Hey everyone,
I wanted to share my recent experience applying for a Belgium Schengen visa, and let me tell you, it was far from smooth sailing.
A little background: I'm currently pursuing my Master's in the UK on a European Union scholarship. This scholarship aims to enhance understanding and knowledge about the EU. Since Brexit, this is the last year scholars can study in the UK under this program, making me one of the final recipients of this scholarship studying in the UK.
I've been working in the public sector in my home country since 2019, so aside from the monthly salary, all my expenses are covered by scholarship. Also I work part time in the UK.
As part of the program, all scholars are supposed to meet in Brussels for a visit to the EU Parliament and other related activities. So, naturally, I applied for a Belgium Schengen visa to facilitate this trip. All trip expenses will be covered by the scholarship again but in any case I had shown more than enough savings.
Now, here's where things got frustrating. Despite having a solid track record of Schengen visas (five in total since 2015, including a D type visa for Portugal) with durations of at least six months each of them, and visas for the US (still 8 years valid) and Japan and obviously UK my application for Belgium was met with disappointment.
In my motivational letter, I explained the purpose of my trip - a three-day visit to Brussels for the planned activities, followed by a desire to explore more of Europe during the summer break. Despite this, I was granted a multi-entry visa, but with a duration of only seven days. Seven days!
This limitation feels like a missed opportunity, especially considering the aim of my scholarship and the fact that I've been a responsible visa holder in the past.
To add insult to injury, the application process itself was a nightmare. The TLS contact in Manchester, where I applied, left much to be desired. The fees were excessive, and the service was subpar.
You have to complete an additional form in the center why you want to go to Belgium :) That's funny because all it is written in application form. I have applied Schengen visa many times seriously this is the worst in general.
Overall, my experience with applying for a Belgium Schengen visa has been disappointing, to say the least. I hope sharing this serves as a cautionary tale for others considering a similar application.
I would never ever apply from Belgium again.
Here is the timeline.
3rd of May 2024 Applied in Manchester TLS
10th of May 2024- Passport returned to the TLS

I am Phd student in Belgium but currently living in NL. As PhD scholarship is not taxable in Belgium but does my scholarship is taxable in NL too? I would greatly appreciate any lead in this matter. Thanks

Career in Finance outlook for international graduate students
Hi guys,
I really want to hear your opinion on which country to choose for my Master. I'm choosing between Ireland and Belgium. My background has always been Finance and I work in IB.
I was wondering which country offers the better degree in Finance/MBA and the career prospects after graduation for international students. I currently have an offer to study MSc Finance at UCD.
For Ireland the tuition fees is higher and I heard the living expense is no different but in Belgium the tuition fees is quite low even if I don't have a scholarship. If Ireland has better career outlook, I'm willing to invest.
Thanks you guys so much! 🙏

Question for people who needed I got into the EMJMD program with EM scholarship in Belgium. As non-EEA resident, I’m applying for Belgian visa and to prove my solvency I need a blocked account. But I will the scholarship, right? Do I need this blocked account? Anyone who faced this kind of situation, please share your experience. Any advice, guidance, help would be so greatly appreciated.

Hi guys,
I really want to hear your opinion on which country to choose for my Master. I'm choosing between Ireland and Belgium. My background has always been Finance and I work in IB.
I was wondering which country offers the better degree in Finance/MBA and the career prospects after graduation for international students. I currently have an offer to study MSc Finance at UCD.
For Ireland the tuition fees is higher and I heard the living expense is no different but in Belgium the tuition fees is quite low even if I don't have a scholarship. If Ireland has better career outlook, I'm willing to invest.
Thanks you guys so much! 🙏

Hi guys,
I really want to hear your opinion on which country to choose for my Master. My background has always been Finance and I work in IB.
I was wondering which country offers the better degree in Finance/MBA and the career prospects after graduation for international students.
For Ireland the tuition fees is higher and I heard the living expense is no different but in Belgium the tuition fees is quite low even if I don't have a scholarship. If Ireland has better career outlook, I'm willing to invest.
Thanks you guys so much! 🙏

I’ve been accepted to LIVE+ leading international vaccinology education masters, with mobility in Spain, Belgium and France. I’m wondering if anyone have been through this programme? Advice? Course load?
We won’t know about the scholarships until Mid July, as the consortium is applying for funding renewal. Is that normal?
Also, wondering is anyone have lived in AUB, Barcelona Student residences? Trying to book it early, but not sure about the conditions.
Thank You so so much

NATO Internship Program 2025 in Belgium (Fully Paid)

• Offered by: NATO
• Education: Students or Graduates
• Internship coverage: Fully Funded
• Eligible nationality: NATO Members
• Award country: Belgium
• Last Date: 20 May 2024

Apply Link: https://brightscholarship.com/nato-internship-program-2025-in-belgium/
​
#BrightScholarship #FullyFunded #Internship #NATO #Belgium

Hi,
I wanted to pursue CS/Data Science related course from - KU leuven Masters in Computer Science(and Master of Statistics and Data Science) and RWTH Aachen Data Science. But I am confused as to which university to choose from and also which course.
I have heard that Data science and statistics at KU leuven is more maths oriented rather the data science(ML). I understand that a bit of mathematics is required to gain the basic understanding, but I am coming from a point where the course should be related more towards computer related field rather mathematical. Should I get into the Data science and Statistics or just go with Computer Science instead, since that has few courses which are more oriented to machine learning and AI.
Continuing to above point, whatever decision I take to choose the subject, will it be comparable to RWTH Aachen data Science, what would be the right choice from a general point of view.
I would appreciate if someone (more preferable who have studied there or have contacts) would provide me differences so that I could make a rational decision based on them. Following are the major points on which I would compare:

1. The job market after I graduate from either of the universities, which course would make me more thorough and aligned to latest technologies as to pursue in either direction - entering job market or getting into niche domain, maybe getting PHD or something. (PS: Personally I would love to work in netherlands for sometime, will that be possible since none of them are in netherlands)
2. The average cost of living. I have seen that both cities Leuven and aachen are student cities and cost of living comes around same, but just wanted to know if someone has experienced what is the difference in them, which is more vibrant and cultural. (PS: I have got no scholarship from KU leuven so i have to consider the tuition fee as well when living in Leuven, compared to RWTH where tution fee is negligible)
3. Language barrier: I have heard that in germany you have to learn german in order to be part of them, just knowing english won't solve the problem. You can either start learning before coming to germany or learn it while studying but you have to do that. How much of this is true? I still do not know german but I am considering to learn till A1 before coming. Will there be any issue if I do not know german in current scenario since many international students are coming? Does the same thing applies for Belgium(Leuven) to learn dutch. or will english be primary mode.?
4. Part time jobs: Which university city -Aachen or Leuven has more options of part-time(more preferably in the course of study). How easy/difficult is it to find them and does language barrier becomes a criteria?
5. Ease of living: Considering they are in different countries, which of them is more suitable for a student from non-EU region. How significant does the bureaucracy/paper work make in our normal day2day life. .(Reason being I have heard in germany there is lot of paperwork- how true is that?)

I know this is a long post, but it would really be helpful if I would get some suggestions on top of those which would help me choose the right university. Would Appreciate your thoughts!
A quick background - I am Non-EU/EEA student and have completed my Bachelors in Computer Science with decent grades.

Hello! I have been selected for a post graduate programme in Brussels (on a scholarship). The programme is scheduled to commence in Sept'24.
I stay in Pune (India). I wanted to connect with someone who has recently (in last few years) has travelled to Belgium on a student visa.
Need to consult on:
i) Apostille requirements. ii) medical certification iii) additional docus the visa people may demand.
Please lemme know. Thanks.

Are there any foreigners (without European citizenship) applying for positions that require a background check in Belgium or France? How long did yours take? I'm from Central America and I work in economics/sociology. I was hired in Belgium for a post-doc. I was told that the position requires a background check because the scholarship is from a large player in the nuclear sector. I've been waiting for more than 4 months. PS - I did part of my PhD in Spain a few years ago and never had any problems before. Perhaps the delays are due to recent changes in immigration law?

I want to improve my French conversational skills. Unfortunately I don't get to practice it on a daily basis. I studied French in high school and college (even did a scholarship in Belgium), thus reached B1/B2 levels, but it was around 10 years ago. I started refreshing grammar and vocabulary on my own for a while now, but speaking the language is a different beast.
Therefore I am looking for conversations groups, ateliers. I did my homework (see links below), however I am curious about other options, or better your personal experiences.
​
https://nouvelles-perspectives.ch/activites/ateliers-de-francais-les-samedis-matins/
https://www.globlivres.ch/static/media/pdf/1.png
https://uplausanne.ch/cours/francais-atelier-dexpression-orale-b1b2/705-3/
https://www.meetup.com/lausanne-blabla-language-exchange/

Hi guys
I am an Indian wanting to do my masters in Computer Science or a related field in Europe. I will have about 2 years of industry experience by the time I start my masters. I have got admits to TU Delft and KU Leuven as of now, and am awaiting the results of TU Munich, the University of Amsterdam, and RWTH Aachen (all Computer Science related courses). While I am glad to have got both TU Delft and KU Leuven, I am thoroughly confused about which university do I go to. The Netherlands has a much bigger IT field than Belgium, and TU Delft teaches more practically. KU Leuven teaches relatively more theory, based on my research of the University. But the tuition fees of TU Delft is about 3 times that of KU Leuven. Going to TU Delft will be a financial burden (I didn't get any scholarship) for me and that's the only reason I am thinking of going to KU Leuven (if I don't get acceptances from other universities). I should be able to manage the tuition fees of KU Leuven with all my savings. I have the following questions:
​

1. Is pursuing TU Delft worth the money?
   
2. Will I get a job in the IT field as an Indian in the Netherlands with a degree from Belgium (KU Leuven)
   
3. How does TU Delft MSc CS or MS Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology compare against MSc CS from KU Leuven?
   
4. Does studying at Delft give me an advantage for employment in the future over studying at KU Leuven?
   
5. Say I get an admit to RWTH Aachen in the future (it practically has no tuition fees), which university do you guys suggest should I go for, given my financial constraints?
   

Hi guys
I am an Indian wanting to do my masters in Computer Science or a related field in Europe. I will have about 2 years of industry experience by the time I start my masters. I have got admits to TU Delft and KU Leuven as of now, and am awaiting the results of TU Munich, University of Amsterdam, and RWTH Aachen (all Computer Science related courses). While I am glad to have got both TU Delft and KU Leuven, I am thoroughly confused about which university do I go to. The Netherlands has a much bigger IT field than Belgium, and TU Delft teaches more practically. KU Leuven teaches relatively more theory, based on my research of the University. But the tuition fees of TU Delft is about 3 times that of KU Leuven. Going to TU Delft will be a financial burden (I didn't get any scholarship) for me and that's the only reason I am thinking of going to KU Leuven (if I don't get acceptances from other universities). I should be able to manage the tuition fees of KU Leuven with all my savings. I have the following questions:

1. Is pursuing TU Delft worth the money?
   
2. Will I get a job in the IT field as an Indian in the Netherlands with a degree from Belgium (KU Leuven)
   
3. How does TU Delft MSc CS or MS Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology compare against MSc CS from KU Leuven?
   
4. Does studying at Delft give me an advantage for employment in the future over studying at KU Leuven?
   
5. Say I get an admit to RWTH Aachen in the future (it practically has no tuition fees), which university do you guys suggest should I go for, given my financial constraints?
   

This post is going to be long so sit tight, but in short, they actually make sense this year (even for less CS related majors - Quantum and Chem Eng mostly (actually Comp Eng is less CS related than DSD if you hadn’t know, do thorough searches and you will see).
For context, I am a Vietnamese Bsc aplicant to 3+2 DSD in Aalto and Science in U of Hel using SAT. I cannot speak for every country but at least this is the case in Vietnam (and if you check out recent posts in this sub, there’s a whole lot of Viet applicants).
Firstly, ok, SAT is a standardized test and there should be no such thing as a score inflation, but at least it only holds true in the US. Two major causes I can address why SAT scores are higher with DSAT in Vietnam:

1. The SAT moved away from lengthy passages which are particularly hard for non-natives to completely comprehend the whole thing in given time (especially those damn history passages dating back to as far as the 1800s that absolutely do not follow modern grammar). The new format surely helps out a lot.
2. More prestigious universities in Vietnam are beginning to accept SAT scores, and a 1500-ish score would get you into most top majors (CS, DS, IB, ENG), so people are cramming for the test like hell here. And we are pretty good at taking tests; we are ASIANs after all :)))

And the data also correlates. The 99th percentile cut off increased from ~1520 for the last paper batch (Dec 2022) to something 1540-1550 recently in the country. Believe it or not, the cram center where a friend of mine enrolled in (an online one with reputation) produced ~100 1500+ in the Dec 2023 test. YES, ONE SINGLE TEST DATE, FOR ONE SINGLE CENTER.
The 2024 Bsc admission statistics for U of Hel is available and also speaks in favor of my point. I know, I know, they only accepted 72 applicants across all fields of science, but to some extent, the data holds some values.
That friend of mine originally planned to use the score for university entrance, but he ended up with a decent score and applied for Aalto and TamU. And I believe many others also consider options in Finland, espeacially Aalto, after they receive their SAT scores though they did not plan to.
Another factor that counts is that more middle families with moderate budgets are choosing Finland instead of the US - I belong to one of these families (very famous among the prospective international student community here; we each has an American dream for sure) for safety reasons - a lot of shoot-outs and stuff in the US (I know theoritically Russia can strike anytime soon, but nevertheless Finland is still part of NATO). Also if Trump is elected this fall, chances are the job market for newly grad international students with STEM OPT desperately trying to find a job in 3 months after graduation will be a lot worse. The visa after graduation situation in Finland is surely better.
Lastly, 5 years in Finland with a 100% scholarship resulting in a Bsc and a Msc would geberally cost only about a third compared to 4 years with only a Bsc in the US (can be lower of course, if your SAT score is high and you suff your CV with tons of ECs then it might be less, not to mention fullrides and 80-90% financial aid outlier cases).
For other Western countries popular for their education (lets not take Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, HK,.. into consideration) that do not require a fluency in their native languages different from English (which rules out France, Germany, or even Spain and Italy), the cost is even higher (Canada, Australia, the UK in general, …). Belgium and Netherlands are promising, but the expensive living expense there, not subsidized by the government, somewhat balances out their feasible tuition.
So economically speaking, Finland is the best choice right now for families that do not want to risk investing their life savings into a risky option.
All those factors add up to my point in the first lines of this post.
If you managed to this point, I really appreciate it! I actually wrote something worth reading for my first reddit post :))
Again, this only my personal perspective, and I do not intend to offend anyone if you find something offensive. I definitely cannot speak for all Vietnamese students, too.
Been ages since I took the IELTS so please be soft on me if there is something hard to understand :))
To the friend I mentioned: Sry, t ko hỏi ý m đã viết, có j ae ra cổng trường nói chuyện, mà trường làm j có cổng :))))))))
Edit: by cut-offs I mean scholarship cut-offs.

Hi all,
I have been hearing of this option of freelancing that I was given, when I was asking some questions concerning work, belgium salary, etc.
The question that I have for this post: how good would be the prospects for my current situation? And/or if I could make a transition in 2-5 years for the (seemingly) much more optimal position of a freelanceLTD-type of contractor?
My current situation/background:

1. With distinction business administration and 2 business information systems masters
2. Doctoral studies, in my 3rd year, with some good publications on the topics of pedagogics/business/IT (i.e., I am quite a generalist, but with a good enough specialization to know versatile corporate, business, managerial strategies)
3. Some limited (part-time) 3 y. of experience (but, on paper it could look like more "full-time", if I frame it like that) in startups as sales, biz. dev, research
4. English, Russian, French currently being learned
5. I have a good set of practices that may be beneficial for a system of self-reliant worker (e.g., I know how to look for opportunities (sell), I know how to manage finances, I track for the past 2 years every single day of my work, following pomodoros, so that I know how much I spend where)

In my current doctoral studies I have 3.2k euro / month net + 13th salary. I have 30k savings (maybe, crucial for looking for contracts, etc.)
After graduation, I am looking at the following options: (1) postdoc/professotenureship, (2) employed as technical trainer (like learning and development), business analyst, project manager, (3) freelance/LTD, (4) management consulting for 1-2 years of focused work so that then I have a boost in my CV.
So, for the (1) and (2) options the salary would be around the same (since I am a scholarship holder). (4) can be a standalone (for better employment in Belgium or elsewhere), or as a pre-route for a freelance, if that's important.
I am mostly curious: is it really that in freelance, given that my profile seems to be decent and I could market it (especially, if I work more for 1-3 years in the expertise) to have around 5k net, with 500e daily fees? How much is 500e daily fee anyway, approximately, translated in the monthly net income?
Then the second question is about my wife, who is currently immigrating, has poor language/cultural awareness, but if there's a very good motivation of ~5k euros, it could be quite incentivizing for us both. Especially, considering that we have nice a nice emerging synergy: she is working in personal branding on SMM with around 3-5 years of experience (albeit, in Russia, but on nice projects). If we both make an LTD, share the operating costs (e.g., accountant, etc.), and then we each help each other with our skills (e.g., she helps make a personal brand for me, I help her with the cultural acumen, local bureaucracy, etc.), is it really feasible that we both work as freelancers/consultants, and maybe even expand the business in the future in the consulting agency?
I suppose, the process of opening LTD shouldn't be very hard, given that we both have some solid experience at business, legal issues, accounting, corporate governance (even if from a purely theoretical standpoint) etc.?
I would really appreciate the input! :) We recently had major discussions concerning our future together, since working even at 3k euro + her working some jobs, would net around 4k, and that'd be not enough for us both to have our lifestyles AND a kid (amount to around 1k monthly). Now, if this route can somehow work out (and since we are ready to put in work, especially if it pays off to us directly, and not the employer), then we'd be quite glad :)

NOTE: For some reason, even though I specifically enabled "look inside" when I sent the book to the printer, the preview has yet to appear. And, since this is MY research being published at last, I want to share it. So, here is the first section covering the historiography of Alfred von Schlieffen (without citations for ease of formatting).
Schlieffen: The Man and the Myth
One might find it difficult to imagine a military theorist as mythologized as Count Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913). The creator of the “Schlieffen Plan,” he is remembered in the general conception of the Great War as either a visionary mastermind who created a blueprint for the conquest of France that accounted for every detail, or a fool so obsessed with the Battle of Cannae and encirclement that he missed the obvious, plunging the world into war as a result. As is so often the case when men become myth, neither is true.
But, the myth remains, and the Schlieffen Plan and its failure in 1914 looms large over everything Schlieffen actually wrote or planned. Trying to part the mists and reveal the real Schlieffen brings one into conflict with decades of received wisdom. Part of this was due to historical mythmaking, while part was due to the fact that until the late 1990s, almost nobody working on Schlieffen’s war planning had access to the original documents, either through obfuscation or (in some cases, perceived) destruction. For almost 90 years, all that anybody had to go on was the received wisdom, which they accepted or rejected based on the results of August and September 1914. Indeed, work on the Schlieffen Plan up to the 1990s may be aptly described by misquoting Churchill: “Never has so much been written by so many who had read so little.”
But, how did this come to pass, and what are we to make of the real Count Alfred von Schlieffen? To part the veil and made sense of the man, we first have to explore the making of the myth.
The Rise and Fall of the Schlieffen Myth
The end of the opening campaign of the Great War left many German generals with a conundrum: how had they gotten so far, only to lose at the Marne? To many, it appeared that victory had been within their grasp and snatched away. Many who had led troops in the campaign sought answers for a different reason: a desire to rehabilitate their reputation after losing a campaign they should have won.
As such, the mythmaking began almost as soon as the guns had fallen silent. Looking for somebody to blame, the fault for the defeat on the shoulders of Schlieffen’s successor on the Great German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. But, in bringing Moltke down, they elevated Schlieffen and his war planning to legendary levels.
Hermann von Kuhl, the chief of staff serving under von Kluck in the First Army at the Marne, was one of the first to pick up his pen and declare that the fault lay with Moltke’s modifications to Schlieffen’s plan in his book on the Marne Campaign in 1920:

Under General von Moltke, the successor of Count Schlieffen, a change was gradually made in the relation of forces between the right and left wings. General von Moltke had been loath to leave Alsace unprotected in the face of a probably successful French attack. The country was not to be vacated at once in case of a war and abandoned to every enemy operation. Initially, the XIV Corps was assigned to the protection of upper Alsace, and later a total of eight corps, in addition to the war garrisons of Metz and Strassburg and a large number of Landwehr brigades, were stationed in Alsace-Lorraine. The tasks of the Sixth and Seventh Armies were accordingly much extended.
The Schlieffen plan was preferable. It was a very simple one. The main thought was brought out with the greatest clarity, and all other considerations were subordinated to it. The course of events in August and September, 1914, has demonstrated the correctness of Count Schlieffen’s view.

He further stated:

Count Schlieffen had shown us the only correct way: only in movement was the victory for us to be won, only by victory was a decision of the war to be attained. An exhaustion strategy necessarily led to a war of position. As soon as we had thus lost freedom of movement, technique took the place of the art of leadership, the materiel battle the place of Cannae. In technique and materiel we were doomed to be just as inferior to our enemies as in food supplies after the establishment of the blockade. Germany became a besieged fortress, our battles were reduced to sallies on the part of the garrison to hold back the advance of the siege, until in 1918 we attempted once more to burst the ring by force. When this failed, the war was lost.

It should be noted that when von Kuhl was writing in 1920, the supremacy of the Schlieffen Plan was far from accepted. An entire section of von Kuhl’s first chapter was dedicated to a discussion of Schlieffen Plan detractors such as Hans Delbruck, Erich Falkenhayn, and Erich Ludendorff, and von Kuhl actively engages with the arguments of the Schlieffen Plan’s critics. However, his conclusion in the end was unequivocal:

If our concentration had been effected logically, according to the Schlieffen plan, the success, in so far as the human understanding can judge, could not have failed to be ours. Our advance to the north of the Marne completely surprised the French and upset their campaign plan. The great August battles might already have brought the decision; the battle of the Marne or of the Seine could certainly have brought it in September when Joffre’s measures presented us with the brilliant opportunity of throwing the French back toward the southeast.
The plan of Count Schlieffen was not outmoded; it was instinct with life, not “the recipe of the deceased Schlieffen.” But we did not follow it.

Von Kuhl’s work was convincing, and that is not surprising. He had a clear understanding of the strategic principles behind the formation of the plan, and was less engaged with myth making than he was with arguing his interpretation of events. That Schlieffen would become mythologized at this time was not a foregone conclusion – the German official history of the war, whose first volume released in 1925, took a balanced approach to Schlieffen’s war planning. This too, is not a surprise – the authors had full access to Schlieffen’s war planning documents in the Berlin archives (known as the Reichsarchiv), and in the official history provided a summary of the strategic concerns that Schlieffen had considered, as well as his solutions leading to underpinning of the German strategy of 1914. They correctly identified his 1905 document laying out how an invasion of France could play out as a “memorandum,” and not a war plan or deployment orders. Their ultimate description of the document was both definitive and succinct:

Schlieffen’s December 1905 memorandum was based on that year’s Deployment Plan I, in which the entire German field army would be sent to the West. But, it also called for the use of more forces than were actually available at the time. In this respect, the memorandum amounted to an argument for the expansion of the army as well as for improvements in its plan of mobilization.

It was clear from the German official history that the Schlieffen Plan had not been a document containing a master plan with timetables to be followed to the letter – instead, it was a set of strategic principles that Schlieffen had worked out during his time as the Chief of the General Staff which became the basis for German war planning to follow. This distinction would not last, and the December 1905 memorandum would soon displace Schlieffen’s final operational orders as the “Schlieffen Plan.”
Much of the fault for this lies with the Reichsarchiv itself. Having allowed access to the war planning documents to those writing the official history, it then restricted them to everybody else. Part of this was due to the impact they would have on the question of Germany’s war guilt, and part of this was due to the fact that by 1934 they were being used once again for German war planning, turning them into military secrets. It did not help that during World War II the German army archive in Potsdam was bombed, destroying everything within, including most of Schlieffen’s war planning documents. What this meant for historians was that they were now left with Schlieffen’s 1913 book Cannae, what little the official history had quoted of Schlieffen’s writing, and the confidence of generals like von Kuhl in their superiority.
By 1930, the Schlieffen myth had displaced reality. Basil Liddell Hart, who would wield an overpowering influence over World War I scholarship until his death in 1970, wrote about Schlieffen as a mastermind who had accounted for everything in his 1930 book The Real War 1914-1918:

Schlieffen’s plan allowed ten divisions to hold the Russians in check while the French were being crushed. It is a testimony to the vision of this remarkable man that he counted on the intervention of Britain, and allowed for an expeditionary force of 100,000 ‘operating in conjunction with the French’. To him also was due the scheme for using the Landwehr and Ersatz troops in active operations and fusing the resources of the nation into the army. His dying words are reported to have been: ‘It must come to a fight. Only make the right wing strong,’

In 1930, when Churchill abridged and revised his account of the Great War into a single-volume addition published in 1931, he added his own commentary to the myth:

The Schlieffen plan staked everything upon the invasion of France and the destruction of the French armies by means of an enormous turning march through Belgium. In order to strengthen this movement by every means, General von Schlieffen was resolved to run all risks and make all sacrifices in every other quarter. He was prepared to let the Austrians bear the brunt of the Russian attack from the east, and to let all East Prussia be overrun by the Russian armies, even if need be to the Vistula. He was ready to have Alsace and Lorraine successfully invaded by the French. The violation and trampling down of Belgium, even if it forced England to declare war, was to him only a corollary of his main theme. In his conception nothing could resist the advance of Germany from the north into the heart of France, and the consequent destruction of the French armies, together with the incidental capture of Paris and the final total defeat of France within six weeks. Nothing, as he saw it, would happen anywhere else in those six weeks to prevent this supreme event from dominating the problem and ending the war in victory.
To this day no one can say that the Schlieffen plan was wrong. However, Schlieffen was dead. His successors on the German General Staff applied his plan faithfully, resolutely, solidly, — but with certain reservations enjoined by prudence. These reservations were fatal. Moltke, the nephew of the great Commander, assigned 20 per cent more troops to the defence of the German western frontier and 20 per cent less troops to the invasion of northern France than Schlieffen had prescribed. Confronted with the Russian invasion of East Prussia he still further weakened the Great Right Wheel into France. Thus as will be seen the Schlieffen plan applied at four-fifths of its intensity just failed, and we survive to this day.

The end of the Second World War, however, started the process of re-evaluating Schlieffen. Around 1950 Walter Görlitz published The History of the German General Staff, 1657-1945, which was translated and published in English in 1953. Görlitz still treated the Schlieffen plan as a master plan, but he also approached it as a gradual transition from earlier war planning, created as a reaction to Germany’s strategic situation. Like everybody else, however, Görlitz was hampered by not being able to read the document – his analysis was good, but only able to present the broadest of strokes.
The next major development in the understanding of Schlieffen and his war planning came in 1956 in Germany. Gerhard Ritter, a German historian, managed to locate Schlieffen’s 1905 memo, a number of its drafts, as well as some surviving planning documents that had been captured by the American army and placed in the National Archives in Washington (and were later returned to Germany). He published them in The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth, which was translated and published in English in 1958, with a Foreword by Basil Liddell Hart. For the very first time, scholars who were studying the war could actually read the famous document, as well as its drafts, along with Ritter’s summary of Schlieffen’s road to the famous memorandum.
Ritter had also made some important discoveries, one of which was that the final draft of the memo had been written in January 1906 and then back-dated to December 31, 1905 – Schlieffen’s final day in office. This meant that the December 1905 memorandum had not been part of Schlieffen’s official duties, but something he had drafted on his own time as he left his position. This did not mean that his analysis was without issues – while he had seen more of Schlieffen’s writings than anybody else since the publication of the German official history, he was still hampered by the fact that much of Schlieffen’s work had not been captured by the American army, but instead stored in the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam, which had been destroyed.
Even despite its unavoidable shortcomings, Ritter’s book was a major shift in the discourse. Scholars were now able to read the December 1905 memorandum and its drafts and realize that Schlieffen had not written a master plan for the invasion of France, but instead explored the strategic principles and challenges of such a campaign through a hypothetical that could never have been carried out in real life with the army Germany had at the time. There was no timetable involved in the memo, Russia was mentioned only in terms of the French not being able to depend on Russian support, and it even concluded with a statement that even more divisions would be needed for a siege of Paris. It is a testimony to the power of the growing Schlieffen myth that instead of being brought back to reality, Ritter’s work initially helped it snowball.
Barbara Tuchman presented an updated version of the Schlieffen myth in her 1964 book The Guns of August. While she did reference Ritter’s book (as well as the 1905) in her citations, her description of Schlieffen’s plan bore little resemblance to the actual memorandum or the description by the German official history:

Schlieffen’s completed plan for 1906, the year he retired, allocated six weeks and seven-eighths of Germany’s forces to smash France while one-eight was to hold the eastern frontier against Russia until the bulk of her army could be brought back to face the second enemy.

This was not the only misrepresentation of primary source documents in Tuchman’s book – she also misrepresented the French doctrine, relocating the famous statement “The French Army, returning unto its traditions, no longer knows any law other than the offensive” to the beginning of the French Decree of October 1913, when in reality it appeared in the appendix in a discussion about the importance of concentrating forces to ensure success before launching an attack – but at least she knew that Ritter’s book existed. The same cannot be said for Alistair Horne, who in his 1962 book The Price of Glory compared the Schlieffen plan to a blitzkrieg to knock out France before Germany turned its attention and forces to the east (which was true of how it developed), but added that, “Fortunately for France and unfortunately for Germany, Schlieffen’s successor, Moltke, tampered with the master plan.”
A correction had begun in professional academic circles, however. Colonel T.N. Dupuy wrote in his 1979 book A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945 that Schlieffen had been neither politically irresponsible nor militarily reckless, but was making the best decisions he could with what he had available. Gunther E. Rothenberg’s essay in the 1986 edition of Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age provided a reasonable and nuanced assessment based on Ritter’s book and other available German sources. But with this correction came the beginnings of an over-correction, as writers began to shift the blame for the failure of the Schlieffen plan from Moltke to Schlieffen himself, specifically his study of the battle of Cannae and the lessons he learned from it.
In the Preface of the Command and General Staff College Press edition of Cannae, published in the early 1990s, Richard M. Swain, the Director of the Combat Studies Institute, closed his introduction to Schlieffen’s “Cannae Studies,” by stating:

...it is probably not remiss to caution readers that Hannibal’s victory at Cannae still did not produce a strategic success, even though it was a tactical masterpiece. Hannibal lost the war with Rome. Likewise, Schlieffen’s operational concept collapsed in World War I in the face of logistic and time-space realities he had chosen to discount because he believed they were inconvenient to his needs. The lesson to be learned from Schlieffen’s experience is that history misapplied is worse than no history at all.

Holger Herwig went even further. In his essay for the 1992 book The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and Wars, he declared that:

Driven by a fanatical belief in a Cannae miracle, Schlieffen blithely ignored anticipated British forces on the continent, overestimated the combat-readiness of German reserves, rejected Clausewitz’s principle of the “diminishing force of attack,” and contemplated a siege of Paris requiring seven or eight army corps – forces that as yet existed neither in reality or on paper. Had the chief of the general staff conveniently overlooked the fact that in 1870 the elder Moltke had enjoyed a numerical advantage of seven infantry divisions over the French? Grandiose visions of German troops marching through the Arc de Triomphe with brass bands playing the “Paris Entrance March” substituted for Bismarckian Realpolitik.
Schlieffen, in short, possessed no eye for broad strategic and political issues. He allowed no room for Clausewitz’s notion of the “genius of war”; his rigid operation studies permitted no free scope for command; his widely acknowledged operational expertise had evolved only in war games, staff rides, and theoretical exercises without a battlefield test. The plan bearing his name was a pipe dream from the beginning. It was criminal to commit the nation to a two-front operation gamble with the full knowledge that the requisite forces did not exist and that, given the mood of the Reichstag and War Ministry, they were not likely to materialize in the near future.

Herwig, too, took aim at Schlieffen’s analysis of the Battle of Cannae, declaring that Schlieffen had apparently failed to notice that, “while winning the battle, Hannibal lost the war, or drew the deeper lesson that Carthaginian land power eventually succumbed to Roman sea power!” In 2000 Geoffrey P. Megargee also represented Schlieffen as an inflexible military thinker who discounted basic principles of war, repeating the idea that Schlieffen had required armies to move according to strict timetables and that he had attempted to remove “any opportunity for flexibility or initiative.”
This was nothing compared to what was to come. An American historian named Terence Zuber, a former U.S. Army who received his Ph.D. from the University of Wuerzburg, made a remarkable discovery – a number of the German war planning documents, including material written by Schlieffen, had survived the Second World War. Prior to the bombing of the Reichsarchiv building in Potsdam, they had been moved to a different location for research purposes, where they had been captured by the Soviets. In a 1999 article published in War in History, he astounded the Anglophone academic community with the revelation that between Schlieffen’s surviving writing and Wilhelm Dieckmann’s unfinished historical survey Der Schlieffenplan, it was now possible to reconstruct much of German war planning prior to the Great War, and it was not what it had first appeared. In fact, Zuber concluded:

It is therefore clear that at no time, under either Schlieffen or the younger Moltke, did the German army plan to swing the right wing to the west of Paris. The German left wing was never weak; rather it was always very strong – indeed, the left wing, not the right, might well conduct the decisive battle. The war in the west would begin with a French, not a German attack. The first campaign would end with the elimination of the French fortress line, not the total annihilation of the French army. It would involve several great conventional battles, not one battle of encirclement. If the Germans did win a decisive victory, it would be the result of a counter-offensive in Lorraine or Belgium, not through an invasion of France. There was no intent to destroy the French army in one immense Cannae-battle.
There never was a ‘Schlieffen plan’.

Zuber was not the first to analyze Dieckmann’s Der Schlieffenplan – that honour probably goes to Stig Förster, who published an analysis of it in German in 1995 – but he was the first to publish anything about it in English. To call the paper a bombshell is an understatement – in a single article, Zuber had upended everything known about German war planning in English-language scholarship.
Terence Zuber’s place in the understanding of Schlieffen and German war planning is both significant and controversial. On one hand, Zuber single-handedly did more to bring previously unknown sources into English than any other scholar – he followed up his article with a 2002 book titled Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning 1871-1914, in which he summarized the documents he was working from and further developed his argument that the entire idea of the Schlieffen Plan had been a myth. In 2004 he published German War Planning 1891-1914, which translated many of these documents into English, including Dieckmann’s Der Schlieffenplan, and followed that up in 2011 with The Real German War Plan 1904-1914, in which he summarized additional and newly discovered war planning documents. His work also started what could be described as a scrum through various archives by scholars to locate and analyze as many of the surviving documents as could be found. Robert T. Foley published his own translation of a number of Schlieffen’s documents in 2003 under the title Alfred von Schlieffen’s Military Writings, including a number of post-1906 documents demonstrating Schlieffen’s views of military developments after his retirement. In 2014 the papers from a 2004 German conference on Schlieffen in Potsdam were translated and published into English as The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I, and included in its appendix translations of the surviving deployment plans from 1893-1914. Arguably, without Zuber’s article in War in History, this either would have happened much more slowly or not at all.
Zuber’s thesis, however, set off a firestorm and a running war of words lasting until around 2014 between Zuber, Robert T. Foley, Annika Mombauer, and Terence Holmes. The unfortunate result was a polarization of the debate that made it at least as much about Zuber’s thesis as it was about the widening picture of German war planning. The 2004 conference on Schlieffen was telling – sold to Zuber as a two day opportunity for debate on the meaning of the documents with the documents present for examination, he arrived to discover that there were no documents present, the conference would be a single day with no session for debate at all, and the press present to report on it. The introduction published in the English edition of The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I described the purpose of the conference entirely in terms of Terence Zuber:

Since Zuber’s provocative thesis caused such a stir, it seems reasonable to bring together all sides of the debate to the Military History Research Institute in Potsdam in the autumn of 2004. The object of such a meeting was to discuss Zuber’s pertinent theses and perhaps convince him to modify them if necessary, in order to establish a basis for debate.

It would be safe to say that the discussion was not dispassionate. While only the participants of the conference and the media who were there can speak with any certainty as to its true tone, one cannot help but raise an eyebrow at Robert T. Foley quoting von Kuhl explicitly stating the Schlieffen was using his staff rides to work out operational ideas and then declaring that they were mainly training tools for officers, followed by declaring that Zuber stood in a “long line of apologists” arguing against German war guilt. One also cannot blame Terence Zuber for refusing permission to publish his paper in the English edition of the conference proceedings.
But between the mythmaking and over-corrections, the revelations and controversies, one also cannot help but feel that the real Schlieffen has become somewhat lost in the debate. So, what do we make of Alfred von Schlieffen, his book Cannae, and his famous (or perhaps better put, infamous) Schlieffen Plan?
(And if you want to read the next section, you'll just have to buy the book...)

I have a question concerning the MEXT Scholarship. I want to apply for the graduate Scholarship in Belgium, I wanted to know if after passing the first screening we will have to take the entrance exam of the wanted university. or as a MEXT student, we don't have to?

INTRO
Hello!! Fore warning this will be a long post, I'm going to give you everything I learned throughout the visa process, so hopefully this can be a resource for you, especially if your traveling alone! ((Originally posted this in a different reddit so Im posting here so hopefully it will be more helpful but please note the information is accurate to August 2023!!)) I will be studying in Belgium this fall at a university in Brussels and therefore applied for a type D visa. If you live in the United States you'll be assigned a consulate, mine was in Los Angeles.
https://www.belgiumintheusa.be/
Im not sure if each consulates VISA requirements are different but this is the Los Angeles experience. Once you navigate to higher education you'll find a 12 point list about everything you must submit. I'm going to copy that list below and just give my in depth thoughts and advice on each, then I'll break down the legitimate cost of this visa process (spoiler alert: it was around $1000) and then some general thoughts and timing expectations.
APPLICATION STEPS BROKEN DOWN

1. Passport, valid for more than 3 months after your planned stay + 2 copies of the picture page

I don't have much to say on this one. I've heard that the passport applications are pretty backed up in the US right now so I would do this MINIMUM 6 months prior to your departure if you don't have one already. You will be mailing it physically to the consulate so don't plan any international vacations while your visa is being considered. 2. Visa application form duly completed, dated and signed + 1 copy. You will need to create an account on the online portal.
You will create an account with their online portal and from there fill it out. It's pretty simple for the most part but you will need extraneous details about your trip and yourself. These include all of the contacts at your host university and sending university. It will ask how many entries you want, if you plan to travel around Europe while there you should select Multiple entries (asked the consulate on this one). Your nationality will be American. This document then needs to be notarized! But the document itself is stupid and doesn't have a spot for a notary which will send well trained notaries that you may encounter at the bank, ie. BOA or Chase into a tizzy. Bad to say but I had good luck with UPS stores as their notaries would notarize anything without problem of the document. They gave me a sheet attached to the document since there wasn't a legit place for it. 3. Two recent passport pictures, with the name of the applicant clearly written on the back
If you can, take these yourself. But if your not willing to play roulette just go to Walgreens or equivalent store. This was pretty easy, I did a walk in appointment and was out within 15 mins. It cost $18 though which hurt considering the pictures themselves are not even an inch. 4. A nationwide criminal history record (FBI Identification Record in sealed envelope), dated within six months of your date of application for the visa. No authentication (apostille) is required. Who has to present this document ? Students at an establishment, accredited by the Belgium Government for higher education or the preparatory year ahead of higher education, from the age of 18. Students at an establishment, not accredited by the Belgium Government from the age of 18. The request for your FBI Identification Record or proof that a record does not exist can be submitted to either the FBI directly, or to an FBI-approved Channeler. Only FBI records delivered directly on tamper proof paper or in their original sealed envelopes are accepted. You may not obtain the document by email and print it yourself.
ALRIGHT FOLKS. Buckle up. This was the hardest part of my application personally, reason being that it turns out 3/5 of my fingers don't have distinctive fingerprints :D. For this step you'll go to the FBI website and fill out the form for identity summary request. This costs $18. Then you'll need to send them fingerprints. I went to a police station near me and got them done for $17, then you'll need to mail these to the FBI headquarters in virginia. I would recommend doing multiple sets of fingerprints and sending all of them so that there are better chances of them being good. After that you'll get an envelope back with you results, DO NOT OPEN THIS! If you open it its void. Once you get any communication from the FBI just take it straight to the post office and mail the envelope whole, or just include it in your application document.
That's how it WOULD HAVE gone if I didn't have fucked up fingerprints. For me the process was much worse. I mailed my fingerprints and 2 weeks later received an email that they had been rejected for poor quality. At first I blamed the police officer who took them as he had been making comments "sorry if these get rejected" and such. So I talked with the other students Im traveling with and they said they went to the USPS store and they partner with the FBI so you can go there and do a fingerprint live scan and get the results in 2 days which I needed as at this point I was leaving in 3 weeks and didn't even have my VISA.... Anyway I go try and do that only to get turned away again as my fingerprints are shitty for real. I ended up paying hella money to use an approved FBI channeler. I hadn't considered this option prior but I would recommend it if 1. you are rich and money is no object or 2. you fucked up your timing and you really need the results ASAP. So I shelled out $159 for the prints and expedited shipping. THANK THE LORD, these were approved by the FBI. Within 2 days I had my email results and within a week and a half I had the digital paper. Now I did have another hick up in which I confused the fingerprint rejected letter (which I wasn't able to open to verify the contents) as my finished background check which resulted in having to pay even more in shipping... Anway, this was by far the hardest part of the application for me but for most people, including those I am traveling with it was NOT this hard. Just a terrible time to find out that I have 2/5 viable fingers. 5. A medical certificate (PDF(This hyperlink opens a new window)) according to the model enclosed + 2 copies. For a list of physicians affiliated with the Embassy or the Consulate General, click PDF here. If you choose an unaffiliated physician, the doctor's signature needs to be notarized by a notary public and authenticated by apostille, which is to be obtained from the Secretary of State where the notary public has his/her office. See: www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=authorities.details&aid=353. The medical document should be issued not more than 6 months before the date of your application.
Alright this is the hurdle that I image will be the most difficult for most applicants. First your going to need to make a doctors appointment, preferably with your primary and get them to sign this form. It is not structured to be filled out well so just make sure they stamp it and sign. My doctor actually followed through in verifying the bullet points, made me draw blood, get vaccinations, etc. So depending on what type of doctor you have just be ready to have a full medical workup lol. (Found out I have high cholesterol and thyroid issues from this so that was epic). Now here where it gets tricky, you need to get that document notarized THEN apostilled. Now, once again there is no place to notarize and also the point of a notary is to notarize someones signature so most notaries are going to have a problem that you doctor signed it already and isn't present. Now here are a few solutions. 1. have a cool doctor that has an in office notary. There are a few, but I image this is moderately rare. 2. Have a friend that is a public notary. You can even have someone become a notary and have them come to the doctor with you. This will cost money though to get. 3. hire a portable notary. this is legit $300. So if you can do that, shout out to you. 4. and what I did, go to a notary that doesn't know what their doing so they wont have a problem doing this wrong. I went to UPS and played dumb after being rejected by the banks. They charged me extra ($20) for the format of the document but it got done which is all that matters.
After all that we need to get it Apostilled, which is essentially notarizing the notary. My experience was through the Arizona secretary of state but my travel companions did it in Colorado. It was a bitch in Arizona, at first I thought there were only appointments which are only available at 2 points throughout the state and were also booked 3 months out. However, you can mail too! I live close enough that I was able to drop my documents off in person and save the shipping money which I would recommend. You just walk into the Secretary of State building and there was a bucket before security. You'll need to include a money order, I got all of mine at Safeway which was pretty easy. Just google how to fill out a money order if you need to and you'll be good. I got my documents back in about 4 days which was epic and the fastest of this process. After that you should be good to go. My friends coming from Colorado were able to just walk in and get this done in 30 minutes so perhaps if you live in other states you may have an even easier time getting this done! 6. Proof of sufficient means: an approved financial support declaration (affidavit of support) or a proof of grant, scholarship or student loan, as explained here: The financial support declaration: please consult the procedure on our dedicated page on Affidavits of Support. Scholars who have a scholarship or grant should submit original proof thereof + 2 copies. IMPORTANT: Proof of financial means and relevant documents are not required if the funds to cover all expenses, including accommodation, have been transferred in advance to the school in Belgium. In this case, please provide the original proof thereof (official documents from the school or university) + 2 copies.
Okay this one is interesting. There are a few routes and I can only speak to letter of scholarship from my school. Basically my study abroad advisor sent me a document that details all of the scholarships I have. Now, Belgium basically wants to make sure you wont be homeless in their country so they want to you to have around $800 a month which for me was about $5000 total. Now, there is something called a blocked account where you put this sum in and get in back in monthly payments, I don't know how to do this but its a good option for those without scholarships. Now the interesting part is I do not have scholarships technically up to $5,000 in cash. I have a tuition waiver which means I don't pay tuition so I don't get that as cash and thats $5000 and then I got around $750 in Pell Grant. My school didn't specify this so I believe it seemed more cash and therefore was good to go. Just have some copies and you'll be good to go. 7. Proof of medical insurance through an attestation/coverage letter of a private health insurance company covering a minimum of 3 months. The attestation must prove the coverage of at least 30,000 EUR for medical treatment. You may find a list of commonly used insurance providers here. If you do not have proof of health insurance at the time of your application, but you do fulfil all other conditions, a visa for only four months may be delivered. Once in Belgium, within your first four months, you must affiliate with a Belgian health insurance fund covering your healthcare for the remainder of your stay and provide the proof to the city hall where you registered.
Alright my school forces you to enroll in international health insurance through CISI, so I received an email from them basically titled "Letter to the COnsulate" that was in french and talked about my policy and my minimum coverage. Whatever insurance you get, just ask them for a consulate letter and they should know what you mean. This was an easy step again.

1. An attestation from an academic institution + 1 copy, certifying that the applicant is accepted and/or registered as a regular, full-time student. For Fullbright and BAEF scholars, a letter from the sponsoring organization is required.

This is again something I got from my host university. I think it would have been in my application portal but I didn't really feel like looking so I just emailed someone and they sent me the PDF. basically was a letter in french that said I was a student, as least I think thats what it said. 9. Students who will attend an institution that is not accredited by the Belgian authorities also need to provide: A motivation letter + 1 copy explaining why you chose this particular institution to continue your studies, precisely describing the courses that will be followed and explaining how these are different from programs available in the US. 2 certified copies of your latest academic transcripts.
Okay, I went to an accredited university so I technically didn't have to do this BUTTTTTT I did anyway. I was on an insane time crunch and was last to apply of the 3 in our group. One of them, going to the same university I am was asked for her transcripts in a followup email despite our accredited status. I didn't want to delay my application so I preemptively did this. I also wrote a motivation letter (not necessary) as it wasn't hard and again would help me avoid revisions. I talked about why I choose Belgium and how I was excited for the specific classes I was taking, really mushy bullshit but it worked. Anway, this step isn't that hard so I would do it regardless of your status to be safe. Now I also included in this a copy of my lease because one of the girls I was applying with got feedback to prove the duration of her stay so again I wanted to premt feedback to that tune.

1. A self-addressed prepaid envelope to have your passport and visa sent back to your home address. The Embassy or Consulate General is not responsible for lost items during shipping. We recommend using a trackable envelope with signature requirement at delivery. Remarks: Do not use metered postage (for mailing to the Consulate General in New York only). Please note that the Embassy of Belgium in Washington DC and the Consulate General in New York no longer work with FedEx.(You can use UPS or USPS).

This is pretty simple, I would do expedited shipping with some sort of insurance as you will be mailing your passport. Another weird piece of feedback one of my friends got was to include the tracking information for the return envelope in your application which I assume is to protect them from you saying they lost it. I got two copies of my receipt and included one and also took hella pictures of everything before it got sent off. 11. Fee Please find our fee schedule here. The visa application fee is non-refundable, whether your visa is actually issued or not. The visa fee can be paid by money order or certified check, made out to: "Embassy of Belgium" if you apply at the Embassy in Washington "Consulate General of Belgium" if you apply at the Consulate General in Atlanta, Los Angeles or New York. Incorrect money orders or certified checks will be rejected and returned to the applicant. Processing will only begin once the proper payment is received. In Washington and Los Angeles you may also pay using the credit card authorization form(This hyperlink opens a new window).
Alright this is where we start to financially hurt a little bit to be honest. I did a money order again here which was easy and just included it in the application itself which was easy and worked. Again I got it at Safeway. 12. An additional fee is required for applicants 18 and over (paid directly by international wire transfer to the Home Office in Belgium). For instructions and exact amounts, see: Fee IBZ (bosa.be)
Kicker, another $220! I did an international wire transfer through Bank of America which worked well. It took me a minute to figure out the account name and such but there are links on this one that you should click and read about how to make the fee exactly and how much you should pay, it changes depending on if your going to a public or private university. This was one of the only pieces of feedback I got as I accidently paid $8 less because I thought we were private uni. You can pay this at any point BUT include in your application a print out of your confirmation!! And title the transaction correctly lol.
COST BREAKDOWN
Alright thats my breakdown of each step, now lets look at costs!
how much it has cost so far to obtain visa: - $9.65 self addressed label for apostille paperwork - $21. 18 for UPS notary ($20) and 1 envelope ($1.08) - $6.18 ship fingerprints to FBI - $18.49 passport photos at Walgreens - $7.80 for 2 bubble envelopes, 1 black folder Walgreens - $17.00 for police fingerprinting services - $18 for FBI background check - $3 money order for apostille payment - $198 visa D application fee - $247 (220 Euros) for visa D 18+ fee - $22.40 cardstock paper and 2 polly mailers Staples - $25.40 transcripts order - $57.50 ship everything to consulate and back priority mail - $18 FINGERPRINTS AGAIN! (redundant, not working) - $159 for live scan fingerprints + priority shipping back to me - $9.65 shipping to consulate (background check)
TOTAL: $839!!!!!!
Now I will say most of my costs were related to the fact that I was a dumb dumb and didn't even start looking at the VISA until a month and a half before I was supposed to leave. If you did this way in advance you wouldn't have to pay any of the expedited shipping costs and lucky for you, most people don't have fucked up fingerprints so that'll be -$200. Just in general though, budget hard for this part!!
TIMING BREAKDOWN
Alright let's talk timing now. Like I said I started WAY too late. I was leaving Aug 28th and didn't even look at the website until July 5th. Each of these steps takes time to ship back to you so I really don't recommend doing this. I ended up shipping my materials off on the 26th of July BUT I got it back on the 14th of August!! Clutch!!! For reference though, this was insanely fast. Person 1 in my group sent their materials on June 26th and didn't get their Visa until August 11th, ONE DAY before their departure and also a 6.5 week turn around. Person 2 sent on July 1 and got Visa around August 7th. About 5 weeks. Anyway, I was SUPER lucky for a 2.5 week turn around so I wouldn't bet on this timing. Their website says 3-4 weeks but give it 2 months if you can!
I really think that I was able to get it that fast because of how I submitted my application. I used all of the feedback that the other two people I was traveling with in my application and I also made it HELLA organized! I used a folder and then on the right side I paper clipped my money order to the top and included the passport photos in the side with my passport. On the other side I had all of the documents in step order, labeled! So I had a sticky note coming over the top on each one that said "Step 7: BLAH BLAH" so they could see from the top. Each step was also paperclipped together so they would stay together. If I added anything extra I wrote it on the bottom of the sticky note, ex- "2 Motivational Letters (extra)." I even put a sticky note on my passport that said "1. Passport" and I think it made it really easy fo them to knock off each step! I was also in communicate with the conusulate a lot, I would send emails every couple of days ot make sure everything was going well and make sure they didn't need anything else from me. I did have a bit of a unique circumstance in that they allowed me to send my application without my background check because of the trouble I way having so I was essentially waiting on that document for weeks before it could get fully approved.
Alright, I hope this post did not stress you out. You've got this!! Just dont be me if you can help it LOL. Im proud of you for doing this and be proud of yourself for getting through all of this and enjoy your program. Im happy to answer any questions I can, I didn't see any comprehensive resources like this so hopefully anyone else out there with anxiety and the need to ask a million questions will feel seen by this post. OKAY BYE!

Hello all,
I am from Iraq and I have won a scholarship to study in one of these countries:
[United States United Kingdom Australia Switzerland New Zealand Germany France Canada Japan Sweden Norway Spain Netherlands Austria Finland Italy Belgium Denmark and South Korea]
The issue is the monthly allowance that the Iraqi government is going to give me (so far it's around 1700$) which is way low.
I need some advice on which county you think is suitable for me and my family, wife, and son (3 years old) to get good experience and times, and have the chance to work with decent pay and get benefits such as health services and education for my son and for my wife to work or have some activities.
A little bit about me, I am 35 years old from Mosul city. I have an MSc in Management information systems and pursuing a PhD in Digital marketing. I am interested in immersive technologies, digital wellbeing, and customer experience CX.