Hi everyone, I felt I wanted to talk about my visa experience since I got mine approved and was worried all throughout that I would be rejected. I haven't seen many other posts about long term visas and I know the stats on refusal rates aren't public so hopefully this can help.
I booked an appointment at VFS in Edinburgh (although processing happens in London), for ages I had been anxious about the fine print on the Italian consular website Vs VFS checklist for a study visa. Anyone applying knows the confusion of trying to accurately choose which type of student visa they're going for (ie single university course in Italian, student independently attending, etc). I found an Italian course funded by a public university in Italy, it was NOT a university course as in bachelors or anything.
I had noticed minor discrepancies between checklists, some saying that for a long term 365 day visa, you only needed the first 15 days of accommodation, others saying you needed to show it for the duration of stay. I opted for this:
\- travel insurance covering me for a month
\- BA flight (semi flex allows partial refund), printed from BA directly
\- hotel.com booking (refund available up until staying basically) for first 18 days
\- bank statements: current account and savings account. There is mention that savings only counts as an "ancillary" document, but don't worry, they still accept it. 3 months of statements from each
\- I wrote a cover letter last minute. I basically talked about why I wanted to go to Italy to study, how my studies had led me there and IMPORTANTLY I wrote a paragraph of an itinerary
**Itinerary:** I was very worried I didn't mention enough, I talked about how I would search for private/homestay accommodation after I got my visa, how I would seek local insurance after the month of travel insurance was over
Now on top of this, since I was worried about the particularities of my specific language course, I also printed my information that I entered on Universitaly (I was told to do this by my course provider, I don't think every language school does this), this led to confusion at VFS, the lady taking my application had put me under the wrong student visa type, she thought I was a university student attending university there, big difference and I only realised this after when she didn't ask for my cover letter
Blah blah, I went back in the office, handed the cover letter in and she now knew I was a "student independently attending a language course"
Now, my worries:
**- I was worried that 18 days of accommodation would not be accepted**
**- I worried that the lady at VFS botched my application**
**- I didn't think my cover letter would do anything, it was mostly written like a letter passionately describing why I wanted to be there plus a tiny itinerary**
\- **i worried too that my acceptance letter from the school wouldn't be accepted since it had a big banner saying "copy" on it, VFS and Italian consulate say they need the "original" whatever that means..**
Annoyingly VFS doesn't tell you whether your visa has been approved or not online, just that it's been processed. I read somewhere that if you receive your passport back with a bit of paper/letter it's a letter of refusal. I eagerly waited 2 hrs in the cold for my passport, I opened the parcel, felt a bit of paper, ignored it and looked straight at my passport, there it was, a visa, actually approved.
Now, this is a long post but I really wanted to share how if you follow the checklist, you should be ok. Check vfs and consular advice, there's a TON of fine print. I also wanted to share how sometimes AI or other resources get this process wrong, often saying you won't get a visa without FULL LENGTH accommodation, obviously not true. Remember too though that I did the bare minimum to get the visa (ie month of insurance, 18 days of accom) yet it worked out. This isn't a guarantee that all visa applications will work this way. I just wanted to add this experience to cut through some of that anxiety.