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QMUL or Goldsmiths? + I made a stupid mistake

So I got offers from Goldsmiths and QMUL among other universities and was wondering which one you guys think is better. How has your experience there been? I'm majoring in MA Linguistics by the way.

I'm also expecting to hear from UCL and King's College London. UCL is on top of my list, but I submitted my application about 2 weeks ago to both UCL and KCL and I don't expect to hear from them soon (it takes 3-6 weeks). Problem is, the deadline for accepting the offer from QMUL is in 9 days. As for Goldsmiths, I was pretty excited about the offer and accepted it a while ago because I figured I needed to get the CAS number and submit my visa application. But I received an email from them saying I need to pay them as soon as possible to get the CAS number. If I pay them, I can't get my money back and can just forget about UCL.

Does anyone have experience with changing institutions after you have submitted your visa application? I'm racing against time anyway. I need to be in London in September and processing the visa application can take up to 30 days.

Any advice is appreciated.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

Treee

Original post by maskofsanity

Hold out until the end of July to hear back from UCL and KCL - that still gives you around 2 months until the start of the course, which is enough for the visa application. It may be worth emailing both universities and explaining your situation in order to hurry them along. You could even wait until mid-August if a visa application only takes up to 30 days, but of course that may be quite tight. It ultimately depends on how much you prefer UCL.

You can accept QMUL now and pull out later - this is common.

If I wait till the end of July, I would lose the offers I already have. I did talk to UCL and KCL by phone, but they said there's nothing they can do since there are hundreds of international applicants in the same situation.

I guess I'll accept the QMUL offer, and if I get accepted into UCL, I'll decline the QMUL offer. I didn't know doing that was common. I was skeptical knowing it would make me look bad.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

Treee

Original post by maskofsanity

... so good luck, I'm sure it will be fine, albeit a little pushed for time in terms of your visa.

Thanks a lot. I need all the luck in the world.

Reply 3

sj27

Original post by Treee

Does anyone have experience with changing institutions after you have submitted your visa application? I'm racing against time anyway. I need to be in London in September and processing the visa application can take up to 30 days.

Any advice is appreciated.

I don't know about the specifics of trying to change a visa application but I do know that the CAS is specific to an institution and course, so you cannot use a visa obtained using one CAS to study somewhere else. If you submit and then change I would imagine you would need to resubmit the visa application.

Reply 4

Treee

Original post by sj27

That's my main concern. I am aware that the CAS is specific to one institution, but I don't know if I would have to resubmit a new visa application or just request the Home Office to change my CAS.