So I'm from the US but have lived here since 1998 and had ILR since Jan '01 as my mother married a Scot *silence*
I've decided to go for citizenship as, realistically, this is the country I will be living in as I've grown up here and all my ties are here. My only concern is the residential qualifying period. I've been absent only 60 days in the last year, so I'm ok for the previous year test, but the other 4 years are a bit less convincing. I was at an American university until summer (June) 2005, and then here until I went on a academic scholarship in Germany from Oct 05 - Sept 06 (with the odd week being back in the UK). Upon my return, I enrolled in an airline training contract with a UK firm which sent me to New Zealand for a bit over a year to train for the UK CAA Commercial Flight License, a UK qualification, for a UK airline.
I've put all my dates into a spreadsheet and it's slightly in excess of 900 (slightly - 915 as of today). I was thinking of applying in June/July when I will have satisfied the test of being in the UK 5 years prior to date of application, and my absent days will go down to about 850 or so.
I guess my question is: would my circumstances be worthy of exercising discretion on the matter if I could show my home is established here, and that the reason of my travel was unavoidable and with a UK firm to attain a UK professional qualification? Or do they not go for that kind of thing? I don't have enough to pay the 735 GBP twice !
Sorry to bore you all with the long post. Your help is really very much appreciated.