|
Passport
All students must have a valid passport to enter France.
Your visa is physically put inside your passport, so you must
have your passport prior to applying for your visa.
If you already have a passport, make sure that it is valid for up to six months after your return. Click here for information on how to apply for or renew your passport. It is now taking approximately 10 weeks to receive passports due to an increased volume of applications so be sure to apply as soon as possible!
CampusFrance
All students studying in France must complete registration with CampusFrance before applying to their consulate for their visa. CampusFrance is a branch of the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., that has been created to monitor student application processes for study in France.
Begin the CampusFrance registration process as soon as you confirm your space on our program! The CampusFrance approval process takes several weeks after they have received all of your documents, and students find that they do not always complete their application correctly and receive notice from CampusFrance after several weeks to correct their online application. This causes further delays.
The CampusFrance process has three parts:
1) You must complete an online registration. On the left side of their English web site are two links: "Study Abroad Students" and “GUIDE to CampusFrance Registration”. Read these very carefully and follow the directions EXACTLY. After each section and at the end of the application, be certain to click on “valider”. If you completed your application correctly, you will receive a message indicating that your web registration is complete and accepted. If you do not receive this message when you try to submit the web registration, then some aspect of your web registration is not correct, and you must read through the instructions again to correct your errors.
Keep in mind that CampusFrance will not process incomplete applications and will not notify you of any errors. You must follow all directions carefully and double check your work. Please note that you may not be able to access their web site and instructions with Firefox. If you are having difficulty accessing their web site or registration instructions, try a different browser, such as Safari.
2) When you submit your online application, you will receive a registration number. KEEP THIS NUMBER WITH YOU. You will need to submit it to the French consulate once CampusFrance approves your application.
3) You must send in a money order and a special official acceptance letter from the Learning Abroad Center to CampusFrance. The Learning Abroad Center will send this acceptance letter to you to submit to Campus France approximately 3 months prior to the program start date. Be certain that your name is clearly printed on the envelope that contains the documents you are sending to CampusFrance, as CampusFrance files the envelopes by the name on the envelope and the date it was received. They do not open the envelope until they process your on-line registration, and your documents can be misplaced if your name is not clearly printed.
Do not wait for this acceptance letter before completing the CampusFrance on-line registration. Students often have errors in their web registration which must be corrected before CampusFrance will grant approval for you to proceed with the visa process.
4) Once CampusFrance receives your money order and the Learning Abroad acceptance letter, they will check if your online application is complete. Their processing time is typically at least two weeks. If everything is correct and complete, CampusFrance will post an approval message to your CampusFrance web registsration mailbox. You should check this mailbox regularly to see if you have been approved. You will need your CampusFrance registration number and the approval message for your visit to the French consulate. CampusFrance may also send students an e-mail with the approval or other notifications, but this message is often being read as a SPAM message by US servers. You should check your blocked email settings once your have submitted your materials to CampusFrance to see if you have a message from "campusfrance@ambafrance-us.org". If so, you will need to give permission to receive these messages and then contact CampusFrance to reissue you their message.
CampusFrance does answer their phones, and you should just stay on the line and wait for a person to respond. If you do not have CampusFrance approximately 2 weeks after submitting your materials, you should contact them to see if there is a problem.
Visa
Be certain to review these instructions and consult your Consulate’s website as soon as your are accepted to our program. You may need to make an appointment for an in-person visit, and it is important to plan ahead.
US citizens studying in Montpellier for a semester or year or US citizens staying in France for more than 90 days must obtain a student visa. Non-US citizens should check with the French embassy for any special regulations pertaining to entry into France at any time.
The following information explains how to obtain a French student visa. US citizens participating in summer session do not need a visa. Remember to read all information that you receive regarding student visas carefully. Requirements could change at any time and can vary from consulate to consulate.
The Learning Abroad Center
The Learning Abroad Center will provide the following documents (available early November/early June) required for the visa application:
- acceptance letter from Paul Valery University
- "proof of studies" enrollment verification letter from the University of Minnesota
- proof of financial coverage from the University of Minnesota
- proof of insurance coverage from the University of Minnesota
You cannot apply for your visa without these documents. If you need to submit any of these materials to CampusFrance, be very careful to clarify what you need to submit to CampusFrance and what the French consulate will require. We cannot issue duplicate documents. You should compare CampusFrance's and your consulate's websites before submitting any materials. Also carefully review your consulate’s requirements to verify whether you will need further documentation from us. The Chicago Consulate considers this information sufficient, but other consulates may have other requirements.
You must inform the Learning Abroad Center of your plans if you are departing the U.S. earlier than August 1/December 25 for travels prior to your program start date. Please note that we cannot guarantee to provide the above items prior to November/June but if we know you are leaving early we will do our best to facilitate your early visa process.
French Embassy
You can either apply through the Chicago French Consulate or you can visit the French Embassy website to determine which jurisdiction serves your area. Each regional French consulate holds jurisdiction over the residents living in their area and students studying at universities in their area and has a right to set its own processing fees and procedures.
Since you will be a University of Minnesota student during your study abroad, the Chicago consulate will consider you part of their jurisdiction. If you decide to utilize the Chicago Consulate, keep in mind that you must make an appointment for an in-person visit to get your visa. They will not accept mailed applications.
To apply for your visa, review the Things to Remember below and also read through the specific details for working with the Chicago French consulate or other consulates.
Things to Remember
- You cannot apply for your French visa once you are outside the US.
- Request your visa for the duration of your stay in France and allow for post-program travel. Your visa must cover the whole time that you plan to stay in Europe. It is better to have too much time than not enough time.
- You may not receive all of the time that you request on your initial visa. If this is the case, you will have to extend your visa while you are in France; usually this is a group activity done with a staff member. You will receive more information about this process upon arrival..
- If you plan on traveling to Eastern Europe or Africa, note that some countries require US citizens to have a visa in order to enter the country. Check with individual consulates before departing from the US.
- All semester and academic year students will need a "long stay visa." Students on our summer program do not need to apply for a visa in the US and will automatically be issued a tourist visa when they enter France.
- The visa application is complicated. Consulates offer little assistance, often do not have telephone access, and can require additional paperwork without advance notice. The Learning Abroad Center cannot advise on visa processes, as we do not know the many different requirements that each consulate may have. We will, however, try to assist you with any necessary documentation.
- If you need to make an appointment for an in-person visit at the consulate, make the appointment for a date after November 15 or June 15. We need to send all students paperwork from France that is required for the visa application. Be certain to estimate the length of time that it will take you to receive approval from CampusFrance when scheduling your appointment. You can always change an appointment, but it will be difficult to obtain a visa if all appointments are booked just before your departure.
- Be certain to visit your consulate with enough time to make a second visit, if the consulate determines that your application is not complete. Some consulates may also require processing time to mail the completed visa and passport to students. Others may require one trip to drop off the materials and a second trip to pick up the visa. If pick-up is not required, be sure you provide sufficient paperwork to have your passport and visa returned to you.
- If you will be participating in a study abroad program or plan to leave the US three months or more prior to the start of the Montpellier program, you must inform the Learning Abroad Center of your plans. You will need materials from the French university, which we will need to request well in advance. In addition, check the French consulate guidelines; many consulates will not issue a student visa earlier than 90 days prior to the program start date.
- If you are planning to participate in the teaching assistantships sponsored by the French Embassy, you need to complete the appropriate work visa, according to guidelines issued by the French Embassy or consulate. You will not enter on a student visa.
- Academic year students: check that the visa you receive from the Consulate is accurate. If you are staying for the academic year and your visa states: "dispense temporaire de carte de sejour," your visa is NOT correct. You will need to work with your local Consulate prior to your departure to have your visa corrected. Otherwise, you will need to return to the US at your own cost to have the correct visa issued.
- Citizens of countries other than the US: please note that visa requirements may be different for you. For non-US citizens, permission from US authorities to exit and re-enter the US may also be required. Refer to US immigration for assistance.
Any student on the Study Abroad in Montpellier program can use the Chicago Consulate. They will consider you a University of Minnesota student for the duration of your studies, and you are thus eligible to use their services. You can go to the Consulate General of France in Chicago website to obtain the visa application and instructions. Read the instructions and make sure to gather everything specified. Visa applications cannot be mailed to the consulate; in-person visits are required and you must make an appointment online.
Guidelines for the Chicago Consulate Visa Application (may be applicable to other consulate visa forms if they look similar):
- Carefully review the Things to Remember above.
- Print the example of a completed visa application to assist you in completing the visa application.
- For line 17 (employeur): list the University of Minnesota as your home institution. Our address is: University of Minnesota, Learning Abroad Center, 230 Heller Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
- For line 22 (French address): list the address of the program office: University of Minnesota Program in France, 6 Impasse Cité Gelly, 34000 Montpellier.
- For line 24 (course of studies): list the following address for the French university: Paul Valéry University, Route de Mende, 34199 Montpellier, France.
- For line 25 (internships): even if you are planning on doing an internship as part of this program, please indicate "no," as it relates to students who are traveling to France specifically for a teaching internship.
- For line 28 (sponsor): check "no" and leave the box blank.
Visa Application Requirements
Visa requirements change often and vary from consulate to consulate. As of January 2007, the following items are required to apply for a student visa through the Chicago Consulate. Please verify the latest requirements directly with Chicago before submitting:
- Original passport valid for at least three months after you return to the US. Make sure there are blank pages to affix the visa.
- A copy of the passport photo page that shows your identity information.
- Processing fee (cash or credit card) for your in-person visit.
- Signed and completed application plus 1 copy (See an example of a completed application).
- Two passport photos (these are SEPARATE from the ones you submitted to the Learning Abroad Center with your confirmation materials).
- Proof of studies, proof of admission, and Financial guarantee (provided by the Learning Abroad Center, see above for details)
We cannot advise on visa applications for other consulates, as we do not know what they require. As a result, please contact your consulate immediately so that you have time to request their assistance. Read your consulate’s instructions carefully, as well as the details in this section and the Things to Remember.
For the New York Consulate, we do know that you will need to provide an exact address for your stay. You can put the University’s dormitory address:
Cité Universitaire Vertbois
192 rue de la chenaie
34096 Montpellier Cedex 5
Last modified on May 20, 2008 |