D-4 visa

I had a fair amount of trouble finding information about D-4 visas online, so hopefully this post can help someone else.

In the US, in order to obtain a Korean visa, you can either mail or bring the following items to the consulate in your jurisdiction:

1. A valid passport and a copy of it
2. A completed visa application (available here)
3. A passport-sized photo
4. $45 for US citizens (more for non-US citizens) -- cash or money order

These are required for every visa, and are all self-explanatory. The real fun begins with the particulars needed for a D-4 visa, which are:

5. Certificate of Admission
6. Certificate of tuition payment
7. Certificate of graduation or certificate of enrollment
8. Financial document(certificate of deposit balance over $3,000(USD) or certificate of remittance or exchange)
9. Copy of Certificate of Business Registration of the school

So, what exactly are those items and how do you get them?

#5 and #6 will be mailed to you by the university (in my case, SNU). I was worried I wouldn't get the documents in a timely manner, but they shipped them via Global Express. The package was mailed November 1 (Korea time), as they state on their website. It arrived at my house on November 2 (US time), however, I wasn't home and had to sign for it, so it wasn't in my hands until the 3rd.

For #7, I used a copy of my college transcripts, but bringing an original high school or college diploma should also work. The man at the visa section of the consulate (henceforth "the visa man") said he wanted to see the originals, but would make a copy there.

For #8, I went to my bank and asked for a printout of my most recent statement. It was on regular printer paper, and they charged $5, so you could probably print it yourself and save some money. Just make sure it shows your name and an available balance of >$3000. I thought about using a balance statement from the ATM, but it didn't show my name.

Dealing with #9 actually made me have second thoughts about attending SNU. They didn't provide it in the package, and I actually went to the consulate without it. The visa man was not pleased and (somewhat understandably) yelled at me. I had recently read a blog where the girl had her school fax the document, so I got him to agree to take all my other paperwork, and I'd call SNU that night to have them fax it. Wishful thinking. I guess here is a good place to mention that Verizon charges $2.49/min to call South Korea without their "International Value Plan." It's $3.99/mo (it takes effect immediately and supposedly you can cancel after just one month) then it's only 7 cents per minute to a landline and 11 cents to a cellphone in Korea. Let me just say -- get the value plan then cancel it after you get your visa, because you'll probably be making many long phone calls to SNU. The folks at SNU had no idea what I was talking about when I said "certificate of business registration." Luckily, Google Translate didn't let me down. After I said 사업자 등록증 (sa-eop-ja deung-nok-jeung), they were all like, "Ahhh, THAT document!" However, SNU said they don't give the document to students. They also wouldn't fax it to the consulate. From what I gathered, they do not do international faxes at all, period. (Which is hilarious, given it's an international language program. Certainly a non-trivial number of students wanting to learn Korean are actually outside Korea.) I managed to get them to email it to the consulate. I called the consulate the next morning and had to convince the visa man to accept an email (much more effort on his part than a fax). I convinced him, but he said he didn't receive the email that SNU had supposedly sent the night before. That night (after many more hours of worrying), I called SNU again. While I was talking to the woman on the phone, I sent SNU an email with the consulate's email address written out (as we'd had some spelling/communication issues the day before). The next day, I called the consulate, and he said he'd received it! He didn't seem very happy to accept an email, and told me that I should have applied to another school, because many others (Sogang and Yonsei in particular) are much more accommodating. Hopefully this isn't just the beginning of issues at SNU....

Anyway, 40 minutes of international calls, 6 hours of driving (because I didn't want to risk mailing my passport so close to departure), 3 days of dealing with #9, 4 [business] days of waiting for processing (much less than the month some websites said it would take) and finally:

It's pasted in the back of my passport, so I have no idea what they needed the passport photo for. I was expecting another passport-like document to carry around, but this is much easier.