External Student and curtailment of your visa

The decision to make you external is an academic decision. If this happens, your student status will change and will impact your student visa.

Home Office Student Sponsor Compliance Duty

If a student is made external, the University is required by the Home Office to report this change in circumstances to them. This means that the University is informing the Home Office that it is withdrawing immigration sponsorship and your visa will be curtailed by the Home Office. The expectation is that a student would be making plans to leave the UK. This is in accordance with our student sponsor licence.

We expect that the Home Office will write to you and tell you the new expiry date of your visa. This is usually 60 days from the date of the Home Office letter/email was sent to you but you must read your letter/email from them carefully.

We cannot advise on when the Home Office would write to you. It would depend on how busy they are as there have been significant delays due to COVID but when they do write to you, they will give you your new visa expiry date and that period is to give the visa holder time to make alternative plans.

Appealing external student decision

If you have not appealed the decision to make you external, then the University will report withdrawal of immigration sponsorship to the Home Office. You would have been advised of the right to appeal the decision when you were written to by your School/Registry. If you have any queries about this, we would strongly urge you to contact them.

Impact on applying other visa type

Graduate Route

The Home Office will not consider an application for the above visa until the University has confirmed to them that a student has successfully completed their studies. The University does not make this report until full formal and final completion is confirmed by the School to Registry.

Based on your circumstances, and your possibility of wanting to qualify for the Graduate Route visa, please see our Frequently Asked Questions. International students have asked when they have been made external. Please read the information carefully as this may answer any further questions you may have.

Applying for a student visa extension

Not all student visa extension matters are straightforward and IST practice is to undertake internal administrative checks before any CAS can be supported. Once we were advised that your status was external the IST advised you that a visa extension could not be supported. Your status is external which means you do not have a new course end date but a new submission date for your dissertation as an external student.

Can I apply for the Graduate Route visa when I submit my final dissertation in December? If I cannot, then what are my options?

Unfortunately, unless dissertation submission in December means that you are being officially confirmed as completed then no, as noted above, an application for Graduate Route cannot be made until the University has confirmed to the Home Office that a student has successfully completed their studies fully and officially. If you are not clear on what that is then, as this a university academic matter, you must speak to your School/Registry who will explain.

Do I apply for an extension of my student visa till June 2022 so that I can attend my graduation?

In your current situation, you cannot extend your visa as immigration sponsorship is being withdrawn and you are an external student.

Next steps:

The University is obliged to ensure that you are aware of your options. In this case, please note the following:

University of Birmingham and your student status

The current position is that your immigration sponsorship is being withdrawn and you must not stay in the UK beyond the visa expiry date, and this may have an impact on your ability to apply for a Graduate Route visa.

Limitations and solutions

We must be clear with you that the University is limited in the advice it can give you on this matter relating to curtailment of your visa and making a Graduate Route application.

We are permitted to provide advice to our sponsored students about student visa routes. However, the Graduate Route is not a student route and not sponsored by the University. It is a route that leads to employment and we are therefore limited to the level of advice we can give e.g., a basic level only.

Additionally, your case is complicated by withdrawal of immigration sponsorship, curtailment of your visa, when you will complete your studies and whether at that time you have a valid visa needed to make a Graduate Route application.

At this stage, we are at the limit of the advice we can give, and we cannot provide you with any further advice as it is outside our permitted boundaries and requires specialist legal advice. We therefore recommend that you seek the services of an independent legal advisor who can advise you on more detailed aspects of the Graduate Route and what your options may be with regard to your visa and curtailment. You should go to this link Find an immigration adviser - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).