WHAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE DURING MY APPLICATION

hello!! as mentioned from a previous post, i’ll be sharing more about my Master’s application process

*Disclaimer: This is all from my own experience and it might differ based on the country you apply to or the University you’re applying to. For context, I applied to 3 schools in the United Kingdom (Canterbury, London and Edinburgh) and eventually chose the London one!

I applied in November 2021 for a program that starts in September 2022. All 3 applications required a personal statement that ranged between 500-1000 words on why I wanted to join the program and what I could contribute to the program. By the end of December, I got conditional offers for the Universities and it was conditional upon my final GPA from undergrad (because I only officially grad in May 2022). I sorta had an idea of what my final GPA was going to be so I went ahead and booked a Student Accommodation in London before I got the final acceptance (If i didn’t meet the GPA cut after graduation, I would’ve lost about £250 which I guess is a risk I was willing to take since accommodations were filling up REAL FAST and I probably would have had to pay a lot more if I had booked it last minute).

Regarding the accommodation, because I didn’t have the time to go to London and check out the place, I went for a more convenient option of a student accommodation that was within 20 min walking distance from my Uni. If you’re going to be checking out the school and country beforehand, you can save a lot of money by renting a room/place on local rental sites such as SpareRoom (for the UK) as opposed to a student accomms. When I had settled in London, I saw a lot of ads for rooms that were much cheaper and nearer to my school but I was already binded by contract to the student accomms for 50 weeks so I couldn’t change unless I found someone to replace my tenancy. But I guess you’re paying for a security as well so it rly depends on your personal preference!

After all that was done, I could only wait until I get the official Bachelor’s transcript (after convocation) before I could get an official acceptance from the Master’s program and apply for a visa. *You can only apply for a visa when you get the unconditional acceptance from the Uni so there’s rly nth much you can do until you grad.

Honestly the visa process was SUPER STRESSFUL because induction starts in mid September but I could only start applying for a visa in like late May or something and because the application takes very very long, you’ll have no choice but to book a last minute flight (which is super expensive).

What I did was I took my chances and booked a flight before I even got the visa, hoping that it’ll come in time BUT I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT AT ALL. Before the visa appointment, the website stated 3-4 weeks before I could get the visa so I thought I’d be fine and prebooked a flight ticket before my visa appointment but when I went for the appointment, they said that there was an influx of applications and it would take 1-2 weeks longer !! I only got my visa a few days before my flight and it was so damn stressful (on top of moving everything to a whole new country), so rly just wait for the visa and pay a little bit more to buy the flight ticket after… In fact when I was queuing to collect the visa, I talked to some people in the queue and they had actually paid to change their flight because they didn’t manage to get their visa in time. SO REALLY just buy an open ticket if you really want to buy one beforehand or buy it only after getting the visa.

After landing in London, I had to get my visa stamped at the Border Control (the visa was a sticker in my passport) to ‘activate(?)’ the visa and I had to send a picture proof of the stamped visa to my University for them to process that my student visa was valid. Following, all I had to do was go to a local post office to collect a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP for the UK). When applying for the Visa, I already had to input which post office I wanted to collect my BRP from so I just chose one that was closest to my accomms and they will just send it there when it’s ready. This BRP serves as the ID card for you when you’re residing in the UK. Everything else was relatively smooth from there, so that just about it for my Master’s application!!

You can privately message me if you wna know more in detail about the application or about the schools I applied to :>

#Lemon8SG #StudyTips #studentlife #universitystudent #lemon8tips #study #london #unistudent #universitylife #university