A second office opens in Manchester
From this month there is somebody of ours in the country students are moving to, which changes what we can do about the fortnight after they land.
We have been sending students to the north west of England for nine years and meeting them at Istanbul. From this month there is an office at the other end as well, on Oxford Road, and an adviser in it who can be at a university reception in forty minutes rather than on the end of a telephone at midnight.
What changes for a student
Three things, and all of them happen in the fortnight everything goes wrong in.
- Enrolment problems get solved in the building they happen in. A registry that will not accept a document is a ten minute conversation in person and a three day email thread from abroad.
- Accommodation is viewed by somebody who has walked the street, before a deposit is paid on a room in a photograph.
- The first fortnight has somebody in it. The bank appointment that needs a letter, the surgery that wants proof of address, the landlord who has changed his mind.
Nine years of doing this from one end taught us which half of the work happens at the other.
What does not change
Applications, offers, conditions, visas and the financial evidence are all handled where they always were, by the same people, on the same calendar. Nothing about the Istanbul office moves.
What is new is only what happens after the flight, which is the half we could previously only advise on.