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

[Curious2]

Hello every body,

I have applied under phd stream last year (Feb 2012) and I received an email from CPPO today. They have asked me a reference letter from my employer which indicates the number of hours spent on RA, TA and PhD study!

"Employment Reference Letter: A letter of reference from your employer indicating how many hours are spent in each role: Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant, and PhD student. "

Therefore, I have couple of questions and will be appreciated if you give me any hints before I prepare the documents.

1- Should I ask my supervisor to write a letter for RA and my professor for TA?
2- What is the time spent on PhD student??

Thanks in advance,

If you get a letter from human resources (HR) department of your university they will mention the hours separately for each task per semester. Also, the start date of your enrolment should be on the same letter. That should count as the time spent on PhD student. But I am not sure.

 

[N_O]

. No the check list asks for copies. I am just double checking everything not to do another stupid thing.

Right! That is what the checklist asks for.

Do not waste your time! Do not wait for a PCC from your country, just get the a rock solid reference letters from your supervisor! If you worked before in Iran, get a reference letter from there.

 

[N_O]

If you get a letter from human resources (HR) department of your university they will mention the hours separately for each task per semester. Also, the start date of your enrolment should be on the same letter. That should count as the time spent on PhD student. But I am not sure.

They are not asking for the time spent as a PhD student, they are asking about how many hours are spent as a PhD student, they are more specific!!

 

[hadikhan64]

If the reference letter lacks information about duties they refuse, but if it lacks information about number of hours spent, they ask for a better letter. That is crazy.

Thanks aidina for your suggestions. I'm 100% sure that I have explicitly mentioned the number of hours spent as RA in my reference letter provided by my supervisor. But, I did not mention the hours spent on TA thing. On the other hand I got a letter from HR at UBC and there they explicitly had mentioned the time spent on TA. I don't understand why did they ask for it once more!

 

[aidina]

Right! That is what the checklist asks for.

Do not waste your time! Do not wait for a PCC from your country, just get the a rock solid reference letters from your supervisor! If you worked before in Iran, get a reference letter from there.

I will not provide them with PCC as they are going to expire. We are experienced now . Yes, I will claim whatever I have this time.

 

[N_O]

Thanks aidina for your suggestions. I'm 100% sure that I have explicitly mentioned the number of hours spent as RA in my reference letter provided by my supervisor. But, I did not mention the hours spent on TA thing. On the other hand I got a letter from HR at UBC and there they explicitly had mentioned the time spent on TA. I don't understand why did they ask for it once more!

How many hours did you claim as an RA and a TA in total per week? May be you claimed so much, so they are trying to figure out how did you mange to study as a full time PhD student with such working hours!

 

[N_O]

I will not provide them with PCC as they are going to expire. We are experienced now . Yes, I will claim whatever I have this time.

Good luck for both of us!

 

[hadikhan64]

How many hours did you claim as an RA and a TA in total per week? May be you claimed so much, so they are trying to figure out how did you mange to study as a full time PhD student with such working hours!

For RA, 37.5/week and my TA was mentioned by HR letter and is 60 hours per semester. As a PhD student my main responsibility is to do research. Shouldn't I be working full time.

 

[N_O]

For RA, 37.5/week and my TA was mentioned by HR letter and is 60 hours per semester. As a PhD student my main responsibility is to do research. Shouldn't I be working full time.

It does not make sense that you work and study as full time in both of them! I know that the main responsibility for a PhD student is to do research, and that is what you are paid for, but how can you convince the Visa Officer with this?! I think that the definition of a student according to them is a person who attends an educational institution, so just part of your time will be available for a job while you are doing studies.

However many applicants with only RA/TA experience got thier PRs, but I am not sure if how many hours they claimed!

I'd love to hear from Aseberth, he is one of this thread admins.

 

[asbereth]

I'm so sorry for so many rejections today. I've been having a bad day, and the weather, and now so many bad news from the forum really depress the hell out of me. It seems to me that they did not consider the fact that Sydney has granted the 5 adaptability points last year, and what's even harder to accept is that it seems they refuse to consider additional work experience letter.

aidina, I'm wondering if you will consider appealing, or at least, send an email that explains why your letter describes the job duties and lead statement of NOC 4012 substantially. Also include the part from OP6B that states that an officer must consider work experience, for which an applicant has submitted documentation (since they seem to have considered it anyway, then you should focus your attention on highlighting why you think your letter matches NOC descriptions).

Obviously the chance is slim, but while waiting to hear back from them, then you do your new application.

It does not make sense that you work and study as full time in both of them! I know that the main responsibility for a PhD student is to do research, and that is what you are paid for, but how can you convince the Visa Officer with this?! I think that the definition of a student according to them is a person who attends an educational institution, so just part of your time will be available for a job while you are doing studies.

However many applicants with only RA/TA experience got thier PRs, but I am not sure if how many hours they claimed!

The thing is, it's hard to gauge how many hours exactly we can claim as TA/RA. For my letter of reference, I put down 20 to 25 hours a week, and no more, but a lot of successful applicants have put down 37.5 hours per week, so it's hard to say.

Also, for a study to be considered 'full-time', then it needs to at least 15 hours a week, so to hadikhan64, you should say that you're studying PhD full-time, and spend the rest of your working hours working for research. This was how I got 20 to 25 hours a week (it should be, really, 22.5 hours per week).

 

[hooman2012]

I'm so sorry for so many rejections today. I've been having a bad day, and the weather, and now so many bad news from the forum really depress the hell out of me. It seems to me that they did not consider the fact that Sydney has granted the 5 adaptability points last year, and what's even harder to accept is that it seems they refuse to consider additional work experience letter.

aidina, I'm wondering if you will consider appealing, or at least, send an email that explains why your letter describes the job duties and lead statement of NOC 4012 substantially. Also include the part from OP6B that states that an officer must consider work experience, for which an applicant has submitted documentation (since they seem to have considered it anyway, then you should focus your attention on highlighting why you think your letter matches NOC descriptions).

Obviously the chance is slim, but while waiting to hear back from them, then you do your new application.

The thing is, it's hard to gauge how many hours exactly we can claim as TA/RA. For my letter of reference, I put down 20 to 25 hours a week, and no more, but a lot of successful applicants have put down 37.5 hours per week, so it's hard to say.

Also, for a study to be considered 'full-time', then it needs to at least 15 hours a week, so to hadikhan64, you should say that you're studying PhD full-time, and spend the rest of your working hours working for research. This was how I got 20 to 25 hours a week (it should be, really, 22.5 hours per week).

What if we do not want to claim a work experience that we claimed before?
To me, if I got rejected, I do not need my work experience from my country, Only my RA would be enough.

 

[neuron]

It does not make sense that you work and study as full time in both of them! I know that the main responsibility for a PhD student is to do research, and that is what you are paid for, but how can you convince the Visa Officer with this?! I think that the definition of a student according to them is a person who attends an educational institution, so just part of your time will be available for a job while you are doing studies.

However many applicants with only RA/TA experience got thier PRs, but I am not sure if how many hours they claimed!

I'd love to hear from Aseberth, he is one of this thread admins.

That is true, I think they are not very sure about how PhD works. PhD, is still a student work, PhD study is RA research, and plus some TA duties which are very short, to be honest. What we can claim is just that as PhD student, we do RA as fulltime work(>37.5hours), and little bit TA. At least I know in my university, TA is just about 100 hours/semester, because most people take one TA from a professor, each class lasts 2-6 hours per week, some are 2 hours per week depending on how many times per week.
This phD stream probabily should be separated from standard skilled worker. Most PHD students have no regular work experience, so RA/TA becomes only way to go to meet the requirement. It sucks....

 

[hadikhan64]

It does not make sense that you work and study as full time in both of them! I know that the main responsibility for a PhD student is to do research, and that is what you are paid for, but how can you convince the Visa Officer with this?! I think that the definition of a student according to them is a person who attends an educational institution, so just part of your time will be available for a job while you are doing studies.

However many applicants with only RA/TA experience got thier PRs, but I am not sure if how many hours they claimed!

I'd love to hear from Aseberth, he is one of this thread admins.

The thing is I do not claim the time spent on my RA! A letter from HR states that how many hours I work as an RA. I know for fact that some universities in Canada do not go beyond 20hrs for RA, but UBC's HR puts 40hrs/week for RA.

 

[hamed_hamed_hamed]

My GCMS notes came today, after only 21 days.
Eligibility: Passed:
Criminality: Passed Validity Date: 2015/01/20 (List all my 3 police certificates + RCMP sceening) (I think it was there on last one)
Medical: In Progress (Received) (No Notes added to it yet. So I don't know the results, I requested GCMS Notes too early on IMHO)

Activity 5: SELECTION: PASSED

Notes 2: 4 years of work experience. However, they did not accept a period of 1.1 years to which I was doing the same job, but was hired as a contractor instead of as a registered employee. Same leading statement than the other one which was accepted. Interesting, I think I didn't present them with enough information. This shows the importance of providing them with contracts and other information, only reference letter is not enough.

NO ADAPTABILITY POINTS: I think we can give up getting those points now.

No much changes in the end. Only 2 or 3 pages longer than the first one I got in November.

Can you provide more details on what was the issue on your work experience. Why they did not accept it partly and why they accepted the rest? what was the contract? What documents you provided them for your work?

Thanks.

 

[hooman2012]

What if we do not want to claim a work experience that we claimed before?
To me, if I got rejected, I do not need my work experience from my country, Only my RA would be enough.