You’ve got an offer letter for an exciting new school that you’ve already told your friends and family about, you log on to the site to apply for your visa. And boom.
You’re hit with proof of money, medical record, police history, English scores, forms and more forms. Noone told you to study for this part of the test?!
If that’s you, fair. Most students who talk to Success Migration deal with the same exact thing. The truth is you don’t need a mate in the home affairs or simply a miracle.
You need a solid application. An application needs to have a clean story the right evidence and some patience while the process happens.
Heres what to make sure your application has for 2025. These are the bits the officers look for during a Monday afternoon file when when they’re deciding if your case is being accepted or pushed back.
The Genuine Student Test
Most people still say GTE out of habit as that’s what it used to be called. Its now called GS. The government replaced GTE with the Genuine Student requirements for applications. This is for applications that were submitted on or after 23 March 2024.
Now this change wasn’t just a simple change it actually changes how you should answer your questions. You’re allowed to say you might want to apply for skilled migration later if your study lines up with a real occupation.
So if you’re studying pharmacy and you want to be a pharmacist in Australia after you graduate you can state this in your application. The point is that studying must be the genuine reason right now. Not to cover up if you’re having an extra long holiday or other reasons.
Immigration and citizenship Website
Being a GS, your story needs to be true. If you studied accounting and now you want to do cyber, that’s fine, but connect the dots. Explain why you changed and what your reasoning was. You’re allowed to switch just explain why and what your new plan is.
Two things students get wrong:
You need to show that you have genuine access to the money. If its actually mums money, then you gotta show proof of that, proof of your relationship and explain the support situation. If you’re getting a loan from the bank then attach the actual loan agreement and drawdown details.
Officers really do care where the money comes from not just having screenshots of it. Screenshots nowadays can get edited and photoshopped, don’t be surprised if your application gets denied if you just have some basic screenshots. Weird but true.
Your bank history matters too. Sudden lumps with no explanation are red flags. Stable inflow of income is way better looking than random unexplained lumps of cash. Depending on hwere you are coming form and the level of risk from your provider or country, three months of tsbale income should be sufficient.
English scores
IELTS, PTE, TOEFL – pick your poison. There are different thresholds for different schools to be completely honest. SO do specific research for where you are going. Scores expire after three years so also keep that in mind if you haven’t sat one recently. You also may qualify for an exception if you completed 5 years of schooling in English. But be careful with this because it must be formal English, like any language English has its little quirks and the way people speak isn’t the way formally you write.
Immigration and citizenship Website
Oshc and medicals
OSHC is one of the mandatory sections of your application. You have to do it period. Not just for the dates of your actual course, if your course ends 30 August and your visa typically runs a couple of months past that for pack up time then you normally need OSHC that goes right to that visa end date. This is done because otherwise the grant can be cut shorter or there can be delays while you fix it, so its better to overestimate to be safe.
Immigration and citizenship Website
There are also risk factors that go into your medicals. Your nationality makes a difference as well as factors such as the length of stay or your recent travel history If you have any pre existing conditions you have to provide letter from your doctors and specialists. Also keep inmind that heath checks last about 12 months so youll need to get another if you haven’t recently had one done.
Living costs
If you visa application gets approved you’ll need to consider what it will be like when you move here. Australia is an expensive country to live in. Causal shifts during the week between studies honestly will not cover the rent and living costs in Sydney and Melbourne. It helps for sure but it wont do. You’ll need savings and seriously budgeting.
Family on the application
Partners can be added as well as school kids as well. But each extra person added to your application means more medicals, more financial proof.
If your children are going to a public school then you have to factor in fees too. Some thing that some people don’t consider until they receive the fees in the mail.
For charges and additional applicant logic, the Home Affairs examples are oddly helpful. Boring, yes, but helpful.
Post study plans
The most common question asked if whether or not you can stay for longer after you visa application process. And the answer is that well the answer changes.
The answer changes with policy tweaks, occupation lists and your actual qualifications.
Remember that a lot of people get accepted to continue their career in Australia. If you are a solid applicant and don’t case any issue, health issues or criminal activity then the likelihood of you being able to continue in Australia is high.
The things that actually matter
Officers like consistency. If all of your stories align and you have a solid application process you have strong chances. Your personal statement lines up with your CoE. Your bank statements line up with your sponsor’s income. Your English result matches both the visa requirement and your uni’s own bar.
This whole article isn’t meant to scare you, its meant to be real. Im just letting you know hat its going to be like. It will help you avoid any rejections and get rid of any messy applications.
Start earlier than you think you need to because the process will probably take longe than you think. Budget for real costs, not the old numbers people keep quoting online.
Noone likes looking at paperwork, but if you have a solid application and follow the guidelines, you shouldn’t have any problems.
