Italy Student visa rejected for not having all information, any help appreciated?

[VisaWoes]

So Dd has an au pair job lined up and also has signed up for a 20 hour a week six month long language course at university of Florence. So not some dodgy language school.

she has been back and forth to London a couple of times to the VSF visa people. The first time they said she needed a couple of forms she didn’t have, so she went back the following week. We paid extra for the checking service and they said she had everything. We had a checklist and everything on there she had, though they change the rules/their minds about what’s needed frequently.

so they kept her passport and sent it to the next stage and we’re told 15 days on average. It’s been over two weeks and today she got an email saying she doesn’t have all necessary documents and she has ten days in which to provide them. But the letter says about extra documents needed eg:

general cover letter
letter of acceptance from the school or college
certificate of prior Italian study
documentation concerning your socioeconomic status in the U.K.

she Had included a general cover letter.
she had included a letter of acceptance from the university of Florence
she has never studied Italian before so can’t provide that.
not sure what the last one meant - she had to provide evidence of bank funds and has 20k in the bank which they said was plenty….

There is nobody to ring, the live chat doesn’t work, they don’t answer emails.

Are we to assume what she provided for the first two points just weren’t good enough? But I don’t know how to improve it or if it can be. Maybe they are just fobbing her off before rejecting her.

I guess she can send them a letter saying she has never studied Italian before.

no idea about the last thing, maybe having 20k in the bank isn’t enough? But their own website says you just need £500 a month funds which she has.

She has a flight booked for Saturday and starts her au pair job on Monday. It’s not going to happen. I feel so sorry for the host family as god knows what they will do for childcare next week.

anyone dealt with this before and any advice?

Have she tried ringing to speak directly to whoever is handling the case at the Italian Embassy to make sure that the file has been updated with all of her documents?

The University Course - is it definitely a course for beginners? Many University courses expect some level of prior knowledge.

Has she explained in her covering letter how she will be communicating with the children she will be caring for if she speaks zero Italian? Are the children bilingual?

How did your DD find her au pair job? Visas can be difficult to obtain unless you go through agencies or schools.

She found her au pair family via a website I think.

she has now spoken to someone at the consulate and they’ve advised her to write a (different) covering letter explaining her desire to come to Italy. Yes her course is a beginner one which technically meets the rules but it does seem in practice they won’t issue a visa for a beginners Italian course. I think it’s very unlikely she will get the visa.

Has she booked a flight back within 3 months if her arrival? If so you won’t need a visa to study, at least for those first 3 months, it says on the Italian immigration website that if you can travel visa less in Schengen for 3 months you won’t need a study visa. The issue might be the au pair job or the fact the course is only 6 months.

it might be worth booking the return flight sooner so she can at least get over.

i looked up the visa requirements for under 90 days even with a job on the Italian foreign office website and for Brits there are no visa requirements. I assume she’ll flying back at Xmas? I’d do that, then you have time to deal with this for the rest of the year.

She’s already spent the summer in Italy so is out of time for the 90 days.