The first few days after I confirmed my status as a Spain English Teaching Assistant finalist, I barely received any information. And then, I was hit with information OVERLOAD. Perhaps I was not expecting to be awarded the grant so I did not really put much thought into what the follow-up steps might be, but either way, it would have been nice to have a short guide that directed my priorities.

Here are four things that you should expect to deal with as you begin the Fulbright Spain grantee pre-departure experience!

Background Checks

One thing you will pretty much have to do right away is apply for background checks. The Fulbright Spain commission will give you specific guidance based on your residency history, so I won’t go into details that only applied to myself. Nevertheless, you should be prepared to mail in requests, set up fingerprinting appointments, and/or mildly panic about whether your results will come back on time until you do, in fact, get your results back on time. I say this last item because lots of states/departments say it takes weeks or months to process and return the background checks. If you applied for the grant during your senior year of college like I did, this might put your senior-spring-super-relaxation-mode on hold for a week or two.

Visa Appointment

Starting my junior year of college, I couldn’t stop thinking about what my post-graduation trip would be like (yes, I know, I was five steps ahead of myself there). I had grand plans to backpack around Europe and South America nonstop for two months. Without COVID, I would have for sure had all of this planned by the time I got my Fulbright decision back, which would have left myself with zero time to schedule and attend a visa appointment AKA the most important step in the Fulbright pre-departure process.

For the 2021-2022 cohort, we needed to schedule our visa appointment between mid-June and mid-July to get our visas back before we flew to Spain. Assuming this holds for future years, I would definitely make sure you are home for at least a week during this time frame. There is a lot of documentation to keep track of (such as your background check!), so I would also recommend setting aside a few hours a few times before your appointment to get things in order.

Out-of-Pocket Costs

I quickly found out that each of the above points come at a cost; namely, a cost that the Fulbright Program does not cover. With respect to applying for and verifying my background checks, I paid slightly less than $100 total. While $40 of that could have been saved if I had known I needed one specific fingerprinting service over another (oops), it is not an insignificant amount either way.

With respect to visa appointments, where you apply depends on where your permanent residence is. For example, if you live in Maine, you will need to schedule your visa appointment with the Consulate General of Spain in Boston. Even during “COVID times,” many consulates required in-person appointments–as opposed to sending in your application materials via mail. So, another out-of-pocket cost would be the cost to travel to and from your specific consulate. While I am fortunate enough to live within an hour of mine, I can imagine many situations that would require a flight, roadtrip, and/or overnight stay.

Documentation

There is a lot of it. Like I mentioned earlier, some documents are necessary for your visa appointment, but there are others you need to upload into one or both portals you will be given access to post-acceptance. I would highly recommend keeping a list of all the documents you have already completed vs. all of the things that are still in-progress so that you can stay organized and minimize confusion.

Hopefully you found this helpful! And if reading this made you a tad stressed, my apologies! Please do not worry too much. The Fulbright Spain commission is a great resource to reach out to. Also, you can take comfort in the fact that every other grantee is going through the same process as you are. Everything will work out just fine!

Note: views are my own and do not reflect those of The Fulbright Program or La Comisión Fulbright de España.