British Citizenship Application - Date of First Arrival to UK

[Paolo69]

Dear Group,
My girlfriend is in the process of completing a claim form for British Citizenship. One of the questions is “2.2 Date and place of first arrival in the United Kingdom?” We are struggling to answer this as there are a number of potential dates.
1) My girlfriend first came to the UK in 2003 on a tier 4 student visa to complete a two year master’s degree. Following this she then returned to her home country (non EU) and another EU country to do another educational course – staying outside the UK from December 2004 until 2007.
2) She then returned to complete a second master’s degree in the UK in 2007, once again on a tier 4 student visa, spending 5 years doing so.
3) In 2012 after completing her second degree she obtained employment and was successful in her application for a Tier2 work visa.
*Note: During 2007-2012, she did not leave England longer than 30 days per year
When she successful applied for an indefinite leave to remain visa in 2017 one of the questions on the claim form was “When did you first enter the UK – This refers to the date of your first entry into the UK at the beginning of the period of stay on which this application is based”, for this we put April 2012 (when her Tier 2 visa commenced). As for the above question on the British Citizenship form we are unsure whether to put 2003 (1st degree started), 2007 (2nd degree started) or 2012 (Tier 2 Visa began). Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading this.

[CR001]

2) She then returned to complete a second master’s degree in the UK in 2007, once again on a tier 4 student visa, spending 5 years doing so.

It would be this date in 2007.

3) In 2012 after completing her second degree she obtained employment and was successful in her application for a Tier2 work visa.
*Note: During 2007-2012, she did not leave England longer than 30 days per year
When she successful applied for an indefinite leave to remain visa in 2017 one of the questions on the claim form was “When did you first enter the UK – This refers to the date of your first entry into the UK at the beginning of the period of stay on which this application is based”, for this we put April 2012 (when her Tier 2 visa commenced). As for the above question on the British Citizenship form we are unsure whether to put 2003 (1st degree started), 2007 (2nd degree started) or 2012 (Tier 2 Visa began). Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading this.

2003 or 2007, it really makes no difference to the application. The question in the ILR form is for completely different reasons to the one in the citizenship form.