About my Germany visa 2021-2022

Two years ago (2020), I had a plan to travel to Germany for half a year during my work break, but I didn’t expect that the visa application process would drag on for half a year when everything was planned, and it was also compressed to reality The itinerary, the current itinerary how to respond is still unknown‧‧‧

In the process of applying for a visa in the past six months, I have experienced many twists and turns. During the process of anxiety and anxiety, I kept typing on people I didn’t know on the social networking sites, and I also annoyed all the relevant people I knew. I got the result. Afterwards, I also hope that I can share my own experience with everyone, even if I probably won’t run this process for the second time in my life (right?), so that people in the future can have a more reference experience to share, know What problems will be encountered in the process, how to judge, and how to deal with them.

Basic information of the applicant: male, 26 years old, graduated for two years, has a work experience, the source of income is himself, holds the Goethe B1 test certificate and the English version of the university graduation certificate, and applies to study in a language school in Berlin.

Let me share with you my application process:

2021/09/30 Send out the first visa (working holiday visa) application, and receive a rejection letter/notification one week later
2021/10/14 Sent out the second visa (working holiday visa) application, and received a letter of refusal on 11/19 after several correspondence exchanges
2022/01/05 sent out the third visa (only language visa) application, 03/16 (9 weeks + 6) finally received the passport together with the visa

Departure date: 12/07>>12/09>>03/05>>03/15>>03/19*

Because the financial proof documents required by the two visas are different, I went through both routes at least once during the application process, and even went through the part of the working holiday visa twice, applying for some materials that may not be useful, and finally All drained. In consideration of the length of the article, I will use a list of key points in the club’s post, and finally attach what I think is more practical, the recent status of Berlin language visa processing, so that everyone who is preparing/applying There is a more specific reference direction.

Internet articles can be written for a long time, but people's concentration is not long enough, so I put the most important things in front of me.

2021/2022 Berlin Pure Language Visa Application Time Reference Table

The reason why there are different calculation methods for the number of weeks is that the review time starts from the date of supplementary documents . From this form, you can see the application time, the processing time after the supplementary documents are replied, and the processing after receiving the insurance The time, on the right is my own application process, but whether or not the B2 examination has nothing to do with the application, I already have a B1 examination certificate when I apply.

Before the visa interview

Restricted withdrawal account: You can use Deutsche Bank, Expatrio or Fintiba. The latter two can be processed online in about a week. It is safest to remit money abroad within two days. Someone confirmed, so it will take a day or two. How to do it? You can use keywords to search for "restricted withdrawal account". I have used FB to contact the overseas study agency for this purpose, but it is only to let me have some idea of ​​the time needed. In fact, there is still some gap in the time spent .

Motivation letter: The motivation must be strong , but it’s hard to say how strong it is. At least it must explain that learning German will help your future planning.

Visa application form: You can find it on the website of the Taiwan Association, and basically fill it out, but the German foreign affairs agency (not) expects you: you have never been to Germany, you have no friends in Germany, and you have no family in Germany.

Please note: German friends and family members are basically super negative assets for visa applications

Interview time appointment: Theoretically, the peak season is very busy, and the off-season is very slack, but in fact it is not so low. In the past, the situation of crawling articles was more popular from May to September, and it was hard to find an interviewer. So to make an appointment, it is best to make an appointment at least one month in advance for the time slot you want . There is still a good chance that you will not be able to make an appointment until a week or two ago.

According to the experience of predecessors and myself, the release time of the interview period is about 00:00 German time , so the summer time is about 06:00 , and the non-summer time is about 07:00 . In February, I checked for three weeks. Basically, it seems that I didn’t get it at 6 o’clock, but I did it at 7 o’clock. For your reference.

Cancellation time slot, and the release of the cancellation time slot: First of all, never make an appointment after no show , if you do this, you will never be able to make an appointment, and a set of passport numbers can only make an appointment for one time slot. Furthermore, the next appointment can only be made 48 hours after the cancellation , and the canceled time slot will be released in the morning two days later . So if you want to take over someone else’s time slot, it’s best to cancel your own time slot first (day 0) and then ask the other party to cancel after the update time slot is released tomorrow (day +1), so that you can be in two days later (day 1) +3 days) to this released slot.

It seems that the cancellation of the appointment time slot can only cancel the appointment time slot that will arrive one or two days later . It is impossible to cancel tomorrow’s appointment today. A netizen mentioned that there was a successful appointment to the time slot that was released on the same day, but I didn't ask about this).

If your head is broken like mine, and you have no show on your own after making an appointment, you can only send a letter in English/German to the long-term visa department, explain to them and ask them to help you deal with the system , otherwise you will be stuck and unable to make an appointment. It is possible to wait for more than three days for this process, please try not to do this.

If you want to make an appointment first, then check whether the schedule or other appointments have rushed to decide when to interview. According to the system rules (but it’s a bit cheap, try not to do it if possible), you can use other passport numbers to reserve the time slot you want to get stuck first, and then apply the reservation cancellation rules mentioned above to reserve the time slot you will release, as long as you grab the time slot on time It's very safe, but I still hope that everyone is fine and don't do this, and leave when you are ready.

In visa interview

Every word left by the Taiwan Association will affect whether your visa application can be successful. It is not entirely determined by the local German government . Even the refusal letter may only say that Taipei is rejecting your visa.

The Skizze (sketch) left by the Taiwanese interviewer during the interview will be sent to the visa officer for review . If there is any dispute in the future, they will theoretically transfer this to see what they want to say about you.

I have seen three visa interviewers, and met two of them, two men and one woman, the men are just a fat guy and a thin gentleman, the girl is nice but the only interviewer I have never met. The so-called fat brother really has a little bit of a tone, but I think part of it is because there are many people who don’t know what the necessary information is until the interview, and they can’t answer the questions. Of course, the tone is Not good, but I really don’t feel very comfortable. I met Fat Brother in my third interview. He kept questioning my application materials. He thought it would be very sad if I was rejected, but he gave in and let me send the documents. .

The visa interview time has nothing to do with the pass rate, but with who the interviewer is . The female interviewer is very nice, she will think about you a lot and give you a lot of suggestions, but I don't think you will pass it if you meet her. Within the scope of permission, they can let you go outside to use your mobile phone, or make additional photocopies of necessary documents, basically using your mobile phone in the hallway or going to the nearby 7-11 to photocopy this range.

At the end of the interview, you will be asked to write a courier receipt, so that the results will be sent to you . Currently, the Taiwan Association is delivered by Kerry Daying Freight. If you are interested in tracking whether your passport has been sent, maybe you can Write down the shipping number , but I didn't remember it myself. After all, the speed of the application process is determined by the foreign affairs unit, not the shipping unit.

interview finished

I myself would divide the review into several steps, processing in Taiwan >> sending to Germany >> asking questions >> confirming the result.

Review by the Taiwan unit : "should" be finished within a week or two. After all, the Germans will let you pass it if they don't want to pass it to you, and they won't refuse it immediately. Your profile will only be sent to Germany after an appropriate review and opinion is given. In addition, if it is said that there is something to be supplemented on the day of the interview, the calculation date of the audit will start from the date when the supplement is completed, and the previous ones are basically not counted.

Sending to Germany : To be honest, I don’t know how they will deal with it. I haven’t tried to ask the local foreign affairs office about my application status, but a friend asked a local person to call and ask, and the other party actually checked the status for him. Although the result is not beautiful It's not completely impossible, but it is speculated that if you ask in English or broken German, you should be rejected directly.

(Follow-up questions): This part may not necessarily be there. I was asked when I was rejected for the second time, but not the last time. According to what I have gathered, there are currently two possible directions.

1. Please describe your motivation again, and maybe even ask some of the content that was written in your motivation letter: biased towards poor prognosis . I always felt that it was not clear what was written in the letter, but looking back, it may be this part He didn't accept it, and just refuted it for you in a formal manner. After receiving the reply, he would put it on the shelf and freeze it.

2. In response to the proof you submitted, please provide corresponding and specific supplementary information: the prognosis is better. A friend received the letter and asked him to provide a complete payment certificate for the language class and the schedule of the language class. After replying If you receive another letter, please send back the insurance and departure date. I applied to the same language school in the same area as a netizen, so I was not required.

The assignment of cases in German foreign affairs units seems to be based on the letters of the surname . I have not encountered this part and it is not clear. I feel that it is a method of equally dividing the cases among different employees. If you ask the undertaker who is responsible for your letter, you may ask about the processing status ?)

Inquiry about the progress: In principle, it is written in English/German , which has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that all important matters, including system operations, are handled by German personnel. Only when they see it can they have a chance to deal with it. Questions, most of the time to ask about visa progress, it is recommended to use English/German. The disadvantage is that the reply is super slow, most of them take more than 2-3 days , and there is a high probability that the content of the reply is not nutritious, telling you to wait for the German to review and so on. If you keep writing, he will keep returning the can. If you write too much, he will Please don't write any more. If you write in Chinese to ask about progress, you will also get canned food in Chinese. The advantage is that the Chinese ones are returned more frequently. The disadvantage is that basically all Chinese ones are returned to the canned food , which does not help much. But I personally have also made progress from the Chinese letters. "The visa review result has been sent by express, please pay attention to the phone notification" => visa refusal

Basically, you use the Contact Us page on the German Association website to write a letter to inquire . When the page receives the letter, the system will forward it to the corresponding processing staff to ask them to reply , and then the staff will use another account to reply , so some of them can be viewed. to their names, but basically there will be no response if you send them directly to the mailboxes of these people. In addition, basically the director will not reply to the mail box of the director , some are the deputy director, and sometimes the visa officer.

A smooth visa application process: interview >> (foreign affairs unit please answer questions/supplementary information) >> Chinese letter informs you of the review result, please return insurance information and departure date >> express call to you, in the middle You will not receive any e-mails. At the stage of returning insurance and departure date, if there is no problem with the information, it will basically take about two working days to send it out .

Waiting for the visa for so long, and no E-mail has been sent to ask, what should I do if I am anxious? The statistics of the application status (N=3) in the last six months (2021/09-2022/03) show that if the visa is not rejected early, in principle, the first letter from the foreign affairs unit will be received 8-10 weeks after the application is submitted , but the content may be to ask questions, provide insurance, or decide to refuse a visa locally, which varies from person to person. If you are asking for additional information, wait for the information to be sent to Germany and then come back. Basically, it will take another 1-2 weeks to get the next result , but it may take longer. If you haven't received a notice after eight weeks, I think it is an appropriate time to send a letter to ask . If you ask in four weeks, you will definitely eat canned food.

Appeal : You can appeal in writing within one month after getting the result. However , the appeal process can take up to three months, and the passing rate of the appeal should be lower than the passing rate of the lawyer's national examination, so please consider whether to appeal , or directly apply for other types of visas . If the complaint is not satisfactory, you can appeal to the court in Berlin, but basically no one will do this.

I will send out the appeal letter in November 2021, and I will receive the result of the appeal about one month later . The result will be written in German. The general writing format is: 1. We cancel the audit results of a certain month and a certain day in a certain year 2. Our current Application result. So don't read the first sentence and think wow I made it, that's in canned format. If you are confident, you may choose to appeal and apply at the same time. You just don’t know what will happen. Appeals are free of charge.

Emotional whispers

The first time I applied for a working holiday visa, it only took about a week from the time of delivery. At the beginning, I expected to be like people a few years ago. After a few days, I received an E-mail saying, "The German Association in Taiwan informs you, Your visa application has a result", the result is that you directly receive a canned rejection letter, and then there is no more. When I first applied, I planned to leave in early December, so when I received the refusal (early October), I decided to consult with someone who has a relationship with Germany to see if there is anything wrong with my motivation letter. If there is a problem, hurry up and ask Termin to send it again.

The second application was a bit tortuous. Since I will be interviewing for my next job in mid-October, the importance is so great that if I don’t find a job, I probably won’t go to Germany to study the language and continue to look for a job, so I decided to think I’m very smart. Two days before the interview, I made an appointment to send the document to Termin. In the middle, I communicated with two teachers from the previous German class (one from Taiwan and one from Germany) on LINE. I also consulted the predecessors who applied and my brother who was studying in Germany to revise. The content of the motivation letter was changed to be concise and to the point. After the result was sent out, nothing came to light‧‧‧

About two weeks after the delivery, there was still no reply, so I started to write a letter to remind me, but I received the consistent canned message "The German visa officer is reviewing your visa application, and will notify you as soon as possible if there is a result." After two interviews, Consistent replies week to week. It wasn’t until more than a month later that I was so angry that I wrote again complaining that the application process was too different from other people’s, and I received their ruthless reply before work the next day saying, “Your application results have been sent by courier. , please pay attention to the courier notification" and you will know that the general trend is over.

After receiving it, Fa Do was really angry. The reason for the visa refusal was very vague. In general, it still said that my motivation for applying did not meet the requirements of the working holiday visa. Chaoyi’s statement could even be said to suspect that I fabricated reasons for the visa application. So I decided to write the director's mailbox and appeal letter, scolding all the problems I could find during the application process (including processing time, replying to all reasons for refusal, lack of signature on the refusal letter, etc.), and even I told them that the application for the working holiday visa was limited to three months, and threatened that they had better get back to me with the application reply. As a result, I got a reply from the deputy director. In the end, I did receive the result of the appeal two days before my scheduled departure. The conclusion was to pick my faults more carefully and then refuse the visa.

In fact, I had already decided to go to Christmas with a visa-free visa after I had already decided to refuse a visa. Let’s see how I can stay a few days longer under the Schengen visa-free 180-day limit of 90 days before August this year. As a result, Omicron showed its skills in November. , made me completely lose confidence in spending Christmas in Europe. Later, when I thought about it, I thought that if I really want to travel, it’s better to travel in the warm spring and then it’s safer. If I come back from the epidemic too early, I can’t go there. It doesn't feel good to be able to speak German in the middle of winter. Finally, two days before the departure date, the air ticket will be postponed directly to the beginning of March to see if it is time to go.

After a week of precipitation, coupled with the fact that there is nothing wrong with the Terminm reservation system, I figured out that if I apply for a language visa now, I might have a chance to go longer. I decided to try again. After all, my main purpose of going to Germany this time is It is better to learn German well, maybe we will meet again in the future, and maybe there is a chance to use it in the professional field, so I still hope to stay in Germany as long as possible and study hard.

So I embarked on the long road of preparing application materials and restricting withdrawal accounts again. This time, I also consulted many different sources of information (but this time it is mainly for language visa applicants), revised my motivation letter, and finally felt uneasy. I was preparing to apply under the circumstances, but I was overwhelmed by myself who had a brain congested appointment with Termin before. I was almost three weeks late before sending out the application. I really killed myself. After this waiting time, I feel that the most rewarding thing I did was find a good friend who applied to the same place as me, shared with me the latest status of the Berlin application, and made me feel more comfortable about waiting for the visa. Don’t be so anxious anymore. After all, the application status and time in the same place are probably the most effective predictors for your case. You can also know what kind of documents the other party will ask for, so you can prepare in advance and shorten the time as much as possible. You can control the time in your own hands when applying for a visa. After all, Germans can’t rush‧‧‧

In the end, I decided to send a letter to the Taiwan Association to inquire about the progress of my visa when it was a little over eight weeks old. I didn’t expect it at first, but when I received it the next Monday, I received a reply letter that made me break out in cold sweat. It only said: "You will receive the decision soon." At this time, I just thought that I would probably be rejected for the third time, but unexpectedly, when I couldn't wait for the rejection letter, I suddenly received the " Your visa application has a result" E-mail, and then there will be no twists and turns in the rest, so I finally confirmed the flight time and other details, and then I settled down to record my application process, I hope Can help others.

thank you

Thanks to my family and friends, all the people who enthusiastically answered my questions during the visa application process made it possible for me to successfully obtain a pure language visa. For me, the language visa is actually easier to get than the working holiday visa. This is probably the part I didn't expect. I will think about where to get it back for the extra time and money. The hardest thing is the smoothest. I hope I can work harder in the future to make everything go smoothly.