Hi All,
I have just found this forum after my husband and I had our interview in Sydney last week - seriously wish I had found it earlier as so many of the little details we had been preoccupied with/agonised over are dealt with in these 147 pages. Kudos for that and congrats to all who have already been approved/gone current.
My husband was the principal applicant and, because we got married in December 2013 between submitting the initial application and then being selected, I was added to the application and am now thrilled to be heading over with him.
Here is our DV info:
OC2015000007XX
October 2013-Entered DV Lottery 2015
May 2014-Selected for further processing
end May 2014- Submitted DS260
Dec 2013 - Went current
Interview 10/2/15 in Sydney
Apologies in advance for the million questions I'm about to shoot your way:
We were approved at our interview - at least I think so (!). The very nice consular officer said everything was in order with our application, the only issue was that the doctor who did our medical forgot to fill out one section for both of us so the consulate were to email him and get him to sign/return this part and then would send us our passports back within a week or so. They said to follow him up if we hadn't heard anything by mid-this week. Still haven't heard back. We are from Perth so had our medical at Kinetic Health, so anyone visiting Dr Bateman there (who is lovely) , just make sure he has completed all sections of your forms so you're not in our position - would have loved to have our passports back like caroline and gemma by now. Has anyone else experienced this? If the doctor has to fill out more information on the forms, does this change/extend the validity date on your medical?
We are planning to head over in July 2015, subject to when the medical says we have to enter at the latest, and then stay with my aunt in Connecticut until we can find an apartment in NYC and I can find a job. My husband is studying so he will also either look at doing exchange for a semester or two and then transferring, or doing a straight transfer, or working for the first six months. Has anyone had experience transferring to a US uni part way through an Aussie degree? Any recommendations on process/ how to request finance since HECS won't apply? He is studying engineering if that helps.
I am a lawyer with Government currently and am looking at any kind of NGO/human rights/legal type work that I can find over there. Not sure if I will need to transfer my legal qualification if I end up in a firm. Has anyone gone through this before? I'm not really keen on sitting the Bar exam but I heard there are some firms that may not require it.
OK I'll stop with the questions (though I have a million more!) and free up some screen space for others
Very exciting stuff...