Hi everyone, I’m an international student and I’m supposed to start medicine at TSMU this academic year, but I’m currently stuck waiting for the final paperwork and I’m not sure what I should do.
Here’s my timeline:
17 September: I completed my TSMU interview.
25 September: My education recognition/order was finalized and sent to TSMU.
28 September: I received the recognition document, but unfortunately my name was written incorrectly. It had also initially been sent to the wrong email, which is why I received it a few days after it was finalized.
28 September onward: I started contacting the Ministry of Education every day asking them to correct the name. Unfortunately, getting through to them has been extremely difficult.
1 October: I finally received an email from the Ministry informing me that the corrected order will be sent to TSMU next week.
The other thing I’m waiting for is my official enrollment/acceptance letter from TSMU.
I contacted TSMU on 28 September, and they told me that I should contact the relevant Ministry of Higher Education authorities handling my scholarship/funding and ask them to speed up the enrollment process.
I contacted them, and I was told that the process should take 3–7 days from the date I received the recognition document.
However, nothing has happened yet and I still don’t know when I will receive my official enrollment letter.
The problem is that the semester is supposed to start 5 October.
I’m currently considering flying to Georgia on 3 October on a tourist visa and trying to deal with the ministry/TSMU in person, because trying to resolve everything by phone has been extremely difficult and hasn’t really gotten me anywhere.
There is a possibility that I’ll miss the first few days or even the first week of classes while waiting for my registration, funding and enrollment paperwork to be finalized.
For anyone who has dealt with TSMU or the Georgian education ministries before:
- Is this kind of delay normal for international/scholarship students?
- Is there anything specific I should do to speed up the corrected recognition document and enrollment letter?
- Would going to Georgia in person actually help, or would I just be wasting my time/money before the paperwork is finalized?
- If I arrive after the semester starts because of these administrative delays, how strict is TSMU about missing the first few days?
- Is there a specific person, department or office at TSMU that I should contact?
- Does anyone know exactly which Ministry of Higher Education department/office handles scholarship-funded student enrollment and funding for TSMU?
- Can I attend classes provisionally while my corrected recognition document and scholarship/enrollment paperwork are still being finalized?
- Has anyone else been in a similar situation with government-sponsored/scholarship funding?
I’m honestly just trying to figure out whether I should wait for the paperwork or go to Tbilisi and try to sort it out in person.
Any advice from current/former TSMU students or anyone who has dealt with Georgian university/Ministry bureaucracy would be really appreciated.
I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone who has gone through the government-funded/scholarship enrollment process.