I was sent the CAS (Confirmation for Acceptance of Studies) form to fill out on June 3rd. It’s a PDF file with a bunch of fields to fill out—last name, given name, passport number, passport expiry date, sex, Queen’s student number, birthdate, country of citizenship, birthplace, address, name of home university…not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea. Sending in the form means I’ll be sent back a CAS number when it’s been processed. The number is important because it’s issued in the form of a certificate from the BISC, which I need before I can apply for a UK student visa. The certificate also comes with extra info about applying for the visa—which I’ll need, because the student handbook makes this all seem really, really, REALLY confusing.

Of course, I had issues with the PDF; sex and home university were supposed to be drop-down menus that didn’t actually exist. So finally I was asked to just type everything up and send it that way, so I did yesterday. Of course the guy is out of the office until the 8th, so I have to wait.

I’m excited despite the CAS issues, though. I feel very cool about applying for a student visa. I’m not entirely sure why, because it’s shaping up to be a long and complicated process… Oh well. I’ll deal.