IPG for a Student Visa Application

[moonfleet]

Hello folks,
This forum looks pretty active and informative hence I joined to interact with you all and learn from your experiences, I have just applied for a student visa at the NZi branch of Dubai since I reside in Saudi Arabia, but I am not really a citizen thereof, anyways, this application comes after I was given a PhD scholarship from a university in New Zealand.

I received a communication from the Dubai branch soon as they processed the fees for the application that they referred my application to the IPG in New Zealand and that I gotta wait to hear from them, it has been around 3 days so far since the Dubai branch sent me this info and I haven't heard anything else from the IPG..

What I wonder about is that, how can the student visa be handled in there, will it take as well quite a while for allocation of COs or is there like a fast-tracking mechanism? Had it been the first case then that will effectively compromise the patience that me and my supervisor have :S...

What do you guys think?

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry to hear that this has come up for you - it must be very frustrating when you've already had all the formalities of getting a PhD offer to go through.

Everything to do with INZ involves a lot of waiting, and I'm afraid three days is NOTHING. Then, on top of that, IPG is something of an enigma. Very little information is available about its processes. There have only been very few people on the forum who have had to go through IPG. Here are threads which mention it, but I don't think they'll tell you a great deal. http://www.google.co.uk/#q=site:emig...w=1112&bih=768

[moonfleet]

Hey JandM and thanks for the reply and for supporting us all around this forum,

Only 5 IPG- related posts !!!, I read a little bit about this group Googling around and what people comment about most is the lengthy pauses. Going through the excitement of landing a PhD is a great feeling to experience, my life unfolding in a wow, I am a scholar by nature and I really want for this opportunity to come to pass positively for me so I can make a difference. In my application I have drawn attention to strength points and tracks of work and my 8 band academic IELTS score.

I will give it a week then write them and see if they received my application and how it'll go about, I have a very short time to go before this scholarship expires and this is a great source of worry for me..

[JandM]

Can you not get a compassionate extension of the scholarship? I have the feeling whatever body that is is more likely to have the possibility to be human and flexible than IPG.

[moonfleet]

I have all options laid down before me, so far the folks in the university have been pretty much understanding, in fact my supervisor has warned me that it can take a long time for the visa thing and pressed on me to go for it As soon as I got all the paperwork ready, which I did. Even though my formal start day is Jul, 1st, 2012 I think I can talk with them into a postponement depending on my initial communication with the IPG.