Bonjour,
The visa practice is very different from country to country so I will be talking about France but there may be some things that could help you in yours even though it’s not the same country.
First of all, don’t do anything containing your visa until you get notified by AFS to do so. They have specific instructions and some things they tell you to do on the application that you may not have thought. Also, you don’t want to do it too early because you might be missing information from the country that you are going to.
For France, you will most likely have to travel a little way to the French Embassy. Here is a link to the map of where you live and will have to go to get your visa.
Here are three tips for filling out your visa.
- Be organized
The application for France at least is very lengthy. Start early and be organized. If you show up to your appointment and are missing information or paperwork you will be sent home and most likely have to come back another time. For me this would have been very bad since it was a five-hour drive to the nearest French Embassy.
- Book Early
The Embassy gets very busy and there were some that didn’t have any open times for weeks which made things very difficult for some people. When AFS notifies you to book your appointment time, be on top of things and book early. Some embassy’s only put the schedule out for one to two months in advance so don’t worry if you are supposed to book an appointment in July but you can’t right away. Just check the site often and it will be out soon.
- Be on time
Also, be on time because if you miss the appointment you will not get another turn because they are very busy. Sometimes they are running late (for me they were 2 hours late) but it still pays to be on time.
I hope this helped you in some way! If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will try and help as much as I can!
à bientôt
xoxo Gina