Visa Information

Passport

You must obtain a passport to enter any of the MSID countries. Your passport must be valid for the entire duration of your program. If you have not already obtained your passport, you should apply for one immediately. Information about applying for a passport can be found on the US Department of State's web site.

Students must mail their actual passport to Perry International to obtain a student visa. Travel outside the US will not be possible while your visa is being processed. It is recommended that you make a photocopy of your passport before submitting it with your visa application.

Visas

US citizens studying in any of the MSID countries must obtain a student visa. Non-US citizens should check with the host country embassy to determine any special regulations pertaining entry into that country.

All MSID students are required to obtain a student visa through Perry International, a passport and visa processing company based in Chicago. The visa processing fee charged by Perry International is included in the MSID program fee. Students pay Perry International the cost of the actual visa plus shipping costs and any additional fees. Instructions and application material can be found on Perry Internationals's web site. Be sure to enter 'MSID' for the program name when selecting your visa country and type on Perry's web site, and view the 'MSID additional information' page for specific instructions for MSID students.

The Learning Abroad Center will send the required letter of acceptance directly to Perry International. Any photos required by Perry International are in addition to those you may have already submitted to the Learning Abroad Center.

Students can speak with any of the advisers at Perry International regarding visa questions by contacting Perry's main office at perry@perryvisa.com or (312) 372-2703. All Perry International advisers are trained to assist with visa processing and application questions. If you feel that that you have a particular individual issue that has not been resolved by the general advisers and needs further attention, you can contact Tom Collins at tom@perryvisa.com or Ty Collins at ty@perryvisa.com.

Students must mail their actual passport to Perry International to obtain a student visa. Travel outside the US will not be possible while your visa is being processed.

MSID students do not need to pay Perry International to be registered with the US embassy. The on-site staff will do this for you at no additional cost once you arrive in country.

Be certain to check the visa in your passport when you receive it, particularly if it lists the dates of your stay abroad. Embassies have occasionally been known to make errors when entering in duration dates. Contact Perry International if you think that there may been an error in your visa.

Country-specific Instructions

Be certain to follow the instructions on Perry International's web site carefully. Senegal may not have a visa cost, and so you will then only need to pay for the Fed Ex costs for Perry International to mail your passport with the visa back to you. 

For the section entiled "purpose of journey", you should indicate: "To attend the University of Minnesota MSID study abroad program".

For the section regarding "academic sponsor", you should indicate: Learning Abroad Center, University of Minnesota, 230 Heller Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455.