DSK12 wrote:Hi All,
I’d be making an in-person application for PSW next week, just wondering if anyone can share their experience with PSW in-person application at a PEO so that it would make me aware of what to expect on the day.
For example:
How long does it take for them to process such applications....? (given that my application should be fairly straight forward since I’m submitting a original master’s degree from a tier-4 licensed university + original university letters + bank statements showing more than £800 all the time for the last 3 months + never worked more than the time legally allowed as per student visa terms)
Do they take biometric information on the same day?
Any further information would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Hi All,
I've been on this forum for quite a while crawling over the PSW section. Yesterday I got my PSW, which I applied for in-person. Thought I would post this for others who would like to apply in-person.
Date appointment booked: 1st Oct'09
Date Appointment booked for: 1st Dec'09.
When you book an appointment for PSW, you would be asked to be at the PEO at least 30 minutes before the scheduled time. From my experience I would suggest be there at least 45-60 min before and there is a very good reason for that. Since they would be dealing with other type of appointments not just the PSW ones, there could be quite a number of people who would need to go thru. queues & security checks.
After you are through the physical security checks, you would be directed to a receptionist who would ask for your completed application form and passport. Basically he/she is on the look out to see if you have used the right application (as well as the right version of it), submitted all the required supporting evidence, attached photographs, certificate, bank statements etc... At the end, he/she would put a stamp on your application, give you a token number and ask you to go to 1st floor of the building to pay the application fee.
There is one thing applicant would need to notice. The receptionist would give you his checklist indicating what all were present with the application. If he indicates that, for example: a required letter from the university is missing on it and the applicant is daft enough to proceed to the payment counter, then the applicant can kiss his £700 good bye. So ensure you look at his checklist and once you see all tick marks at the right places go ahead to make the payment. I made the payment with a credit card and I also had a back-up in the form of my debit card (just in case if something went wrong with the credit card, eventually nothing did).
You would then proceed to the waiting hall and well, wait for your token number to be called. Once called, you would provide the case worker with all the required documents and wait for some more time. In my case she called me after 20 minutes and told me everything was fine and asked me to wait for 1 more hour while they prepare the vignette and the approval letter.
After 1 hour I walked out with my PSW. All in all, it took less than 2 hours to get it.
Thank you all who have answered my queries on this.
Just a piece of advice for future PSW aspirants:
If you put the keywords balance, maintenance, statement, bank, or £800 in the search box above, about 200 posts are returned just from the PSW section of this forum. I took a sample of them and more than 90% of them relate to cases where they were rejected because of failing to meet the maintenance requirements. From this one could guesstimate that most common reason for PSW rejections is failure to meet the maintenance requirements. This is what I followed and it worked for me, hope it does for you as well.
1. If you are seriously considering PSW, save consistently every month even if it is in small amounts. At the end it all adds up and you will be glad you did it.
2. It is most likely that you have a current account and also likely that you have a savings account or in some cases accounts which you can open and operate solely online by virtue of your having a current account with your bank (Lloyds TSB has some very good features regarding this).
a. I would not recommend putting your PSW kitty in a current account; rather put it in a savings ac since your required balance in the current ac is prone to be affected by direct debits, bill payments, unexpected charges and the worst of all, losing your money because someone robbed your debit card and pin number at knife point.
b. I don’t carry my savings ac’s cash card and never activated it in the first place so my balance in the savings ac is immune to the above factors.(PS: I move balances across accounts, online)
c. By saving over a period of 10 months I managed to put together more than £1000. Evidently I never had any issues meeting the PSW requirements.
Some might argue that you can get around the maintenance clause by appealing etc....but why do you want to go through all the hassle and end paying more money towards legal costs etc...especially when the PSW requirements are as straight forward as they can be.
Hope you find this as useful as I did.
Thank you,
