Visiting the Consul

Hello! Visiting the consul comes only after you've gotten your VISA number from your recruiter. He may also have given you a form to interview with the consul and instructions on where to apply for your proof of residency. The proof of residency is for tax form purposes, but you can worry about that later.

After you fill out the form to interview with your consul, prepare:

• some money (about 60 dollars is a good bet)
• another copy of your university transcript
• your passport, and
• a passport photo

to include with the VISA application. If your recruiter didn't give you the address for the consulate, you will have to look it up on Google - type in your home city, the target country, and "consulate" (eg. Boston South Korean consulate) and search results should show their website, if not their address. Their address should be found either on the Home page or the Contact Us section, though there's a good chance that the site may be in a foreign language.

Since I reside in the Boston area, the Korean consulate that I went to is in Newton. This is their website. Because it's all in Korean, I could not access any of the forms that were on the website, and had to go visit in person to get anything done.

I had to make two or three trips. First, they had me fill out an application on site. Then, when they realized I didn't have an appointment, they sent me home with a health form to fill out and come back the next day at 10:30am.

2nd trip: When I did that, they asked for the passport photo and $45 in cash that I didn't know I was supposed to have, but decided to interview me anyway, because I sincerely apologized for being late as it was a really rainy day and the bus (there were only 2 bus routes to that address) ran 15 minutes late. So the interview was very short, where the consul asked pointed questions about why I wanted to be in Korea specifically, why I wanted the job, about my experiences, my family and my health. Then they sent me to the nearest CVS - with a Google map as a guide - to take a passport photo and obtain $45 dollars in cash to pay them for this procedure. When I returned with the desired items and dripping from the rain, they gave me a receipt and told me to come back 2 days later to pick up my VISA.

3rd trip: When I successfully did that, my quest was finally completed, thankfully.

I felt like I spent a lot of money, because each bus trip one way was about $3 in cash so I had to go to the ATM a lot, having gotten used to just using the debit card. Overall, it was $18 in bus fare plus $45 for the transaction, that's $63, plus $10 for the passport photos, and $2 for the ATM fees when I didn't have cash on me, the total rings up to a solid $75 dollars. However, most of this was because I was drastically unprepared for this visit - my recruiter didn't tell me anything about how to get a VISA, just sent me the form for interviewing with the consulate, so after reading this, you should come by fewer obstacles!