Travel yes, live no. And it’s not as much as he wants, it’s limited to 90 days in every 180 for countries outside the one you live in, like a normal Schengen visa (you are often not checked though).
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You can travel. You just can‘t live in Switzerland.
No. With a Germany student permit you can visit your family, but you still wouldn’t be a resident here. The only way you are entitled to a Swiss residence permit is if you either study here or manage to get a job here and we’ve already told you how difficult that is.
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While planning to go to university - in Switzerland an admission to university is not possible with a highschool degree.
Isn’t a high school degree the equivalent of a maturity?
Swiss kids get into university with that, is it more difficult for foreign students?
A lot harder. Main challenge is that courses for 1st and 2nd year of bachelor are all in local language (FR/DE/IT).
But that’s the admission for 1st year. By 3rd year, there’s a few courses in English. Bit later, some masters even require a good level of English to be completed.
Op can track here if his high school is sufficient to apply to study at a university in Switzerland:
https://www.swissuniversities.ch/en/topics/studying/admission-to-universities/countries-1
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I know. The university placement exam in my country is also required in Germany. After a few months, I will take the exam and apply to Germany and Switzerland. I have no intention of immigrating to Switzerland with my permit in Germany. If I have the right to visit my family frequently, that is enough for me.
Just to re-iterate some basic concepts – I think you know about these – yet you’ve been a bit ambiguous in some of your messages, I believe it’s important to understand these in order not to violate some rules accidentally, I try to keep it generic:
Temporary Stay (months to years)
- living in a country can be both legal and illegal; as for the legal stay it can differ a lot, as for the illegal stay let’s omit that and speak about legal options:
- a tourist stay with a limited number of days per year and typically no right to work
- a student stay with no to some right to work
- family re-union and other less popular options (investments, asylum etc.)
- being a citizen: no reason is required
- being a permanent resident: no reason is generally required, but there are some nuances
Some conclusions:
- As you see, living in a country doesn’t imply being a national of this country, and also living in a country has its limitations depending on the type of stay.
- If you say “family re-union”, normally most people will understand it as legally joining your family in a certain country as its resident (not gaining an ability to visit it from another country)
- If you violate some of purposes of a stay (i.e. work when it’s not allowed, over-stay etc.) it could have pretty bad consequences, i.e. having no borders doesn’t mean a complete freedom
As for your strategy I’d try the following:
- get straight to Switzerland, who knows perhaps they’ll indeed decide in your favour, oftentimes they are rational and pragmatic over here from my experience and from what I’ve head from others
- if not, indeed start your life in Germany, get papers and education there and re-consider your options next, if you like it there or still want to move to Switzerland
Sorry if I am getting a bit ahead of myself! Good luck @shwen Let us know how it ends.
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The informations you gave is very good. I knew most of what you wrote because I never want to do anything illegal, so I researched them in detail. My visa was rejected, but as a note, they said “you can come temporarily for 3 months if you want.” I will be visiting temporarily to visit my family and look at opportunities in the country before starting my education or a job there. When I arrive, we will look at the possibilities for me in both Switzerland and Germany. That’s my plan for now.
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I see! By the way, you’ll essentially come as a tourist, so don’t mention to officials that you are coming to explore opportunities as it could be misunderstood =)
As for opportunities, unless there’s something specific your step-dad wants you to help with leveraging his knowledge or connections of some sort, I don’t see how being physically in the country could help:
- Universities are researchable and reachable online.
- The job market is very competitive even for those who has access to it.
Without going too much into details which are easy to look up in any case, in simple terms it works like this:
- There’re Swiss citizens (also a member of EFTA by the way)
- There’re EU/EFTA citizens
- There’re other nationals
For (1) and (2) the access to the job market is nearly identical except for the possible bias that depends on a person hiring you such as,
- a Swiss vs non-Swiss
- a native speaker vs a non-native speaker
- a fluent speaker vs a non-fluent speaker
- a foreign last name vs local last name (there were some researches about it)
- a permanent resident vs a temporary resident
- a local educational background vs a foreign educational background =)
- you name it =)
But all of the above are nuances, the most important thing is the EU/EFTA nationality.
For (3) it’s pretty damn hard for companies to hire someone:
- they need to proof they couldn’t find someone in Switzerland
- they need to proof they couldn’t find someone in EU/EFTA
- they need to be in general motivated to go through all of this in spite of having a locally available pool of talents.
Now you fall into the (3) category and you have no education and no experience.
So, the best thing to do I think is to research programs of universities in Switzerland or Germany, and plan your path =) Also, go for something relevant for the job market like STEM or anything else comparable. There’re many interesting things to study but with not much demands for graduates.
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I know this is very hard. But I still have an advantage. At least I’m not alone there, we have at least a little social circle. As a student, I am looking at university. Maybe when I come, we can visit one of the universities and talk face to face. Meanwhile, a few of our acquaintances who objected to the family reunification request and stated that it was difficult to stay alone in Turkey were able to bring their 18-year-old older children with them. We will also discuss this process with a lawyer.
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