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I am Indian citizen. I will be travelling to the Netherlands on 30th July and would be staying there for about 11 days with a friend before finally leaving to US for beginning my post-graduate studies.

My question is can I apply for a short stay visa for Netherlands before getting the US F1 visa stamped or will I have to get my US F1 Visa first and only then I will be able to apply for the short stay visa ?

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  • You can apply whenever you want, holding a US visa is not a requirement and not having one is therefore not a reason to refuse a Schengen visa in itself. But waiting for your F1 visa foil could be very useful to support your application as it shows that (1) you will be able to leave the Schengen area for the US as you claim, (2) you have a good reason both to come to the Schengen area (as you need to transit anyway) and not to overstay (as you will want to complete your studies) and (3) you generally seem like a low-risk applicant who already went through the stringent US visa process.
    – Relaxed
    Jun 14, 2016 at 12:57
  • Alternatively, you should at least submit some acceptance letter from your university and/or any relevant document from the US consulate to support your story.
    – Relaxed
    Jun 14, 2016 at 13:00

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Those two visas are independent and there are no prerequisites, so in theory you could apply for each in any order you want.

However there are advantages to having your US visa before the Schengen one.

Having a student visa will show that you're much less likely to overstay your visit in the Netherlands because you have a rather strong obligation to be elsewhere and that you can travel out of the Schengen area.

It also lower your risk profile as the US visa process is more stringent and because travel history to certain countries like the US is taken into account and counts in your favour.

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