visa processing is very strict. If they reject you will lose your money.
• Once you get your passport back, check the pages to make sure if the visa sticker is stamped on any of the pages
• Visa processing takes around 2-4 weeks, so make sure you apply beforehand.
• Most of our banks provide lengthy statements with un necessary legal and regulatory stuff on it; so better prepare a Bank Statement Letter and Loan Sanction Letter yourself and get it sealed.

Booking Tickets

You can book your flight tickets and other Coach or Train tickets before and save money. Plan your travel route before you reach your destination, you can obtain the information regarding this from your International office. Then you can book the coach tickets from National Express Website and you can book the tube tickets from the corresponding Railway Station’s website.

• If you book tickets in advance it will help you reduce the amount
• Air tickets (instead of going through an agent, it’s better to buy them on your own – checkout the websites)
• Mostly you will  be reaching in the main city (assuming you are coming to UK for your studies), if your university is far from London then you must travel by a coach or Train (booking them in advance through the Internet will reduce a fair amount of money)