Thread by @uniwritercons

Poland is one of the cheapest destinations in Europe for studies (€2,500 per year).

If you are a Nigerian who is interested in studying in Poland, this thread is a detailed overview of the processes involved.

Follow the steps in this thread and you will be fine.

The first thing to do is to know the Polish university you intend to apply to. List of Poland universities are here go-poland.pl. Also note that Public and Private universities have almost the same fee.

It is advisable to apply to schools in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk, and Poznan if you are targeting student jobs.

After familiarizing yourself with the documents required by your chosen school, take note of whether the school requires you to LEGALIZE your documents before applying to them.

Private universities like Vistula University, Lazarski University and Collegium Civitas do not require legalization before you can apply to them, and their tuition is moderately priced too.

If applying from Nigeria, the Legalization of your documents for Polish schools is a three-way process – you must authenticate your documents at the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs before legalizing them at the Embassy of Poland in Maitama, Abuja @PLinNigeria.

You must begin by authenticating your academic certificates at the Ministry of Education and authentication per document is N300.00 and it can all be done in a day if you go early, make sure you get an Eligibility letter from them, it costs about N500, education.gov.ng/attestation-of….

After doing this, you will proceed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to authenticate your academic documents and other documents like your birth certificates and others.

If the school you are applying to does not require Legalized documents, then you can legalize your documents during your Visa application in Abuja. Legalization costs €30 per document.

For Masters applicants, if your original BSc certificate is not ready, you can use your statement of result, it will be accepted at the Ministries and the Polish embassy.

So congrats now you have admission, on the day of your visa appointment you will be asked to pay €80 for visa fee, there is no formal interview, you only need to submit your documents and you will be given a date for visa decision (15 - 30 day) and collection of your documents.

The checklist of documents to be submitted for student visa processing can be found here gov.pl/web/nigeria-en….

It is worthy to note that applicants from Nigeria are facing issues getting visa appointment date in the Polish Embassy.

This is because the Polish Embassy in Abuja is the only embassy serving the whole of West Africa. But if you are persistent, you will get a date. The benefits far outweigh the challenges. If you are unsuccessful and do not secure an appointment – you have to wait another week.

Email requests for visa appointments are not allowed.

Poland embassy does not accept statements of account for Proof of fund. If you are self-sponsoring, you would need to use a credit card certificate and your pay slips (salary sheet) of at least three months as evidence of your earnings if you are working.

If you own a business, you can use your CAC and tax documents in place of pay slips.

If you are using a sponsor (it is advisable to use a sponsor with the same surname as yours), you will submit the sponsor’s payslip (of at least three months), employment letter, International passport, or National ID, and his/her notarized sponsorship letter,

stating he/she will be covering all your expenses while in Poland , signed and notarized.

The sponsorship letter must be signed and stamped by a lawyer, you can see a sample sponsorship letter here schengenvisainfo.com/news/sponsorsh….

If your sponsor is into business and does not have a payslip, you can use his/her CAC and tax documents and your sponsor has to open a credit card certificate for you in his/her name, not your name and you will need to submit a credit card certificate to the embassy.

The credit card certificate is issued by the bank.

For a Polish study visa, you stand a better chance using a sponsor especially if your sponsor earns above N500k monthly but if you are self-sponsoring, fund your credit card with good money of about N4-5 million and submit documents to show how you got the money.

To get a credit card certificate, go to any Access Bank or First Bank around you and open a savings account, speak to the bank manager directly and tell him you want to open a credit card account, make him/her understand the credit card account is part of the embassy requirements

, when going to the bank print out the requirements as seen on the embassy website because the manager might request for the requirements list and a print-out will stand as proof that you are being honest.

Again, if you are targeting student jobs in Poland, apply for schools in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk, and Poznan. These cities are good and you would have better experiences as a black person.

Also, some universities in Poland also offer Tuition-free courses. The University of Warsaw has some free Master programs in Machine Learning, English Language and some other courses rekrutacja.uw.edu.pl/en/how-to-appl…

Poznan University of Life Sciences also offers low tuition programs in Agriculture related courses, you can find them here msc-bsc.puls.edu.pl/courses-2/.

Good luck!