I am an international student, do I need to extend my visa to complete my studies if I need to resit?

If you need to take resits in order to complete your studies, your options to extend your visa will depend on the timing of the resits and the mode of attendance.

For students who are retaking taught modules, if the resits are taken ‘with attendance’ i.e. with full attendance at all teaching for at least one module during each semester through to the award date, then students are usually eligible to apply for an extension to their visa. Resits taken with attendance attract further tuition fee costs for each module taken in this way.

Alternatively, if the resits are taken without attendance, where only the final exams/coursework are submitted (without attendance at teaching), the University will not be able to support an extension to the student visa. If the remaining work is due after the expiry of the current student visa, students may instead return to the UK using a Visitor visa to submit their remaining assessments. Completing a degree in this way will unfortunately mean that you are not eligible to apply for the Graduate Route after the end of your programme.

Students who are resitting their dissertation and who will be actively working on the main content of the dissertation throughout the resubmission period will be eligible to apply for a visa extension. Additional tuition fee costs are not generally applied in these cases. Students who are only resitting the viva component of their dissertation are not normally eligible to extend their student visa, and should use a Visitor visa to attend their viva instead.

If you have any questions about this, please contact the MySurrey Hive team via Surrey Support, and select “International Advice and Visas” as your enquiry topic.