You must apply for a student visa depending on your desired country to study abroad, and the success of your application may depend on your well-written SOP for visa. A visa letter is written in compliance with the rights attached to the particular type of visa such as a student visa to study abroad.
A detailed essay or document designated as a visa letter (also referred to as visa SOP) must be provided to clarify why you would like to reside and pursue education in a particular nation. In simpler terms, it gives immigration authorities a glimpse into your demeanour, way of life, and past accomplishments that may make you a desirable student immigrant.
Your request for a visa may be denied if the immigration officials do not accept the evidence and arguments presented in your visa letter. In this article, we have discussed some top tricks and tips to write visa SOP that will help you understand the document’s content, its intent, and how you can craft it in such a way that your SOP for visa application stands out from other applicants.
Why Does the Content of a Visa Letter Matter?
The content of a Visa SOP needs to be not only relevant but should also make proper representations. The importance of Visa Letters content can be highlighted below:
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Immigration authorities treat it as your personal introduction.
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Authorities examine the document to learn the real intentions of the student to enter a foreign country.
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Authorities ensure that the student has enough finances to fund his education and stay in the country.
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The ability of the student to cope with future educational challenges is assessed.
It is only once all of these things are ensured that immigration authorities accept and evaluated if an applicant should be granted a student visa or not. To ensure the acceptance of your visa application, caution must be taken while writing the visa letter. The common mistakes while writing a visa letter must be avoided, and knowing the reasons behind the rejection of applications also comes in handy. However, knowing what to avoid is not enough, you must also know how to present the content of your SOP for visa.
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Tips to Write Visa Letter
As it has been established, an SOP for visa can be the final hurdle or nod in your dream of studying abroad. So, there is an obvious requirement of writing it carefully. Mentioned below are some of the major tips to write visa SOP:
Gather Information Required by Authorities
The most important thing in a visa letter is not the interesting presentation but the furnishing of information required by the authorities. There might be a lot of components with respect to what to include in a visa SOP but you will have to select the information that will impact your SOP for visa approval directly.
Academic Background
The academic qualifications that have inspired you to apply for the chosen course need to go in the visa SOP. Here, you need to remember that this is not an admission SOP and therefore the details do not have to be elaborated or even justified. You only need to set a base that convinces the authorities that your choice of course and purpose to immigrate is rather real.
Academic Transcripts and Score Reports
You will be required to provide all the academic transcripts and score reports that you also submitted to the university. These shall include:
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SAT or ACT scores (for students applying for bachelors degree abroad)
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GMAT or GRE scores (for students applying for masters degree abroad)
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IELTS, TOEFL, PTE or Duolingo Test Scores
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SOP or Application Essay
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Any additional documents
Future Prospects
In your visa letter, authorities will expect you to have information about your future plans and whether your chosen course fits into this plan and how.
Travel History
The importance of travel history information has just gained more importance amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The immigration authorities would be interested in knowing a general and impactful view of your previous travels to assess whether you could be allowed in the country and are a responsible traveller.
Financial Sources
The financial sources that shall be assisting you in your stay and foreign education need to be produced in your visa letter. You will be required to properly identify the source and justify it as strong enough to easily support the purpose of your visa SOP. Here, you can mention all the applicable and relevant sponsors.
Health Insurance
Globally, nations have their own set of rules related to health insurance although some countries mandatorily require their citizens to have some insurance such as health and vehicle. However, in the case of immigrants, all nations require them to have health insurance.
Security Deposits
Every study abroad destination has its own set of rules and regulations. Some like Canada (GIC), Germany (Blocked Account), and others require the incoming students to have a security deposit that helps them during the first year of study. This deposit's existence and related information need to be mentioned in the visa letter.
Plan the Structure and Format for Visa SOP
While writing a visa letter you might get overburdened with all the required information. While you will have time to edit it after the completion of the first draft it is advised that structure planning is done before attempting the first draft. Here's what structure you must follow for visa SOP:
SOP for Visa Recommended Structure
The structure of your visa letter can (not compulsory) be planned as follows:
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Introduction
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Background Information
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Purpose of travel and future prospects
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Collateral Information
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Conclusion
Pre-planning for visa letter structure has its own benefits:
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You would not be lost until the editing of the first draft. You would already know how and what to put in your visa SOP.
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Your worries will lessen and you will have confidence while writing your visa letter. No information will be left out or forgotten.
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You will have enough time on hand to finalise your visa letter draft and you shall sort out the relevant and irrelevant information in a better way.
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Your final draft presentation shall be better and uncluttered and the entire process will become far less hectic and tiresome.
Attention to Word Limit for Visa Letter
While writing your SOP for visa or letter, you will need to remember to adhere to the visa SOP word limit. While it is an extremely important document, authorities would rather prefer rejecting a way too long SOP, and would hardly be able to assess anything from a visa letter that is too short.
To set a word limit for visa letter, the following few pointers can help:
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You only need to write relevant information and support the same with your documents.
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Plan your information in accordance with your word limit.
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In any case, the word limit must not exceed 1,200 words or be shorter than 600 words.
Ensure Your Visa SOP Proves Intent to Return Home
The most important thing in a visa letter, which also has been mentioned many times in the above parts of this guide, is your ability to prove your intent to return home. Your visa SOP is required by the authorities to assess whether you plan to return back to your home country after completion of your chosen course or not. While the exact statement may or may not be made by you (it is not even required), the authorities specifically go through these SOPs for this very purpose.
It is believed that when the student will be required to convince the authorities in their own words of their purpose, their ambitions and plans shall reveal the true intentions of the student. Hence, it is very important that you check the representations made by your visa SOP. The following tips can be helpful in this:
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Only go for representation once your information is set.
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Ideally at the third draft stage representation must take over as the purposeful.
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Keep the removed information on the side and sort in priority. In case the information mentioned is not helpful then you can replace or support or mix the sidelined for the desired representation.
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Make your friends and family read your visa letter and tell them to review the same in their opinion.
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Apply for professional help as they shall know the best way to make a proper and desired representation.
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Do not over-justify any aspect of your visa SOP. Justifications must be kept in control throughout.
Due Attention to Language and Grammar for Visa Letter
The language and grammar should be proper as they will show your acumen to the authorities in the language. This will also act as proof of whether you can understand the course delivered or not in that language. The shortcomings in the statement shall raise questions about your Language Proficiency test scores.
As mentioned before, your focus must be to provide proper information and your aim in applying for the visa. Additionally, the help and guidance of experts are extremely important, for while visa SOP is probably the least creative SOP, however, it is also the one which is deliberately checked for implications which have not been actually written down.
Want to know tips to write a visa letter? Or, feeling like the data provided above on tips to write visa SOP is quite insufficient? If yes, then email us at abroad@collegdekho.com. to get guidance for drafting your SOP for visa.
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