International Award Summer School: Visa Hints

If you need a visa for travelling to Germany, you should contact the responsible German mission (embassy or consulate-general) as early as possible. To comply with the registration deadline, you should apply in the first or in the second week of May 2010 at the latest.

There is a list of German missions abroad in the IASS 2010 download area – just follow the corresponding link on the IASS 2010 website www.jugendprogramm.de/summer-school-2010. At this place there is also a link to the official German visa regulations website, where you can even download the Schengen application form.

From the stats on the visa website you can see that far less than half of all applications are approved. Even worse: in 2009, none of the one dozen IASS delegates from Africa got their visa finally! So you should reckon with difficulties and arrange enough time…

To get your visa you will probably need a written invitation letter from our side. We will dispatch all invitation letters in the first week of April 2010 by post and by e-mail (scan of the written letter) – so your provisional application must be here by the end of March 2010.

Please understand that we all are volunteers and hence usually can't contact any German mission abroad from our side – we are at work when we are supposed to do the phone calls.

Time scale

1. End of March: provisional registration in Osterburken

2. Beginning of April: invitation letters dispatched

3. Beginning of May: visa application

4. End of may: registration deadline (transfer of fee included)