Tier 4 dependant，Mistake on BRP and administrative review

Hi, everyone,

Thank you in advance for who can give me some advice here.
Me and my wife had applied together to renew the visa under the T4 doctorate extension scheme. I applied as my wife’s dependant. The application was successful, my wife’s visa is granted until March 2020. As a dependant, my visa end date should be in line with my wife’s.but when I received BRP, home office had printed my end date as March 2019. We believe it is a straightforward and stupid printing mistake. The university visa team told us we can only ask the home office to correct it by applying for an administrative review. I have three questions:

1. Should I apply the review by myself or she has to apply for me as she is the main applicant?

2. Will the review has any impact on my wife? (Her visa and BRP has no problem)

3.My wife needs to travel outside the UK in the next a few weeks , when I am waiting the review, can she leave the UK and enter again?

Thank you very much for the answer in advance !

I don't understand why you have not asked the international student adviser these questions. They are in a much better position to help you than any random stranger here, and probably better informed about the intricacies of student and student dependant visas.

lollypop wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:47 am

1. Should I apply the review by myself or she has to apply for me as she is the main applicant?

You apply.

lollypop wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:47 am

2. Will the review has any impact on my wife? (Her visa and BRP has no problem)

No.

lollypop wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:47 am

3.My wife needs to travel outside the UK in the next a few weeks , when I am waiting the review, can she leave the UK and enter again?

Yes.

thank you very much for answering my questions.
We had tried to ask university visa team, they informed us it may be a mistake,but made it clear that they will not help us on this (maybe because the visa is DES), when we ask these thing they just gave vague description and unprofessional answers.

lollypop wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 11:24 pm

We had tried to ask university visa team, they informed us it may be a mistake,but made it clear that they will not help us on this (maybe because the visa is DES), when we ask these thing they just gave vague description and unprofessional answers.

That's awful. Which university?

The method to change the length of stay / end date - which is pretty obviously a mistake - is through administrative review if you applied inside the UK. So at least the university pointed you in the right direction.

As for further help, it is not uncommon for universities to draw the line at helping only their directly sponsored students. The university is not sponsoring dependents, that is entirely up to the student to take forward.

Hence I don’t share the view that international student visa teams at HEIs are In someways at fault for not helping a student dependent.

Frontier Mole wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:19 am

As for further help, it is not uncommon for universities to draw the line at helping only their directly sponsored students. The university is not sponsoring dependents, that is entirely up to the student to take forward.

Hence I don’t share the view that international student visa teams at HEIs are In someways at fault for not helping a student dependent.

That's fair enough. A Tier 4 sponsor doesn't have any specific responsibility for a dependant and I wouldn't expect them to be hands-on as they would be with a sponsored student's Admin Review. But it feels like they could have maybe answered OP's basic signposting questions or referred them to immigration legal advice. There is something wrong with the picture when OP is seeking advice online here.

Sah - I totally respect you, your advice and more importantly your principles. You add a tremendous amount to this site

The problem is always either cost or accountability or both. The university world is more cost conscious than it ever has been before and even more cautious with advice in relation to immigration matters. They just don’t want to get involved, even if they know that a stressed student trying to deal with a dependent matter is not a good thing.

I have seen a rise in international student self help because of the backing away from the universities. The universities want the fees that international students bring but not the additional issues, especially with the HO looking over they shoulders.

In an ideal world we would not need this site but I don’t see it closing any time soon

Frontier Mole wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:58 am

I have seen a rise in international student self help because of the backing away from the universities. The universities want the fees that international students bring but not the additional issues, especially with the HO looking over they shoulders.

I work in the sector myself, and I agree with almost everything you say, except the last part above. I agree universities need to step up with their international students, but visa advice is one area that it prioritised and resourced. It's a service for students but also of course sponsors are as invested in a successful visa application as the student is. Across the sector universities are desperate for students to use their in-house visa advice services for Tier 4 issues, not friends or online forums. Picking up the pieces after bad amateur immigration advice is a real nightmare, and sometimes cannot be fixed.

But for sure a university adviser shouldn't be giving immigration advice to dependants, or to students on non-Tier 4 matters like switching into work statuses or spouse visas. They don't have the knowledge or training, so under OISC rules they should be referring it all on.

I agree that self-help is definitely becoming a big issue, but my experience is that it's because are choosing to bypass the universities' immigration advice services not because those services are not in place. I think it's part of a broader cultural phenomenon of self-care and mistrust of experts. This builds on some existing cultural approaches to advice -- for example Chinese students have always sought immigration advice from each other rather than their university.

Interestingly, many university staff have no idea that students are using Quora, this site, even Instagram and TripAdvisor for visa advice. I am doing some training on it for university staff this summer, with examples from all of them. I might PM you for a private chat about it. Is that okay?