My daughter-in-law sent her passport in to the UK Consulate in NYC about a month ago to get a grad student work visa. She and my son are scheduled to fly over tomorrow night and she has not yet received her passport back. Normal turn-around is 15 days. She should have expedited but thought she had enough time.

Does anyone have any recommendations for contacting the Consulate? If I remember correctly calls to them asking about status pretty much end with "we don't give status updates, you'll get it when you get it." If she went to the Consulate in person tomorrow would she be able to get in and get assistance? And namely, get her passport back so she can fly out.

Thanks,

I went through a similar process recently. Although it's not of any real help to you now, for anyone who is reading this post, I would strongly suggest that you take advantage of the "priority" service offered by WorldBridge (they operate UK Visa services in the USA) which lets you physically bring your documents to the consulate and get them back by the end of business. Much more convenient if you need to travel or don't trust the mail all that much.


In your case, however, I would urge that she go in person to the consulate and explain the situation. If you're certain that her paperwork is all in order and that you submitted all the necessary documents, they may be able to help you. I'm assuming you mean the consulate on 3rd Ave. and 50th (approximately?). My two cents--arrive just prior to the dot of 9:00am. The security staff start letting people up precisely then, and it will take you a few minutes to explain your situation so that you can even be let upstairs without a visa. Tell her to be sure to bring a couple forms of ID as well as copies of all the documents she submitted and any information that might be pertinent to her visa application.

Best of luck!

This site has a thread specifically aimed at visa questions

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show...39627&page=245

Thank you both. She got there just before 9. She had to withdraw her application before they would look for it and then they told her she'd have to come back at 2 and hopefully they'd have found it by then. They hadn't then but did find it by 3. She said there was a long line of people doing the exact same thing. Apparently the UK Border Agency decided to move all Chicago processing to NY so applications are taking a lot longer than normal.

She was extremely frustrated with having to withdraw and loose the $500 and now instead of being able to teach when she gets there she'll have to re-apply. She's hoping she can get them to waive some or all of the fee since she's already paid it but I don't hold out much hope for them doing that.

Thanks again,