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Austria
Study, Work and Immigration
General Information
Revision 2.0
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... 2 Revision History ............................................................................................................................ 3 Preface ............................................................................................................................................ 4 The Story ........................................................................................................................................ 5 1. How to search for your field of study .................................................................................... 7 2. Admission to Austrian University .......................................................................................... 7 3. Eligibility Criteria for Admission in Masters and Bachelors .............................................. 7 4. Document Attestation from Austrian Embassy .................................................................... 8 5. Admission Dates ...................................................................................................................... 8 6. Language Requirements ......................................................................................................... 9 7. Visa Process.............................................................................................................................. 9 8. Money matters and Bank statement .................................................................................... 10 9. Fees and Expenses in Austria ............................................................................................... 11 10. Accommodation Issues .......................................................................................................... 11 11. Health insurance in Austria ................................................................................................. 11 12. Part time Jobs ........................................................................................................................ 12 13. Difference between University and University of Applied Sciences ................................. 12 14. Step-by-step procedure for study in Europe....................................................................... 14 15. Some Useful Links ................................................................................................................. 15 Frequently Asked Questions ...................................................................................................... 16 16. Appendix A ............................................................................................................................ 17
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Revision History
Name Muhammad Adnan Muhammad Adnan Muhammad Adnan Muhammad Saqib Kazi Muhammad Adnan Date January 9, 2011 February 17,2011 August 13, 2011 Reason For Changes Original Document Added section of FAQs. New topic on Admission criteria for Masters and Bachelors. More explanation on visa and attestation process. Some changes in Money matters. Added: Illustrations on how to search study program. Red White Red Card ,Work and Immigration Information Version Version 1.0 Version 1.1 Version 1.2
Version 2.0
2nd Part of the document, related to work and immigration, which details Labour Market Access for Students and Graduates and Criteria Based Immigration to Austria, is an official document and is added here AS IS.
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Preface
This document contains information on admission and visa process for Europe in general and for Austria in particular, for Pakistani students. I decided to write this document after receiving many questions on admission and study in Austria. Many of these questions were very simple and irritating, like how can I get admission in Austrian university? This question itself is enough to tease your mind when a Bachelor degree holder asks this. Also, some people ask simple questions which they may know by themselves by just analyzing one particular situation or just by Googling this over internet. But, it seems that still there is a lack of information on how to Google topic or people are too lazy to do that. Another problem, usually with majority of Pakistani students is that they dont understand something by just reading it somewhere. Someone has to dictate them, virtually by pointing his finger and saying that DO THIS, and then they get it. Even, if it was written there before and they had read it hundred times before, but they were not getting it. This habit will also take some time to get rid of. That is why I decided to write this document and categorically elaborate each step for admission in some European university in general and for Austria in particular. Since, the collective effort cannot be perfect at all, the case of an individuals work is worse than that. There will be some discrepancies in this document, lack of details on some topics and may be some wrong information (I did not put anything wrong intentionally but I may not be updated), also some grammatical mistakes as well. The reader is required to give his feedback. Ask some questions on topics which may be left un-touched so that I may add it here for next version of document. In this way, we will be able to carry it on with up to date information. No feedback will not only stop its development, but also with time, some information may get wrong. Another reason to write this document is the lack of information about Austria, as very few students come here. Also, Austrian embassy does not clarify any matter regarding visa process and Residence permit application. Behavior of person at Austrian embassy is really demoralizing and not helpful at all. He will not tell you anything in detail. Embassy even does not know about how to prove your financial status to the authorities in Austria. Either they dont know or they dont clarify this to the applicant. This makes visa process more difficult along with the verification and attestation fee and ambiguity of whole process. But I hope, after you read this documents, everything will be clear to you.
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The Story
In early 2010, when I started applying at Austrian Universities, there was no one to help out to clarify matters regarding Austrian visa, studies, work, bank statement etc. I asked on different groups but could not find anyone. Its not because there are no Pakistani students in Austria, they are there, but they don't help out. Most of them are beneficiaries of HEC and since HEC handled their visa process, they know nothing about actual difficulties which one encounters when one apply for visa at his own. You won't find any of them on forums or groups. I also got admission in Germany. I could only apply for one country, either Germany or Austria and not both because I had financial proof of one year only. For Germany I had to send this money to Germany and if I sent it there, the statement from Germany would not be accepted by Austrians. So, after a long thought, I decided to apply for Austrian visa. The program in Austria was a little more attractive to me than the one in Germany. Apart from that, I decided to go to Austria to clarify different ambiguities related to Austria. e.g Visa process, Job situation etc. In other words I just decided to be a "qurbaani ka bakra". My intention was to come here and then help more students from Pakistan to come here and clarify the ambiguities surrounding Austrian visa application. At this decision, my whole year or in other words, future and previous effort that I had done in getting admission in Austrian and German universities was on stack, but I believed in success and finally after a long and tiresome visa process, I succeeded and arrived here in October, 2010.. Once I started Austrian visa process, there were a lot of difficulties that I faced. On every hurdle that I faced, people around me heavily discouraged, literally demoralized and criticized me on my decision to apply for Austrian visa and not for German for which everything was clear. At the very beginning, I encountered a big hurdle and was almost turning back on my decision when one day, I came across this verse of Holy Quran ( ") When you have taken your decision, put your trust in Allah". I just stopped there, where I saw this verse on a wall painting and thought for a while ... "is this verse saying something to me?"....... And I said, yes! ......it is in fact about me!!!!. This way I must say that I have found a clue, a golden rule to every success and every successful decision. This one verse has given me a formula for my whole life. After that, I just remained firm on my decision and I continued to cope with the hurdles. I remained stick to my decision and believed in help from Allah Almighty and in fact, this is the key to success. During my visa process, I encountered another guy from Lahore, who was also struggling for Austrian visa and he was a student of same university where I had got admission. He was around 2 months late in applying for visa and knew nothing about the process. Since, I had been through the visa process, I helped him out and I think its my first success that he arrived around 2 months after me. Though, he was late to be here but the success had its worth and a nice taste and heavenly smell. Though, I've helped him and I'm helping many other people to the extent I can, but I bear no credit for helping others and giving favors. As, its Allah who has created and made me this way that I like to help others and share knowledge and information, and after creating me like this, He is now giving me the opportunity to deliver others what I've got. I ask you to pray for me so that I will be successful in fulfilling that. I am especially thankful to group moderators of Norway and Finland as one of them, I think Mashhood Sheikh, related his personal experience of his Austria study application and its lengthy Visa process. Apart from that I really appreciate their effort in maintaining a group related to studies abroad in one particular country. Also, I appreciate from my heart, the perseverance, patience and helpful attitude of group moderators, who repeatedly answer to stupid straight forward questions of many people. May Allah give them health, wealth and prosperity in life and hereafter.
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Muhammad Adnan adnan_199@yahoo.com Skype: studyinaustria Please use the above contact only, if something is not clear in this document. To avoid posting questions, which are already answered in this document, please read this document carefully.
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Admission to Bachelor degree program is usually accompanied by an entry test, just like Pakistan. Some universities conduct entry tests in foreign countries if they have sufficient Bechelor degree applicants from that particular country. If you apply in such a program and your university does not conduct entry test in Pakistan, then you may have to visit India or Nepal for that test, if university conducts that entry test there. I have a friend who applied for such a program in Finland in 2010. His university conducted entry test in Nepal and he has to go to Nepal for that test. He went there, appeared in entry test, passed it and now he is in Finland studying his Bachelors degree.
5. Admission Dates
Admission dates are not specific in any country of Europe. Dates vary from university to university. Most universities intake is annual and it is usually in fall semester. For fall semesters, admission starts usually in February, March. If university intake is also available in summer semester, then for summer semester, admission dates are usually in October, November. You
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have to consult website of your selected university to know final dates and information about intake.
6. Language Requirements
Usually, Bachelors degree programs all over the Europe are taught in local language of that particular country. There are very few universities which offer Bachelor degree courses in English. But for Masters, case is different. From last decade, majority of universities which offered Masters courses have started Master degree courses in English. They say these courses as International Master Degree Program. It is called International because it is in English. If your selected program is in local Language then university will require you to have a certificate in their Local language e.g German, Italian etc. If program is in English, then they will require you provide English Language Proficiency Certificate (IELTS, TOEFL or in some cases, they may accept a Proficiency Certificate from your university). To know about the score requirements in TOEFL or Band requirements in IELTS, you have to check your university website. Each university has its own requirement. Many universities accept IELTS band 6.0 or even 5.5, TOEFL iBT score 80. Some may require a higher score of 90 (TOEFL) or 6.5(IELTS). So, it would be nice if you strive for the maximum score in your Language Certificate to increase number of universities you can apply.
Note: Although your selected university may accept a Proficiency Certificate issued by your own previous university, this certificate will always be below the scores of IELTs and TOEFL. Since competition for admission is more and more every year, you may lose your position if your competents are providing IELTS/TOEFL as compared to you. So, it would always be better to provide an internationally recognized English Language Proficiency Certificate.
7. Visa Process
In general, visa process is same for all countries accept Austria. As, if your documents are not Verified and Attested by Austrian Embassy, they will do so first(this process takes 4-8 weeks) even if your university does not require you to get them attested by Embassy. When you have submitted your documents for verification, take an appointment from embassy after two/three weeks of this submission for your residence permit. This is to save your time when documents are attested. Once you get your admission letter from university and your documents are attested by embassy, you start your visa process. In Austrian case, application for visa is called Application for Residence Permit. You apply for Residence Permit and once your application is approved (It usually takes 4-6 weeks), embassy will call you to submit Schengen visa form. After you fill in that form and submit visa fee and submit your passport, you get your visa in 10 days. The form for Residence Permit Application is a little complicated and is in German. It has around 10-12 pages. At first sight you may not be able to recognize even a word out of it. But with a little effort you can find the soft copy of this form on Google. I found it on the Austrian foreign ministry website. Once you get the soft form, you can give this .pdf or .doc to Google translator to get a Translation and then fill in the form. Otherwise, If someone of yours knows German language can fill this form. But at least dont pay anyone to fill out this form. You can contact me if you dont find any way out.
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The fee for Residence Permit Application is around 80-Euros (Eighty Euros only), which you have to submit while submitting your application. Almost same amount you will pay when you apply for Schengen Visa at last step. Residence permit application is necessary for people (students) who want to stay in Austria for more than six months. Usually, Master degree program is of two years. Students who want to come to Austria for one semester or less than six months, they dont need to apply for Residence Permit. I dont have any further information about the visa process for this kind of students. Application Form for Residence Permit and its explanation is also available on this site. http://www.bmeia.gv.at/vertretung/taipeh/ratgeber/formulare-zum-download.html This page is in German. You can translate it from Google Chrome or Google toolbar in IE or Mozilla.
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In, the case that you go for a practical work in an industry, then FH degree would be preferred over University degree. Generally, outside German speaking countries, people and universities dont know the difference b/w FH and University. They consider both as university and degree of both as equivalent. This means that if an FH master degree holder goes to some non-German speaking country to enroll in PhD, they may not consider this little difference and he will not have any problem in getting admission.
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16. Appendix A
Finding the Course: In this tutorial, we will describe the process of finding a degree program in Europe for students who are searching for Master course. Same process can be used to search for a course in Bachelors as well. As an example, lets take that some one wants to do Masters in Business Administration (MBA), and needs to find a university where education is free or where the fee is minimum. Open the website www.masterportal.eu and you will see the following page. Look in the drop down menu for business and economics
Choosing Business & Economics will make sub disciplines available and now you can choose Business Administration from the 2nd drop-down menu.
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This will anable the 2nd drop down menu for this field. There you can choose any subfield related to Business and Economics.
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List of countries where this program is offered and number of universities /programs available
Duration of Program
Fee
Above figure shows the result of search for Business Administration and lists all the universities from all over Europe. You can click on one particular country to see the courses available only in that country. So, we will select only Austria for example. Also, in the search result you will see the summary of each program. It shows the name of the university/campus offering this program and city where the campus is located. Also, you can see the annual/semester fee and duration of the program. To move ahead, we will choose a random program to describe the process to extract information. The user should look for the best options which suits his interest and motivation to attend a particular course
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Program starts in fall every year. Dead line for EU citizens is 31 August and for Non-EU citizens is 30th April
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If you scroll down, you can see more details on admission requirements and other information. If you click on the Program website button, you will be taken to the official page of this program, where you will find the detailed procedure for admission.
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This document details all the steps for admission and gives info on how to apply and details required documents for admission
This brief process has shown some important steps on how to look for the study program and find the relevant information for admission. Sometimes, a document is not available for admission , as we had in this case, but the process of admission and all related information will be available on the university website. You have to spend some time to find it.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, die Czech Republic and Hungary.
University Graduates
Graduates from the EU-8 member states1 (accession in 2004) enjoy free movement of labour since the 1st of May 2011 and may take up any employment in Austria without needing a permit.
Graduates from Rumania and Bulgaria enjoy freedom of settlement, but are not entitled to unlimited labour market access. They can apply for an employment permit without labour market test instead of a RWR Card, if they fulfil the admission criteria for a RWR Card (see below). After one year of continued lawful employment with a work permit, they are entitled to unlimited labour market access, which is to be confirmed by the Labour Market Service (AMS). Third country graduates who have successfully completed (at least) the second part of their course or who have passed half of the required total of ECTS points or successfully completed their Masters degree studies at a university, college of higher education or accredited private university in Austria may after the expiry of their residence permit reside for a further six months in Austria for the purpose of searching for employment, if they hold a confirmation by the competent residence authority (Bezirkshauptmannschaft, Magistrat, in Vienna: MA 35). This confirmation must be timely applied for with the competent residence authority before the expiry of the residence permit. They can apply for a RWR Card without labour market test, if they find an employment matching their qualification based on a valid work contract and if they prove a salary equivalent to the locally customary salary of national graduates (junior employees), at least 45% of the maximum assessment base under the Austrian General Social Security Act (2012: 1.903 minimum monthly gross salary, plus special payments). The RWR Card entitles them to be employed with this employer only. There is no criteria examination according to the point system Graduates holding a RWR Card may after a period of 12 months apply for a RWR Card plus which entitles to unlimited labour market access, if they have been continually employed according to their qualification during the previous 10 months (at least). The regulation does not apply for graduates who have completed only a Bachelors degree in Austria.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, die Czech Republic and Hungary.
The RWR Card is available for persons who meet the requirements in two different versions: RWR Card: entitles to residence and employment only with a certain employer RWR Card plus: entitles to residence and unlimited labour market access The RWR Card will be available the following groups of applicants: 1. Very highly qualified workers 2. Skilled workers in shortage professions 3. Other key workers 4. Graduates of universities and colleges of higher education in Austria
The RWR Card plus will be available the following groups of applicants: 5. Family members of applicant groups 1 to 4 and holders of an EU Blue Card 6. Family members of foreign citizens permanently settled in Austria
Points
Maximum of allowable points: 40 20 30 40
20 25 30 20 20 Maximum of allowable points: 20 2 10 Maximum of allowable points: 10 5 10 Maximum of allowable points: 20 20 15 10 Maximum of allowable points: 10 5 10 100 70
Very highly qualified persons who hold a visa for the purpose of searching for employment can apply for a RWR Card (valid for 12 months) without further labour market test, if they find an employer, within the validity period of the visa, offering them employment according to their qualification based on a valid work contract. The RWR Card entitles them to be employed with this employer only. Highly qualified holders of a RWR Card may apply for a RWR Card plus which entitles them to unlimited labour market access after a period of 12 months (10 months of continued employment according to their qualification with the same employer). The examination is to be done by the Labour Market Service (AMS).
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A Red-White-Red Card for graduate nurses can only be applied for when the nostrification has been completed in Austria More detailed descriptions for the individual shortage occupations can be found here. Skilled workers from third countries can apply for a RWR Card without labour market test, valid for 12 months, if they
have the required qualification in a shortage profession according to the directive (see above) achieve the required minimum amount of points according to the following list of criteria:
Points
Maximum of allowable points: 30 20 25 30 Maximum of allowable points: 10 2 4 Maximum of allowable points: 15 10
The RWR Card entitles its holder to employment with the employer stated in the application. The employer is obliged to pay the holder at least the minimum wage the worker is entitled to according to law, directive or collective agreement; in the case of customary overpay, such overpay must be granted as well. Skilled workers holding a RWR Card may after a period of 12 months apply for a RWR Card plus with unlimited labour market access, if they have been continually employed in a shortage profession during the previous 10 months (at least).
and no equally qualified unemployed person registered with the Austrian Federal Employment Service (Arbeitsmarktservice, AMS) can be recruited by the potential employer (mandatory labour market test). The criteria required for skilled workers basically apply for key workers also. Key workers with special knowledge and abilities but without formal qualification are also eligible. In addition to that, professional athletes and professional sports coaches can receive 20 bonus points. Admission criteria for key workers
Qualifications Completed professional education or special knowledge and abilities regarding the intended occupation General university entrance qualification according to 64 Abs. 1 University Act 2002, BGBl. I Nr. 120 Graduation in university course of studies with a minimum duration of three years Work experience according to qualification Work experience (per year) Work experience in Austria (per year) Language skills German language skills: elementary use of the language on a basic level or English language skills: independent use of the language German language skills: intensified elementary use of the language or English language: intensified independent use of the language Age Up to 30 years Up to 40 years Maximum total of allowable points Additional points for professional athletes and professional sports coaches Minimum of required points
Points
Maximum of allowable points: 30 20 25 30 Maximum of allowable points: 10 2 4 Maximum of allowable points: 15 10
Key workers holding a RWR Card may after a period of 12 months apply for a RWR Card plus with unlimited labour market access, if they have been continually employed as a key worker during the previous 10 months (at least).
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Graduates holding a RWR Card may after a period of 12 months apply for a RWR Card plus which entitles to unlimited labour market access, if they have been continually employed according to their qualification during the previous 10 months (at least). The regulation does not apply for graduates who have completed only a Bachelors degree in Austria.
Family reunion
All key workers, skilled workers and university graduates holding a RWR Card, and all third country citizens already permanently settled in Austria may bring their spouses, registered partners and children up to 18 years (family reunion/nuclear family). Before entry, family members have to prove successfully completed language tests in German on (at least) level A1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages CEFR (pre-departure language tests). Furthermore, sufficient family income (means of subsistence) must be guaranteed. Family members of very highly qualified workers do not need to prove German language skills. Details and exemptions from this regulation are provided on the website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior www.bmi.gv.at. Family members can apply for a RWR Card plus with unlimited labour market access in order to be able to participate from the beginning in economic and social life in Austria by the means of an own employment. For the family reunion of other foreign citizens permanently settled in Austria, the Federal Government determines an annual quota in the Settlement Directive. Family members of very highly qualified workers, key workers and skilled workers who immigrate according to the new RWR Card scheme, are admitted independent of quota. Family members of Austrians will continue to receive a residence permit family member (Aufenthaltstitel -Familienangehriger) with unlimited labour market access.
Family reunion
Very highly qualified workers Skilled workers Key workers No quota RWR Card plus unlimited labour market access RWR Card plus unlimited labour market access RWR Card plus unlimited labour market access Residence Permit Family member unlimited labour market access Graduates Austrian citizens Foreigners already settled in Austria Mandatory quota RWR Card plus unlimited labour market access