Before we even start, if you plan on going to the US, sort a visa as soon as you can!!
I am not the most experienced in the world of America, so finding out I’d need a visa was confusing for the start! As an exchange student, I needed a J-1 visa which allows to be able to study in the US for the academic year. This requires a long application and interview to go to in order to receive the visa. In order to book an appointment for the visa, you need to fill a DS-160, which is the long application! Once that’s done, you can go on to book an interview. The US has a few embassies the UK, one in London, Belfast and Edinburgh. The waiting list was around a month for an interview, so if you leave it late, it is a major stress (like myself!!) There is an option to request an emergency earlier appointment, but this has to be approved by the organisation. The other option is to keep an eye on the website which has regular openings for interviews on different days. They say to allow around 7 days for the delivery of your visa.
Like I mentioned before, I’m not the most experienced in all of this, so of course I was one to look into this a month before I was due to leave for America! My flight was booked for Monday the 12th August, and I managed to get an interview for my visa on Thursday the 8th August. That was not great at all! I requested for an earlier date but it was declined, so I kept my eye out on the website for an earlier date and managed to get the 6th August. Still not ideal but it was better! I watched the website about 20 times everyday until a couple days before the 6th but didn’t manage to get it earlier! So off I went to London for my interview with my dad. We left home around 5:50 to get the train to London, we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get there for the interview at 10:30.
The US Embassy is an amazing building. You have to enter an airport like security before entering the building itself. There was a lot of people waiting for an interview at 10:30, maybe around 50-100 people - more than I expected that’s for sure! Once going through the security, we quede a while before being let in. It takes a while, the first step is to give all the required documents to someone at a window, then go for a short discussion with the us councillor, which also takes a while to wait for. In the discussion they ask just a couple of questions about where you’re going, what you’ll be doing and when you plan to return, it’s not so scary and they’re all quite friendly!
I was very fortunate because I managed to have my documents returned to me by Friday the 9th August, so 3 days after the interview! It was a huge relief and I’m very grateful to have it back because to change my flight would have been a bit of a handful! So, to anyone needing a visa, APPLY EARLY!! You won’t regret it, believe me!!!
For information about visas and where to go, etc. Follow the link below!