NZ PhD Student Visa, 5 Month Processing time

Kindly read my first post. My supervisor is a very highly ranked university officials, he contacted them by writing on his personal letter head , explained the urgency of our research project and requested them to rush the process exactly 2 month back. But nothing helped at all.
I don't know exactly how inquiry and verification takes place , IPG is a 'clandestine' branch so nothing known about its exact working. I think for india time processing is more cuz u know very well our Indian clerical staff , they unnecessarily delay the replies (if some thing is being asked and inquired from them)hence the visa processing.
Hope it will help.
 
Hi . Today I got mail from my Visa officer that this week She 'll send my documents for verification as their standard verification process. Now it depend that whenever we get reponse. after to get repose 'll contact me again. No one know what is their criteria and how they verify your docs. But i got that It depend on your visa officer that he want to verify which docs. but in maximu case they verify employment history with your employer. because in last 5 years lot of fraud cases came out to provide false employment.
But for scholarship no need to worry. In my case scholarship deadline was October 31, 2009. I contacted my PhD supervisor and scholarship department. They told no need to worry your scholarship and position 'll not lapse. But U should be enroll yourself before your deadline of scholarship. This enrollment you can be complete from our country itself. after enrollment your position be safe up-to 4-6 month.

Time of processing for visa completion not confirm but I know they take atleast 45 working days to complete the processing at IPG. so approx 3 month. But it may exceed due to large volume of visa application. March to may are peak time for visa application . and october to december peak off. so during these period application take too much time. But these three month can be exceed ...

In PhD case... It is mandatory that verification 'll be done in IPG only.. all PhD application must be forward to IPG for Health , X ray certificate and police verification.

In other cases you are right some people got visa with in 5 days or two week. these visa for graduation, or diploma not a problem but if your course more than 24 month then problem. I am sure No one is here any PhD student who got visa before 2-3 month.
I know one consultant who told me their application mostly complete in 3 month.. If u submit application though them they also deal with IPG processing to complete faster. But in my case I did not contact any consultant . I submitted my visa application myself . I hope my application verification might be complete before december

If anyone want to discuss with me further they are welcome to contact at +919991040931 (Yogesh Kumar).


All the best to everyone to get their
 
@doglover. Okay i got it. i think this unnecessary delay is happening to the administrative delay of the clerical staffs and others. You are correct. I have also considered this into my mind. But again the application is with the Immigration NZ, Wellington Branch, IPG. i believe that would hardly cause any administrative delay, but i heard they are quite inefficient in their work. Plus, long queues.
 
Hi

University can't play any role to complete the visa processing or to help to get Visa . even they can't interfere . and they told me everyone have same urgency for visa. so no one can be prefer. Only in exceptional case your file can bring forward.. But no one know in their exceptional visa situation .. what is their criteria. Because I think deadline of scholarship is also exceptional case, But they know scholarship deadline can be exceed further for visa held up . But U only can inform your visa officer regularly and request them to complete verification as early as possible. I talked to wellington people also they told IPG is mandatory for doctoral course from June 2005 onward... It is confirmed India is not in their 23 High risk country list.
 
@forevermark. Does qualification verification takes place? I did my engineering from a premier Indian Engineering School. The Embassy didn't contact my college. I have a few visa stamps of other countries. Do they check visas from other countries with the other country embassies. Isn't that not allowed as per the data protection and privacy act?

I did some exhaustive internet research and found out the following.

When the application is forwarded to the IPG, it is then forwarded to the Immigration Officer and then to the verification officer. (Auckland has a Central Verification Unit and has 24 officers, Wellington has just 1). Either or all of the verifications take place.

1. Identity

2. English/Language proficiency

3. Immigration agent

4. Employer/University

5. Job offer/Admission/Fellowship

6. Work Experience

7. Qualifications

The identity verification and documentation takes place in the following ways.

1. Identifying and assessing any relevant AMS (Application Management System, Immigration NZ's prime platform for their visa work) notes and previous applications

2. Checking identity with external agencies and Immigration NZ other branch offices

3. Document comparison and Examination
 
@forevermark
It depends upon luck , i know few PhD students(my friends) who got visa for NZ in 25-40 days from the date of application lodgment at Delhi. it is shear a game of luck.
Cheers
 
@brain Yes they do check any foreign tourism details , am sure about it , nothing like data protection or anything.
 
Verification officers use their own discretion as to how far they examine an applicant's employment/admission, qualifications and work experience. Immigration Branch offices have been inclined to devise their own verification systems and country-specific informations in isolation from other areas of the workforce group.

Immigration Department has tools in place within its mainstream systems and equipment, such as document verification equipment for relevant staff to support fraud detection. Nonetheless the AMS is not set up to hold all informations about applicants electronically. Some infos from manual applications are stored in hardcopy rather than electronically.

Verification officers have been using a pilot scheme containing a toolkit designed to assist in verifying informations submitted with applications. It provides infos such as domestic and international contact lists, a database of samples of known genuine and fraudulent docs, such as foreign PCCs, national Ids and qualifications.
 
@doglover, i mean do they contact the embassies to verify visa informations (for visa stamps on passport, for example contacting a German embassy for a German visa stamp on the passport). They check the foreign tourism details since their database is connected to an international airline database through which they can check all intermediate stoppages during travels and final destinations.
 
Department of Labor monitors the number and timeliness of visa and permit decisions made by the branches. These branches are funded based on the number of visa or permit decisions they make in a year. Based on which, number of fulltime employees required as deployed. Targets have to be achieved against forecasted in a month for the number of applications. Immigration officers are expected to decide this target. Failing which is viewed as a significant performance issue of these officers. Typically the hierarchy goes like this

Branch Managers <---------->Immigration Managers (Team Lead) <-----------> Immigration Officers

In some branches the Immigration officers are strictly required to manage a set of caseload of applications and meet set targets for deciding applications by the type of visa or permit. New applications are allocated to them as they complete cases, without any screening of the level of complexity and work those applications would require.

In other branches various procedures are in place to assess the risk level or complexity of different applications before they are allocated. Higher risk applications are assumed to require more time to assess and the quantity targets for individual staff is adjusted according to the complexity of the applications they are assessing. Targets vary significantly between the different branches, even though staffs are often doing essentially the same types of work.
 
Immigration officers use risk profiling to determine how much effort is required for the assurance processes they should use with a particular application and the accompanying information. Normally all visa applicants involve some form of risk profiling or assessment by officers. They use their experience and skills to decide how much verification work is needed for any particular application. And for temporary visa/permit decisions, second person quality assurance checks are not done due to time and staff constraints.
 
brainexplode, you've done a tremendous amount of research on this, thanks a ton! Atleast there's certainty of our misery :p This is terrible. I left my job too anticipating a 1-2 month wait. 5 months will be too hard to explain away at a later stage in our careers.

Its true that INZ has promised reforms but after reading the links you posted, it doesnt seem like it will happen anytime soon. NZ has a bad research scene as it is, with less funding from industry/govt and so on. Do they not want it to improve? Why would they discourage bright students this way? PhD students from different parts of the world can really help NZ. Do you know that a basic dot pen costs 5$ in NZ? They have no engineering ability there whatsoever and need to import most commodities. Most of their research is in humanities or biology. How do they expect research to be worldclass if they discourage world class talent this way??
 
Thnx for all such information. I am from SRILANKA. One of my friend in SRILANKA had applied for PhD visa in Feb 2009 and got visa in Aug 2009 i.e. within 6 months. Our applications go to Bangkok, Thailand and then forwarded to Wellington for processing. My application was responded by Bangkok Officials in June 09 and got response from Wellington in start of Sep 09. I had submitted all things in mid of Sep 09.

So any have idea how much more time they can take.
As in my case :) more then 5 months have passed. But still waiting :( .
 
My friend also used to get same reply from officer that you will be contacted. Normally it took 2 months for him for documents verification. He was asked to submit docs up to 15 June. He got visa notification in mid of Aug.

So do they take 2 months on average for verification??? That is important question.
 
@explodesh Thanks for your informations. Can you please tell to the forum specifically, when your friend filed for his visa application (exact date) and when did he receive his visa (exact date)? Wellington branch has just 1 verification officer and thus the workload is huge, i suppose, compared to Auckland branch where there are 24 verification officers. The applications go to the verification officers in a managed queue like First-In First-Out (FIFO as in Computer Science). Plus, these guys don't conduct complete verifications. I think they conduct verifications for some important docs like PCC, medical certificates, birth certificate, fund certificates. Please read my above posts for more details.

I submitted my docs to the visa officer on September 17, 2009 and still i have no response (Today is November 11, 2009). I suppose, after the verification is over, once the visa gets approved, there are still additional administrative tasks done before a student is notified that his/her visa has been approved. So yes, if i take your friend's and my situation into consideration, it seems verification and final visa approval takes 2 months or 8 weeks (approx) to get done.

My immigration consultant is an expert in NZ visa policies told me that i can expect my visa anytime soon. He also adviced me that PhD visas from India (or SriLanka as your case) usually take 5 months to get approved.

More thoughts and informations about the visa applications would be much appreciate from all forum members. Thanks, brainxplode
 
@explodesh, one more thing. Was your friend contacted through email once the verification was done for him or was he contacted by the Immigration department in Bangkok finally that his visa got approved and he can send his passport for visa stamping? Wish your friend good luck, from my side. Thanks, brainxplode
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top