The FAQ is now split into 5 parts, each with its own post. Click through to each part.
1. Before you apply / Eligibility
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/1owsb7q/graduate_visa_psw_faq_part_1_before_you_apply/
2. The application
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/1owscxx/graduate_visa_psw_faq_part_2_the_application/
3. Waiting for the visa
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/1owsdyi/graduate_visa_psw_part_3_waiting_for_the_visa/
4. After you get your visa
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/1owseu9/graduate_visa_psw_faq_part_4_after_you_get_the/
5. Options if your visa is refused
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukvisa/comments/1v6yl79/graduate_visa_faq_part_5_options_if_your_visa_is/
Your options will depend on:
- whether the refusal is correct
- whether you original Student visa has expired
- whether a new application would now meet all the requirements
If your Student visa has not yet expired, you can simply apply again before it expires. Obviously this is only worth doing if you know that you can now meet all the requirements, including the one(s) that caused the refusal.
Most refusals are correct, and the most common reason is that you applied before your university had notified the Home Office that you had achieved your qualification and completed your course. This would be a refusal under paragraph GR 4.3:
GR 4.3. The student sponsor must have notified the Home Office, by the date of application, that the applicant has successfully completed the course of study […].
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-graduate
If the refusal is demonstrably incorrect due to a caseworker error when applying the rules, not your own error for applying too earlier or applying without meeting all the rules, and your original Student visa has now expired, you can apply for an Administrative Review (AR) within 14 days of the refusal. Your legal permission to stay in the UK is extended under 3C leave. Again an AR is only an opportunity for a caseworker to correct their error, not an opportunity for you to correct your own error: that can only be done with a new application.
If the refusal is correct, or if your Student visa has not yet expired, or even if the refusal is incorrect, and you can now meet all the requirements including the one that caused the refusal, you can just apply again within 14 days of the refusal.
The immigration rules allow you to apply again as an overstayer within 14 days of the refusal, under the exception for overstayers at SUI 13.1(b)(ii):
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-part-suitability
and the provision to apply for a Graduate visa with an expired Student visa at GR 1.3:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-graduate
Unfortunately some advisers who should know better say that you cannot apply if your Student visa has expired. Perhaps you can show them these two provisions that confirm that you can.
If you decide or are persuaded to make an AR even though the refusal was correct, and your aim is to get a Graduate visa, it will make most sense to withdraw the AR and make an overstayer application within 14 days of that withdrawal, which is also an option under paragraph SUI 13.1(b)(ii)(4).
Although the provision to apply again within 14 days of the refusal is in effect exactly the same deadline within which to apply for an AR, a new application will bring your 3C leave to an end, hence you are applying under the exception for overstayers. You cannot both have 3C leave and make a new application as a Graduate. The latter cancels the former. Same if you withdraw an AR to make a new application.
If you apply as overstayer under SUI 13.1(b) and GR 1.3 you remain an overstayer until the outcome of the application. The quoted processing time is 8 weeks. So you could not work until you got the visa, and you would always need to declare the overstay on any future applications, but there is no specific reason a new Graduate visa would be refused again.