Urgent Help-Degree Confirmation letter is not ready

[Luke Persian]

Dear All,
I've posted the same question few days ago, but have not been able to find a proper answer. It's a very tricky situation and I appreciate your experience and advice. The problem:

My Tier2 visa expires on 17th of Feb, and I want to switch to Tier 1 (General). I want to claim points for My PhD degree and I have enough point doing so for the visa. I did my PhD defence few weeks ago and I'm waiting for some necessary steps before I can be officially graduated/rewarded the degree (I was hoping to be able to do this soon but it's the matter of other people cooperation). Then I'll asking the university to provide me a letter confirming this.
The problem is that this process may take up to 10 days after I'm submitting my application (on 17th) as I have to wait for the examiners to approve the corrections. I wonder if it's possible to send the application on 17th, on that date and then try to get the university letter as soon as possible and send it to home office.
I called home office today and they said it's not possible as it's an important document and your application may be rejected as you do not have enough documents, and I can not send it as "additional" later as you're claiming points for it. They suggest me to go back to my country,before my visa expires (in a week time) and apply from there! but the Tier 1 application is closed from overseas!! and also it costs me a fortune to do that.


What do you suggest? Should I contact a lawyer about this? Risk and send the documents without the degree and send the degree later? IS it possible to appeal if I rejected and provide the degree letter which would be ready by that time?

[manojk005]

Dear All,
I've posted the same question few days ago, but have not been able to find a proper answer. It's a very tricky situation and I appreciate your experience and advice. The problem:

My Tier2 visa expires on 17th of Feb, and I want to switch to Tier 1 (General). I want to claim points for My PhD degree and I have enough point doing so for the visa. I did my PhD defence few weeks ago and I'm waiting for some necessary steps before I can be officially graduated/rewarded the degree (I was hoping to be able to do this soon but it's the matter of other people cooperation). Then I'll asking the university to provide me a letter confirming this.
The problem is that this process may take up to 10 days after I'm submitting my application (on 17th) as I have to wait for the examiners to approve the corrections. I wonder if it's possible to send the application on 17th, on that date and then try to get the university letter as soon as possible and send it to home office.
I called home office today and they said it's not possible as it's an important document and your application may be rejected as you do not have enough documents, and I can not send it as "additional" later as you're claiming points for it. They suggest me to go back to my country,before my visa expires (in a week time) and apply from there! but the Tier 1 application is closed from overseas!! and also it costs me a fortune to do that.


What do you suggest? Should I contact a lawyer about this? Risk and send the documents without the degree and send the degree later? IS it possible to appeal if I rejected and provide the degree letter which would be ready by that time?

Sending additional document is always risky. I sent few bank statements by next day delivery after (few days) I posted my Tier 1 application. However, this document was not crucial for any purpose. I received my tier 1 visa based on documents submitted with my application and these additional bank statements were not returned with passport and other documents in August 2010. This means that they have not used additional documents. Then, I got these additional statement after 3/4 months accompanied with a letter from home office saying that decision has been made before they received additional document. Fortunately, these additional documents were not important for any point scoring criteria, it did not affect me. It also shows that how chaotic UKBA can be!

So now you can judge yourself about the risk of not sending crucial point scoring documents.

As far as I understand, you are now correcting your thesis. How long it will take you to submit your final thesis? If you can submit ASAP and your examiner accept this then you should get letter from your university confirming that you have completed all requirements for degree and it will be awarded by certain date. You can request for all these with your supervisor and university staff. Having said that, it may still take atleast a week and It will be on edge.

My suggestion is to be prepared to apply for PSW visa from your home country and then in-country Tier 1 application soon after you get to the UK. PSW visa should be granted within week and then you can come to UK and apply for Tier 1. This applies in the worst case scenario.

[Luke Persian]

Dear All,
I've posted the same question few days ago, but have not been able to find a proper answer. It's a very tricky situation and I appreciate your experience and advice. The problem:

My Tier2 visa expires on 17th of Feb, and I want to switch to Tier 1 (General). I want to claim points for My PhD degree and I have enough point doing so for the visa. I did my PhD defence few weeks ago and I'm waiting for some necessary steps before I can be officially graduated/rewarded the degree (I was hoping to be able to do this soon but it's the matter of other people cooperation). Then I'll asking the university to provide me a letter confirming this.
The problem is that this process may take up to 10 days after I'm submitting my application (on 17th) as I have to wait for the examiners to approve the corrections. I wonder if it's possible to send the application on 17th, on that date and then try to get the university letter as soon as possible and send it to home office.
I called home office today and they said it's not possible as it's an important document and your application may be rejected as you do not have enough documents, and I can not send it as "additional" later as you're claiming points for it. They suggest me to go back to my country,before my visa expires (in a week time) and apply from there! but the Tier 1 application is closed from overseas!! and also it costs me a fortune to do that.


What do you suggest? Should I contact a lawyer about this? Risk and send the documents without the degree and send the degree later? IS it possible to appeal if I rejected and provide the degree letter which would be ready by that time?

Sending additional document is always risky. I sent few bank statements by next day delivery after (few days) I posted my Tier 1 application. However, this document was not crucial for any purpose. I received my tier 1 visa based on documents submitted with my application and these additional bank statements were not returned with passport and other documents in August 2010. This means that they have not used additional documents. Then, I got these additional statement after 3/4 months accompanied with a letter from home office saying that decision has been made before they received additional document. Fortunately, these additional documents were not important for any point scoring criteria, it did not affect me. It also shows that how chaotic UKBA can be!

So now you can judge yourself about the risk of not sending crucial point scoring documents.

As far as I understand, you are now correcting your thesis. How long it will take you to submit your final thesis? If you can submit ASAP and your examiner accept this then you should get letter from your university confirming that you have completed all requirements for degree and it will be awarded by certain date. You can request for all these with your supervisor and university staff. Having said that, it may still take atleast a week and It will be on edge.

My suggestion is to be prepared to apply for PSW visa from your home country and then in-country Tier 1 application soon after you get to the UK. PSW visa should be granted within week and then you can come to UK and apply for Tier 1. This applies in the worst case scenario.

Thanks for your reply manjoke005. You're right, I'm doing the correction. But the situation is a bit complicated, my viva was 2 weeks ago but I didn't get the correction from examiner on that date( and yet), he is promised to it over to me next Monday..and if I do the correction in a day or so, I wouldn't be able to make it before 17th... it's really scary!

but to be able to apply for the PSW in my country, I still need to show that I have PhD before I leave the UK on 17th!(when my visa expires) which means I have to stay longer to finish everything (correction, resubmitting, adminstrative works, etc) before I can leave UK legally (before 17the that my visa expires)...unless I find some one to do these for me.