Applicant from PhD program after 5 Nov, 2011 connect here to get status

[phdapplicant]

Wow, is this really the case? So he applied back in February under the PhD stream, and got his PR already? Can you ask for his timelines?

He has the same timeline as mine +/- 1 month (except that he applied later).

 

[asbereth]

He has the same timeline as mine +/- 1 month (except that he applied later).

The thing, none of us that applied in 2012 has heard anything from Ottawa, so do you know, for example, when he got his medical or PPR? Ottawa has been silent for most of us here since maybe late July, so I'm just wondering if he heard anything back from them around this time as well

 

[mik11]

Guys, I just wanted to share with you my experience.

I applied under PhD stream and I already received my permanent residence. I got approved (PER email), received medical request, received visa and landed (I didn't do flagpoling. Instead, I went to a conference out of the country and landed when I came back a few days later).
I'm a grad student at UWO. I know at least 2 more students who got approved as well. It all depends on the Visa office you are sending your application to.

A few important things about my application:
1) I hired a lawyer. Even though I had to fill out most of the application forms myself, it's important that the lawyer provides an intro letter with the application and reviews it.

2) I did NOT apply to Buffalo or Ottawa. It looks like the only reason you are experiencing delays is because you wanted it as fast as possible. Ottawa is overwhelmed with applications.
On the application form you can indicate which office you want to send your application to. I suggest you pick your home country. TyrusX, you should have chosen Brazil.
This suggestion doesn't work for students from Pakistan or India (the majority), because your visa office is London and it's as slow as Ottawa office.

3) I suggest you send all the documents right away. That includes police clearance from all the countries you lived in for more than 6 months (and your home country, obviously). For the clearance from the home country I suggest you do it in your home country (ask your parents, for instance), because requesting this info through the embassies in Canada takes more time. If you lived in USA, you need FBI clearance and you need to send your fingerprints to FBI. Also, you need to send your original IELTS scores. This does take some time - about 1.5 months if you are lucky to schedule your IELTS exam right away. Also, you need to provide a bank statement with transactions for the last 6 months with average balance about $12,000 CAD (or equivalent -if you apply by yourself only. More funds for families). IF you 'loan' the money and put them temporary in your checking account, it won't work. They will track the money to that large deposit and you'd have to explain it. Also, you need to provide travel info. If you traveled a lot, I suggest you send copies of your passport pages with entrance/exists stamps. You do need to provide letters about your work experience (request them from your previous employers). Luckily, I had extensive work experience (other than RA/TA). However, if you have only TA/RA from Canada, you need to have 2 years of this experience (because 2 years part time count as 1 year full time). Typically, RA/TAs should 'work' 20 hours per week. I suggest you get a letter from your department that states something like "This is to certify that _____name ___ (student # ...) is a full-time Ph.D. student at ___University___, in the _____department of _____. ___Name___ began his/her program on ___________date___ and will continue his/her registration in this program until ______date. ___name___ is employed by the department as ________ and his/her income is __________.
Also, the letter can state that you are in good academic standing and your duties as TA/RA. The letter has to be signed by the graduate chair and stamped (if possible). Also, you need to provide original transcript from your university (along with copies/original if possible of transcripts from other universities if you are claiming time as educational experience - i.e. you get points for time you study that you indicate it on the background info form). And, you need a Letter Of Attestation for the PhD stream signed and stamped by the university (google "Letter Of Attestation for the PhD stream" to get the form).
This letter HAS to be stamped by the University. You don't have to seal it.

Keep in mind that if you miss any of the documents above, you WILL be asked to provide the documents later on and it'll delay your application by 60+ days for every document you have to send (because your application is put on hold for 60+ days every time it happens).
Also, if any of your documents are NOT in English, you need to send a translation with that documents (that applies, for instance, for Police Clearance certificates from your home country).
Translation should be made through an approved agency (I actually suggest you do the translation in Canada through a reputable company that deals with CIC).

Once again, I suggest you process your application through Canadian Embassy in your home country. They are familiar with certificates, diplomas, etc from your country and it'd speed up the process.
I also strongly suggest (if you can afford it, of course) that you hire an immigration lawyer. Your application will get a better treatment for a simple reason that it comes from a lawyer, which implies the documents should be, at least, in order. I know personally a student who got his Permanent Residence in 3.5 months (sent application in May, got passport back in September). Application was done also through the local lawyer.

Good luck everyone with your applications!!

congrats, what is your home country? if you don't mind

 

[MH_A]

My application wasn't that fast. I started working on all the documents in March.
Medical request was sent by the visa office to my lawyer. That form had my photo attached and stamped by the embassy. I called the doctor on the list of 'Designated Medical Practitioner' in London, ON and had to wait 3 days before she could see me. However, I did ask the doctor to fax a request for x-ray to a lab, so I had my X-ray done before I actually saw the doctor. I believe they give you 45 days to do the medical. Your doctor actually has to send the medical form to Ottawa.
For me it took 20 days to do the medical: 10 days (medical form sent to Canada) + 3 days (to see a doctor) + 7 days (doctor waited for blood test results) = 20 days. My lawyer sent to the Embassy a copy of the 'receipt' from the doctor.
The longest wait was for e-cas to update. It took almost a month to see "Medical results have been received."

Medical request was the only request for additional information. All the other documents were sent in one package prepared by my lawyer (to Nova Scotia initially and then it is transferred to the processing office - i.e. home office or Ottawa). You cannot send medical with your initial application - you can only do medical when you receive a request for it (the form has a special tracking number attached to your file).

as far as PPR goes and all other notifications, they were sent via e-mails (to my lawyer and cc to me). For instance, for PPR I received the following email from the embassy :
"....... This refers to your application for permanent residence in Canada. We are pleased to advise you that we have completed processing of your application. Immigrant visa(s) may be issued to you and your accompanying dependents once you provide us with the following: ....."

So I sent the passport with a bank draft (490 CAD, Payment of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee) to the embassy. The visa was issued a week later (+5 days it took Fedex to deliver the envelope).
The biggest problem was to get the passport back, because customs in my home country doesn't allow passports to be sent out.

Anyway, thank you for your congratulations. I wasn't really interested to be added to the immigration tracker and I didn't really want to share my experience because I expect lots of questions and I don't have time to answer them. So if you are not happy with my advice, you can do things your own way.

One more thing. 99% of the information posted on this forum is either wrong or incorrect (i.e. hearsay or personal opinions). That's another reason why I didn't want to waste my time.
For instance, this stupid idea about writing a letter to the Minister about Ph.D. stream. Why? To get attention? And who are you in Canada? Ottawa processes thousands of applications (not just for permanent residence - they handle all the immigration issues in Canada). It's your responsibility to prepare the application so you don't have to provide extra information later on. Keep in mind that every time they sent you a letter to provide some document, your application is placed at the end of the queue. And that's why it takes so long to process your application in Ottawa.
So I really suggest all those followers of Rosa Luxemburg (phdapplicant, MSE, etc), to get real with your letters to Minister Kenney and instead focus on your Ph.Ds. After all, that's what you came to Canada for, right?

Once again, good luck with your applications.

1) I believe that the fact that we did not hear back from them has nothing to do with the lack of documents or not having a lawyer. Most of us got PER which means that our applications were complete. I myself included all the things you mentioned and got PER.

2) Many of us could not send our applications to a different visa office. I am Iranian and you probably have heard what is going on between Iran and Canada! for many other people also there is no difference between their home country and Bufallo as you mentioned a couple of them.

3) People usually talk about their experiences in the forum, They do not claim that they know anything. If your 99% is correct, perhaps it means that people are talking about their experiences from their application for Mars PR!!

 

[TyrusX]

I don't know whether I should agree or disagree with it . Your statement made a terrific example.
Anyway, congratulations!

On a side note, my friend has received his PR. He applied in February under PhD Stream (Buffalo office).

Congrats to your friend.

But these cases look more like outliers. What is his nationality, is he rich, married, had and offer of employment maybe? What would make your application weaker or different than his? The applications processing should follow a first in first out system, and so far that what we have seen with small exceptions here and there.Eventually someone gets their applications processed in 6 months, but it is more probable he was just lucky enough to get an efficient visa officer. We have an sample population that is close to 8% of the total number of applicants. In some cases, like the applicants before February, it is up to 40-50% of the applicants to that point (37 until January 15th, 50 at end of January). There is no reason to believe that our spreadsheet doesn't give an accurate big picture of the processing times so far.

 

[phdapplicant]

I agree with you. Even my friend considers himself lucky.

Congrats to your friend.

But this cases look more like outliers. What is his nationality, is he rich, married, had and offer of employment maybe? What would make your applications weaker or different than his? The applications processing should follow a first in first out system, and so far that what we have seen with small exceptions here and there.Eventually someone gets their applications processed in 6 months, but it is more probable he was just lucky enough to get an efficient visa officer. We have an sample population that is close to 8% of the total number of applicants. In some cases, like the applicants before February, it is up to 40-50% of the applicants to that point (37 until January 15th, 50 at end of January). There is no reason to believe that our spreadsheet doesn't give an accurate big picture of the processing times so far.

 

[salam20]

Congratulations for all who got their PR. I myself can't hire a lawyer in the mean while to do something that I can do myself.
Updates:
I sent an additional stamped attestation letter two days ago with my personal information.

1) Should I send a 6 six months of bank record now before they request it? As I read on the forum that in some cases, it was requested.

2) I can provide the record from my bank that is back home as my accounts in Canada does show sufficient money as required, does it make any sense?

 

[kaziahmmed]

Thanks so much, Kazi.
I also got a confirmation letter for OHIP coverage for both me and my husband today. As you mentioned, they covered for one year from the day exactly three month after PER letter.

Without this forum, I won't know this information and got OHIP coverage, which save hugely for me and my husband. I was about to pay for the UHIP until I saw the discussion here. Thanks so much, guys.

Everyone should get this benefit after PER for three months.

Beauty00

Congrats! for the OHIP, good to know that our story helps others. In fact, thats the main reason we are here for sharing our good/bad experience so that the others can get the benefits from those. Wishing everyone for more progress in your application.

 

[samer_eg]

Dear All,
What are the steps to get the police certificate? I didn't receive their request but I've decided to send it.

 

[YNS]

Congratulations for all who got their PR. I myself can't hire a lawyer in the mean while to do something that I can do myself.
Updates:
I sent an additional stamped attestation letter two days ago with my personal information.

1) Should I send a 6 six months of bank record now before they request it? As I read on the forum that in some cases, it was requested.

2) I can provide the record from my bank that is back home as my accounts in Canada does show sufficient money as required, does it make any sense?

May I ask you to what address you sent this document? I think I should send police certificate and 6 months bank statement before they ask them.

 

[mik11]

Congratulations for all who got their PR. I myself can't hire a lawyer in the mean while to do something that I can do myself.
Updates:
I sent an additional stamped attestation letter two days ago with my personal information.

1) Should I send a 6 six months of bank record now before they request it? As I read on the forum that in some cases, it was requested.

2) I can provide the record from my bank that is back home as my accounts in Canada does show sufficient money as required, does it make any sense?

about the attestation letter, have you filled the actual letter and get signed and stamped from the university? or do you get a letter with university head that states you have finished two years of study towards phd? thanks

 

[websphereguy]

He has the same timeline as mine +/- 1 month (except that he applied later).

phdapplicant, what's the country of origin of this friend of yours? Hope you don't mind telling.

Thanks

 

[salam20]

May I ask you to what address you sent this document? I think I should send police certificate and 6 months bank statement before they ask them.

If by Regular Mail:
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Federal Skilled Worker
Centralized Intake Office
PO BOX 8300
Sydney, NS
B1P 0A9
Canada

If by courier:
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Federal Skilled Worker
Arranged Employment category or PhD category
Centralized Intake Office
47-49 Dorchester Street
Sydney, NS
B1P 5Z2
Canada

Source: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/guides/EG7TOC.asp

 

[salam20]

about the attestation letter, have you filled the actual letter and get signed and stamped from the university? or do you get a letter with university head that states you have finished two years of study towards phd? thanks

I sent the two letters but the one with the uni. letter head was not stamped (delivered with my package on August 30th) so I got the form filled, signed and stamped by the uni. I sent it recently alone.
the form: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/guides/pdf/PhD_Attestation_EN.pdf

 

[salam20]

Any advice?

Congratulations for all who got their PR. I myself can't hire a lawyer in the mean while to do something that I can do myself.
Updates:
I sent an additional stamped attestation letter two days ago with my personal information.

1) Should I send a 6 six months of bank record now before they request it? As I read on the forum that in some cases, it was requested.

2) I can provide the record from my bank that is back home as my accounts in Canada does show sufficient money as required, does it make any sense?