Students going to study in Finland should note that the summer season is the Finnish Immigration Service’s peak period for receiving student applications for residence permits, said the Finnish Embassy.

In 2010, some 3,500 applications, 70 percent of the total number of student applications during the year, were submitted during that period.

Applicants are advised to submit their first residence permit application to the Finnish Embassy in Seoul.

From there, residence permits are processed and granted by the Finnish Immigration Service in Helsinki.

The embassy explained that the Finnish Immigration Service treats all student residence permit applications as urgent and to be decided as a first-come, first-served basis.

If all the paperwork is in order a decision is made, on average, within a month from the date on which the application was received by the Finnish Immigration Service.

More information can be had by visiting www.finland.or.kr.

(yoav@heraldcorp.com)