7 Things to do before applying for your Australian Student Visa

Australia student visa requirements: Getting ready for the application

If you intend to study in Australia, then you must also get ready to be acquainted with the relevant requirements and conditions ahead of time. This will facilitate the task when the time comes to apply for your student visa. Studying in Australia is a dream come true, but getting a visa and meeting all those requirements is another story. It can be really time-consuming and stressful. So getting to know what exactly to prepare ahead of time is one step toward your success. The faster you can provide all your documents to the visa officers the earlier you can get your visa results.

In this post, we will provide you with a guide on all the requirements you have to meet in order to successfully get your Australia student visa (subclass) approved and also give you a detail of what they are actually.

Below are some of the most relevant and essential requirements you must get ready before your Australian student visa application. To be successful will depend on how you address these requirements:

💬 Firstly, get your CoE ready

💬 Get your English language certificate ready

💬 Get an adequate health insurance policy ready

💬 Check out for the genuine temporary entrant requirement

💬 Get the character requirement document ready

💬 Get ready for the health requirements

💬 Get ready for the financial requirements

#1 Get your CoE ready (Confirmation of Enrollment)

Generally, this is a document that must be provided by your institution as proof of enrollment. In order to get a student visa, this is the first document you must make sure to possess. Once your admission has been granted, your institution will need to send you this document as proof of your enrollment. The document provides all the details about your enrollment such as: whether you are a scholarship or self-sponsored student(have paid tuition fees), have the relevant health care insurance, if your institution is registered in the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) and your course is full time or not etc. Usually, you will receive this document via email as soon as your admission is out. However, they can be other evidence of enrollment depending on your sponsor type and condition, Ex. letter of support

#2 Get your English Language Certificate ready

For most countries having English as a second language or people who come from countries with no English background, you must show proof of your English language proficiency, that is by meeting the English language requirements before applying for your student visa. Usually, most universities have standards for the English language requirement that meets the visa requirement. For IELTS, your overall score should be above 6.5 and preferably if no band is below 6.

#3 Get an adequate Health Insurance Cover(OSHC) ready

This is another essential Australian study visa requirement that you must meet by the time you are applying for your visa application. Living cost is really high in Australia and so does medical expenses. So the Australian Government expects you to have adequate health cover enough to carter for your medical expenses if you get sick while in Australia. If you are a self-sponsored student, make sure you organize with your institution to make arrangements for appropriate Overseas Student Health Cover(OSHC) or you can buy one directly from one of the approved providers:
ahm OSHC, Allianz Global Assistance (Peoplecare Health), BUPA Australia, CBHS International Health, Medibank Private, NIB OSHC.
The cover should start from the day you enter Australia not the day your course starts. Usually those on scholarships, this will be arranged automatically by your institutions during your admission course. All international students must meet this requirement except students from Norway, Belgium, and Sweden as they have been covered by other Insurance schemes by their nations or covered under reciprocal health care with Australia. For more details on how to meet this requirement and some tips make sure to visit this post on What is Overseas Student Health Cover(OSHC)? and how do you get it to meet your student visa requirement

#4 Check out for the Genuine Temporary Entrant requirement(GTE)

This is one of the most essential requirements that you must meet if you really want to obtain an Australian student visa. So What is exactly genuine temporary entrant (GTE) ? This is like an agreement letter (A genuine temporary entrant statement) where you are stating your genuineness about coming to Australia temporary with the sole purpose to gain a quality education. These requirements need you to show or prove that you are just a temporary entrant in Australia, to stay just for your study period and have no further incentive to remain or whatever. In addition to your genuine temporary entrant statement, generally, to assess this particular criterion, the Australian Department of home-affairs will consider the following factors also:

-The situation in your home country
-Your potential situation in Australia,
-The value of the course to your future,
-Your immigration history among others.

#5 Get the character requirement document ready

This is also another major requirement that you must meet if you are to get a visa to Australia. Meeting these requirements means that you must be of good character and should be able to remain in good character after you enter Australia. One way to meet this requirement is by going for a criminal record and background check, which is providing a police clearance certificate. Depending on the circumstances or individual case, you may be asked to complete other tasks. Read more about Character requirements for visas

#6 Get ready for the Health Requirements

This requirement requires you to go for a medical check-up while applying for your student visa. Australia has a really good health standard, so usually, before you are granted a visa, they need to be sure that you meet the minimum health standard required for this. In most cases, you might be asked to do some medical examinations including x-rays and body checkups. The Medical examinations you need to do sometimes might also depend on your country of residence, and how long you will be staying in Australia. Usually, they direct you to approved medical centres in your country of residence. Once done, the results are sent to them directly by the medical institution, you won't get to see them. You will only receive a confirmation later about it by email if it was successful or not. Read more about health requirements for visa

#7 Get ready for the Financial Requirements

As we already know, it can be very expensive to study and live in Australia. This requirement is used to assess if you meet the financial capacity to study and live in Australia. As of 2018, the amount you expected proof as a requirement to meet the Australian living cost per year is AU$20,290 (~US$13,750). This is with Tuition fees set aside. However, just providing this amount is not enough, you must show evidence as to how you earned that amount. Meaning evidence about your job, or if you are being sponsored by your parents or relatives, show evidence about their job or how they earned that sum to support you. However, those on scholarships are on the good side. All you need to do to meet this requirement is to show your scholarship forms sent to by your institution or your sponsors.

Typical List of documents you are expected to submit

In summary below is the list of documents that you must prepare usually in the form of PDF, jpg as required by the department of home affairs website. The website has a document checklist engine that will provide you with the exact list of documents that matches your circumstances. (Note that more documents might be asked to submit depending on the individual's circumstances). After acquiring all these documents, you will need to create an ImmiAccount where you will fill out the visa application form and submit these documents. I have another post on personal experience with screenshots of the whole step-by-step process simplified to assist you in creating your Immiaccount and easily submitting the visa application successfully: Immi Account: Easy step-by-step process for Australian student visa online application . The typical documents students must submit are :

Transcripts and certificates,
English Language Proficiency Test
official identification documents( Passport)
CoE (Certificate of Enrollment sent by your institution)
Genuine temporary entrant statement with any other supporting documentation.
Overseas Student Health Cover ( This usually is found on your coe with just the name and code of the organisation mentioned on it)
Police clearance Certificate from criminal record background check ( For character check requirement)
Evidence of your financial capability ( bank statements if you are self-sponsored and scholarship support form if you are a scholarship holder)
Four recent passport-size photos( This will be submitted when you go for a health examination at the medical centre)

Your medical results will be sent by the medical institution directly to the department of home affairs. The next thing to be ready for is your visa application fees which around this time is about AU$620 (~US$420).

You can use the Department of Home Affairs Document Checklist Tool to check which documents need to be attached to your application. The tool will provide all the necessary documents that need to be attached based on the country of passport and education provider.

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