[GKLYZ]

I have been in France for about a year now as I was learning French and preparing my application to a university.

I am American.

As I understood, though wrongly, I could stay up to 90 days in the schengen area as long as I left before that time was up. However, I now know that it is actually only 90 days in a 6 month period.

The problem is that I have been accepted to a prestigious university here, Sciences Po, and I will have to process my student visa at the French consulate in Houston in September. I have completed all registration, etc. at the university and collected all the documents that I need.

What is the possibility that I will be denied the student visa? What are the avenues that I can take to avoid any potential problems?

Thanks

[ChampagneBrut]

Hey there,

I am a Canadian who has been studying and working in France illegally/out of status for the past two years. My first year, I arrived as a tourist and enrolled as an “auditor”, a kind of “stage” linguistique bc I was not confident about my French. I also worked as an “English teacher” conducting conversational workshops at the elementary school affiliated with the university.

Last September 2007, I was accepted into a Masters and was instructed by the program Director to “modify my tourist visa”. So I went to the prefecture and was advised that it was impossible to convert my tourist visa into a student visa; I had to return to Canada to apply in person at the French Consulate in my city of residence. As classes had already started I decided to delay returning to Canada so as not to miss classes! Stupid.

In short, I finally completed the visa procedure with CampusFrance/ Consulate last June openly explaining my situation and circumstances. I apologized for my lack of planning and naiveté re visa matters and French law, expressing my desire and manifest attempts from the start of my master’s to apply for a student visa.

They were unforgiving; My visa was denied although they had called my professor/program director to verify my story and had him fax corroborating documentation that I was indeed a student at the University and had high marks to boot (14, 16 & 17’s /20). But the fact remains, I did not respect French law/visa application procedures; I also delayed my application further by trying to bypass CampusFrance, which was not pertinent in my case (learned later that their role is really to screen would-be immigrants/ undesirables).

I was dumb and allowed the “LOURDEURS des démarches administrative” to screw up my French education. I’m appealing the decision before a special commission. It’s now November, I do hope you were able to straighten out your own situation. Please let me know if I can help in any way. I know how distressing it was for me at first.

Best of luck wherever you are,

Champagne