02.24.06 Visa visa visa, part deux

Visa Debate is OVER

After much fret and worry, the decision has been made: student visas are the way to go. I will get a student visa, and my wife will get a student dependent visa. When I get to the end of my studies, I will apply for an HSMP, which I should get even without the extra 50 points an SBS (Said Business School, the MBA school at Oxford) diploma gets you. This introduces the potential issue that I may have to return to the US briefly after school ends while my HSMP visa gets approved, but whatever. It's better than trying to explain to the immigration dudes why I am getting an HSMP now if I'm going to school, or why I'm a student who's a dependent on my wife's HSMP, or why I have one type of visa and my wife has another, etc. Check out all the wacky stuff they want me to send in to get a visa:

• completed application form VAF1
• your current passport
• your old passport or a copy of it
• Immigration status (Original not copy):e.g. Permanent residence card, Valid I-94 H1-B - L-1 - B-1 I-20 (Signed on reverse side) IAP-66
• Employment authorisation card with advance parole document
• evidence of funds available to you, for example recent bank statements covering at least the last three months
• either a letter confirming your period of leave from your employer together with salary slips for the last three months; or a certificate confirming you have continuing studies; or if you are self employed
• evidence of your business
• a letter of enrolment from a recognised UK University, College or School giving details about the proposed course. This should including the length of the course and the number of hours of study each week.
• An estimation of the costs your also be provided
• your educational qualifications or copies of them
• evidence of Government sponsorship (if applicable)
• One recent passport photograph (not more than six months old)

...quite a bit of stuff just to prove who I am! I've got it all now, though, with the exception of the financial records of funds available. I'm consolidating money from various places (stocks, options, whatever) into the tender clutches of my stockbroker via the single account that he manages on my behalf. Once this dough is all in the same place, I can get a single, compact statement that shows the immigration dudes that I have enough money to come and live in the UK. It turns out that I also have to prove to SBS that I have enough scratch to afford school and living in Oxford, etc., so I'll get this info off to them at the same time as well.


Living in the UK... is it expensive?

All of this money talk has got me thinking about the cost of living in Britain, the value of US dollars in Britain today, etc. Everybody says that living in the UK is expensive, you don't make as much money there as you do here, the exchange rate is bad just now, etc. etc. etc. So, I did a little internet searching, and found that the International Salary Calculator at homefair.com thinks I will need to make ~30% more money to enjoy the same lifestyle in the UK that I currently do here, yikes! To get a feel for just how bad the current exchange rate is, I did a little looking, and found data to chart the following:




...pretty interesting. Today's exchange rate is $1.75 US = 1.00 UK. This really isn't a ton of change relative to the rate over the last 20 years. Historically speaking, that makes the current value of the US dollar relative to the UK pound...

• 4% higher than the average over the last 2 years
• 6% lower than the average over the last 5 years
• 7% lower than the average over the last 10 years
• 7% lower than the average over the last 20 years
• 18% higher than the average over the last 50 years
• 54% higher than the average over the last 75 years
• 83% higher than the average over the last 100 years
• 123% higher than the average over the last 150 years
• 134% higher than the average over the last 200 years
• 136% higher than the average since 1791

There were all time exchange rate lows of $1.30 in 1985 and $1.50 in 2002, as well as an all time high of $9.97 in 1864 (during the civil war), but we are still at a near historically low value of UK Pound relative to US Dollar... there's more interesting data regarding historical exchange rates, "real" currency values, etc. available here: http://www.eh.net/hmit/


The Best Thing About Today

This has absolutely nothing to do with moving to the UK, but I got the following in my email today, and am officially TOTALLY HAPPY NOW.

02.22.06 Sallie Mae? or Mae not?

"SLM Corporation (Student Loan Marketing Association, NYSE: SLM), commonly known as Sallie Mae, is the United state's largest paying-for-college company, managing more than $107 billion in student loans for more than 7 million borrowers. Sallie Mae was originally created in 1972 as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) and terminated all ties to the federal government in 2004. The company remains the country's largest originator of federally insured student loans."

...another example for my "why the US is secretly a socialist country" file. Sallie Mae is where I am getting my MBA loan from, they are one of the few US institutions willing to lend me money to go to school overseas. Apparently, they hold 1/3 of all US education loans! They gave us a pretty great rate, and now, after a bunch of rigmarole, I finally have the dough. Practically speaking.



The rig(amarole), a short story by Ean Hernandez


Online Forms, Easy-Pleasey

To apply for and get approved for an MBA loan, all I had to do was fill out an online form, and have my wife fill out a similar online cosigner form. That took about 20 minutes, and worked great.


Online Forms Only Work if You're Online

Next, I had to get Oxford to fill out a couple of fields on the form. Since they haven't set up with Sallie Mae to do this online, I had to mail this to Oxford. Nothing gets to Oxford fast. Even pricey overnight stuff gets to just outside of Oxford quickly, and then seems to slow way down as it enters town. Then, paperwork likes to sit around in in-boxes, get shuffled from department to department, and finally, get the pre-longweekend brushoff. After a month of this, my form made it's way to the equally efficient offices of Sallie Mae, who seemed to take a damn long time goofing around with it as well. During this time, I got semi-weekly robot phone calls from Sallie Mae letting me know that my loan still hadn't been fulfilled. However, after about two months the paperwork had made it's way into the Sallie Mae computer systems, and I was good to go with my loan. Almost.


The Credit Check / Disbursement Issue

Try this conundrum on for size: as a well compensated software development manager with a decent credit history, I got a good rate with Sallie Mae: Prime+0%. Throw in my well compensated biotech researcher wife will equally good credit, and we got Prime -.5%! Not too shabby. However, a credit check is only good for 6 months, so you have to either take the money soon, or risk getting a worse rate when they rerun the credit check at some future date. Enter the "disbursement date" issue. I can have SM send Oxford the $$$ now, be all paid up, and not worry about getting my loan any more, BUT, if I do that, I start accruing interest now, a at rate of prime - .5%, or 7.5% - .5%, or $292 per month. I don't have to pay Oxford the full amount until Sept 1st 2006, so I could always wait to have SM send them the cash and not start accruing interest until the last possible minute... the risk there is that I won't have much wiggle room if some kind of SM problem crops up. Worse yet, if they have to rerun my credit in Sept, I will no longer be a well compensated software development manager, I will be an out of work student (aka bum) and might get a crappier rate or even have problems getting the loan at all! So, waiting until Sept is bad too. The plan: I had Oxford tell SM to do the disbursement in May, that way I get a couple of months to clean up any last minute issues that might arise. This required several calls to both Oxford and SM, but now my loan was ready to go. Almost.


Adjusting the Length of Course

As it turns out, the full time MBA program at Oxford lasts 12 - 15 months, depending on the length of your internship, 12 is typical. However, I don't know what is going to happen when I go over, so I wanted to specify 15 months, just in case. Of course, the folks at Oxford put 12 months on the form, so I was somewhat worried that I might end up being done with school from SM's point of view, but still have another 3 months to go in my internship! SM loan payments start 6 months after the graduation date listed on the application, which could be 3 months after my actual graduation. If I'm still looking for work, or on some sort of long vacation or whatever at that time, I don't want to have to cough up an extra $292 a month. So, this took some more phone calling, but the length of the program was extended to 15 months on the SM form, and now, everything should be in order. Almost.


epilogue

I actually have a letter from SM saying they are going to give me the money, it will be disbursed in May, etc. Of course, Oxford doesn't have the cash yet, but I really have no reason to assume there will be any problem at this point ...right?

02.08.06 Visa, Visa, Visa

I need a Visa. Figuring out exactly how to get one, what to put on the application, etc., plays directly into my long term UK aspirations. The machinations are pretty endless...

Student Visa

Since I'm paying OUT THE ASS to go to school in the UK, I can get a student visa no problem, and then Reba can get a student dependent one for sure as well. These will let me study, as well as work up to 20 hours/week, and Reba can work full time. However, these visas expire literally the day after I graduate! So, travelling outside of the UK (my plan after graduation) would potentially end up in a situation where I was refused reentry to the UK! This will really screw up my long term UK living plans.

HSMP Visa

After graduation, it's a different story. If I want to stay in the UK, I have to get a different visa. The most logical is the Highly Skilled Migrant (worker) Program Visa. Yes, I, Ean Hernandez, will move overseas at great expense and effort to become a migrant worker! Of course, unlike many other Hernandi, I will not be picking, shucking, digging up, baling or otherwise harvesting anything. HSMP works on a points system... you get a certain number of points for making so much money, a certain amount for have a certain type of job in a certain field, and even a certain amount for being under 28 (no idea why on that one). You have to have 65 points to qualify, and in a fairly obvious attempt to get MBAs into the country, the UK gave graduates from 50 top international business schools 50 free points. Of course, they have to pander to the UK business schools, so regardless of whether or not they are really in the top 50 schools worldwide, there's about 10 UK schools listed there, one of which is Oxford. The upshot is that it is pretty easy for you to get a 1 year HSMP after graduating from Oxford. After is the key idea there, because you have to have graduated to get the 50 points, and my student visa runs out the day I graduate! That could be a sketchy couple of weeks while the HSMP paperwork processes. After the 1st year, I can apply for a 4 or maybe 5 year HSMP extension. Apparently, you don't even have to have a job while on the HSMP, it basically just lets you live there. I think they're figuring that the HSMP "type" is going to get a job though, I certainly am. Reba can work as a dependent on my HSMP, so as long as I have one, she can work in the UK too. I'm not really sure that she'll qualify for one on her own, but as long as I've got one, we're cool.

UK Passport

Here's a wacky option: Reba's dad was born in the UK (granny was a war bride), and lived there for about 1 year while grandpa did some gnarly clean-up duty in some German concentration camps. When gramps finished up, the whole family went back to the states. So, while my father in law is about as English as English Bob... (that's funny, because his name IS Bob) for some goofy reason Reba is entitled to a UK passport, which gives her dual citizenship, I think. This basically lets her work and live in the UK all she wants. Exactly what this imparts to me is more mysterious, but I'm working on it. The US state dept web site is a little bit crabby on this subject, making vague references to how dual citizenship could screw up your US citizenship...

"...a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship."

What a bunch of dicks! I'm not too surprised, really. They probably all voted for W. The scuttlebutt out on the internet is a little less sinister:


(from http://www.americanexpats.co.uk/dual.htm)


In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship. NOTE from American Expats In The UK: This means that unless you denounce your U.S. citizenship..you will keep it while having dual citizenship U.S. and U.K.


(from http://www.easyexpat.com/en/faq/departure/q21.htm)

Will I lose US citizenship if I naturalize as a UK citizen?

Many wonder if becoming natualized as a British citizen means losing US citizenship. This is NOT the case as shown below.

U.S. law does not require a person entitled to more than one nationality to give up his/her other nationality. Travel on a foreign passport does not affect U.S. citizenship. However, please note that all U.S. citizens, even dual nationals, must enter and depart the United States on U.S. passports.
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/

In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/

Countries usually do not like to tell you that you are entitled to dual citizenship. As a US citizen, you are perfectly entitle to acquire another nationality and keep your US citizenship. [31-01-05]





(from http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway)



But I thought US law didn't permit one to be a dual citizen -- that if you were (by birth or otherwise), you either had to give up the other citizenship when you came of age, or else you'd lose your US status. And that if you became a citizen of another country, you'd automatically lose your US citizenship. So what's all this talk about dual citizenship?

It indeed used to be the case in the US that you couldn't hold dual citizenship (except in certain cases if you had dual citizenship from birth or childhood, in which case some Supreme Court rulings -- Perkins v. Elg (1939), Mandoli v. Acheson (1952), and Kawakita v. U.S. (1952) -- permitted you to keep both).

However, most of the laws forbidding dual citizenship were struck down in 1967 by the US Supreme Court. The court's decision in this case, Afroyim v. Rusk, as well as a second case in 1980, Vance v. Terrazas, eventually made its way explicitly into the statute books in 1986; up till that time, the old laws were still on the books, but the State Department was effectively under court order to ignore them.

Rules against dual citizenship still apply to some extent to people who wish to become US citizens via naturalization. The Supreme Court chose to leave in place the requirement that new citizens must renounce their old citizenship during US naturalization. However, in practice, the State Department is no longer doing anything in the vast majority of situations where a new citizen's "old country" refuses to recognize the US renunciation.

The official US State Department policy on dual citizenship today is that the United States does not favor it as a matter of policy because of various problems they feel it may cause, but the existence of dual citizenship is recognized in individual cases. That is, if you ask them if you ought to become a dual citizen, they will recommend against doing it; but if you tell them you are a dual citizen, they'll usually say it's OK.

...so, I think it will be cool if Reba gets a UK passport. That will be pretty cool to actually be married to a brit! I always thought they had really sexy voices. :)

Work Visa

The final option I know of is a regular old work visa. I haven't really looked into this, but I think it's really a function of who wants to hire you and if they're willing to hook you up with a visa. I figure that between the post-graduation recruiting events and the internship I work up, I should have a shot at one of these, but I really have no idea. There's enough other options that I will probably back-burner this for now.


ttfn

e

02.03.06 91%

This is the score I got on my first accounting test, which is OK, but not as good as I would have liked. The stuff I got wrong was mostly a product of not understanding the way my instructor thinks about accounting, instead of not understanding accounting itself, which is good. However, I want a 100%! I keep reminding myself that the point of this exercise is to become familiar with the basics of a subject with which I will be expected to become familiar on an unreasonably short timeline. So, this is groundwork. Ethan (my brother) says that this stuff will help me with 1/4 to 1/2 of my first financial accounting course, but after that it's all big picture stuff that this "beancounting" course won't help with. I figure, at the minimum, it will get my brain working and in the habit of studying again. While the French classes were awesome I have to admit that they were pretty conversational and non scholastic toward the end. Of course, I had fun with that. :)