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

[even]

Hi Even,
It could be 1 year 4 months, this is my case. I started my PhD on September 2010. I received the letter of attestation on January 2012.
Cheers

That is a good news! My university requires all International PhD students to register in summer and pay the high tuition fees, or we cannot take the comprehensive exam. Looks like every coin has two sides. Thanks again and good luck with your application!

 

[even]

Hi Even,
It could be 1 year 4 months, this is my case. I started my PhD on September 2010. I received the letter of attestation on January 2012.
Cheers

Hi Aboshosha,

Sorry I have another question about the letter of attestation. Does your letter only mention you have completed 4 semesters and in good academic standing, then CIC will automatically take that as equivalent to two years? I am one year later than you and I probably will start my application next year. Thx again!

Cheers,
Even

 

[aboshosha84]

Hi Aboshosha,

Sorry I have another question about the letter of attestation. Does your letter only mention you have completed 4 semesters and in good academic standing, then CIC will automatically take that as equivalent to two years? I am one year later than you and I probably will start my application next year. Thx again!

Cheers,
Even

In the letter, It was stated clearly that, the candidate has finished (Equivalent Two Years ) towards the completion of his PhD
Good Luck
aboshosha84

 

[kg.jadu]

Hey asbereth,

Anyway, can you share your nationality and the time when your credit card was charged? Also, in your NER letter, how many years of experience did you get credited? You mentioned that you had some experience back home, so I'm just wondering, how many hours did you claim, and how many years of experience did you get credited (based on what's written in your NER letter). I think this would be a valuable piece of information as it would give us some sort of a guideline as to whether our expectation of the number of work experience years matches their interpretation.

Sure. I am Russian. I actually paid by a bank draft so I don't think there'd be a way to check the date they cashed the check.

As for the experience, I got what I expected to get (2 years equivalent). I calculated the number of hours I worked at my Russian University (20 hours/week for 16 months) to be 1400, plus 2700 hours RA plus 650 hours TA = 4750 hours in total (around 2.4 years of 1950 hours/year full-time equivalent). The letter from a Canadian University explicitly states that I was working for 12 hours/week between such-and-such months and for 17 hours/week the rest of the time, and gives the total number of hours worked (2700 and 650). I assume officers use straightforward way to calculate the number of hours one worked: X hours/week * 52 weeks/year. So, those who are preparing the documents should make sure their hours add up to more than 1950 to be eligible for processing.

 

[asbereth]

kg.jadu, thanks for sharing. I'm assuming you have completed roughly 120 to 140 weeks of your PhD? And if I understand it correctly, you have between 12 to 29 hours per week (since your work hours averaged out to be roughly 25 hours a week) for the past 3 years?

It does look like the CIO does indeed accept more than 25 hours a week for TA/RA experience, which is good since it means future applicants now can prepare their documents better and claim more hours than what most of us here have done (about 20 hours a week). For a while, we were wondering whether RA/TA non-taxable work experience will be accepted, but it looks like that we wont have to worry about it anymore.

Hopefully this won't cause any problem with the VO though, and hopefully the VO would interpret the 5 adaptability previous study points as the CIO would, which will enable even more students to apply

 

[kg.jadu]

kg.jadu, thanks for sharing. I'm assuming you have completed roughly 120 to 140 weeks of your PhD? And if I understand it correctly, you have between 12 to 29 hours per week (since your work hours averaged out to be roughly 25 hours a week) for the past 3 years?

asbereth, no, I started in September 2008, so it's been about 3.5 years for me at the time of application. I worked on average 15 hours/week for RA and 3.5 hours/week for TA according to the employment letter from my school.

I still think it would be safer to have 20 hours/week maximum. Surely we all work much more than 20 hours/week but this is not the story our salaries tell. But the lesson I learned from my NER is that our applications are not only being checked for eligibility, they also go through the initial processing at the CIO, including calculating the points. So if you got your PER, it means that you exceeded the 67 threshold. Whether the workers at a visa office are going to reassess our applications or just continue processing, I don't know.

 

[Luigiovemma]

It does look like the CIO does indeed accept more than 25 hours a week for TA/RA experience, which is good since it means future applicants now can prepare their documents better and claim more hours than what most of us here have done (about 20 hours a week). For a while, we were wondering whether RA/TA non-taxable work experience will be accepted, but it looks like that we wont have to worry about it anymore.

Hopefully this won't cause any problem with the VO though, and hopefully the VO would interpret the 5 adaptability previous study points as the CIO would, which will enable even more students to apply

Just a quick note. I actually claimed 40 hr/week as for the RA, and for some reason I think they accepted it.

Because as I mentioned earlier, I got a notice from the CIO stating that my first employment letter was not sufficient for them to evaluate my work experience. So I asked my supervisor to prepare the letter again for me, with more details. And about two weeks after I submitted the new letters, I got my PER. Specifically, the major difference for this new letter is, my supervisor gave a bit more detail on my duties and responsibilities, and also she clearly stated the total number of hours I worked so far (it's around 7500 hrs since I claimed 40 hr/week and I'm in the program for 3 yrs and 8 months by now). In my first letter it's only mentioned that I worked 40 hr/week from xxxx to xxxx, but not the total number of hours because I assume they'll do the calculation themselves. But at least now I know they didn't, and I feel that they want the total number of hours being confirmed by the employer.

Don't know if this makes sense. But hopefully it helps.

 

[beh467]

Hi
I have submitted my application for PhD stream.
They received my application for PhD stream on Aril 18.
I got PER on May1.
I have done a mistake in filling the form background/declaration(IMM5669).
In section 6.c it asks if you have been refuse for a premannet resident visa before. I had applied for CEC before anf got rejected.
But I forgot to mention it in this form.
What I should do now?
I appreciate if someone has suggestion.
Thanks

 

[TyrusX]

Hi
I have submitted my application for PhD stream.
They received my application for PhD stream on Aril 18.
I got PER on May1.
I have done a mistake in filling the form background/declaration(IMM5669).
In section 6.c it asks if you have been refuse for a premannet resident visa before. I had applied for CEC before anf got rejected.
But I forgot to mention it in this form.
What I should do now?
I appreciate if someone has suggestion.
Thanks

You should send an email or call CIC, or they may think you have misrepresented yourself later on when they run the background checking. After you do that, it should not impact your application.

 

[beh467]

You should send an email or call CIC, or they may think you have misrepresented yourself later on when they run the background checking. After you do that, it should not impact your application.

Thanks.
I sent a case specific enquiry to buffalo which is the visa office on my application about this issue.

 

[asbereth]

Thanks.
I sent a case specific enquiry to buffalo which is the visa office on my application about this issue.

Hi beh467, I was in a similar situation. I made a mistake in the background declaration form as well where I did not write down my siblings' names. I contacted the CIO a while ago (before getting the PER), and they told me that I should just send the corrected forms with a cover letter to Buffalo directly after getting my PER. I did this already, but I think I should probably send a case inquiry to Buffalo as well. Let us know how they will reply to your inquiry

Just a quick note. I actually claimed 40 hr/week as for the RA, and for some reason I think they accepted it.

If there is one thing that we can't yet tell for sure, it's how many hours we get credited if claim to have worked and studied full-time. One of the possible reasons for your PER could be that, you'd still have enough points anyway if you only claim 2 rather than 4 years of work experience, and they might have taken that into account. But hopefully you're right, in that we can actually claim full-time for our RA/TA experience. Only time will tell I guess

 

[Luigiovemma]

If there is one thing that we can't yet tell for sure, it's how many hours we get credited if claim to have worked and studied full-time. One of the possible reasons for your PER could be that, you'd still have enough points anyway if you only claim 2 rather than 4 years of work experience, and they might have taken that into account. But hopefully you're right, in that we can actually claim full-time for our RA/TA experience. Only time will tell I guess

True. I might just have enough points with 1 yr equivalent work experience, so I don't know how many they actually count. All I want to say is that the only big difference between my old and new employment letter is that I confirmed the total number of hours worked through my supervisor. And apparently they accepted the new one.

 

[beh467]

Hi beh467, I was in a similar situation. I made a mistake in the background declaration form as well where I did not write down my siblings' names. I contacted the CIO a while ago (before getting the PER), and they told me that I should just send the corrected forms with a cover letter to Buffalo directly after getting my PER. I did this already, but I think I should probably send a case inquiry to Buffalo as well. Let us know how they will reply to your inquiry

Hi Asbereteh.
Thanks for your reply. I think I should do the same thing (sending the corrected form with a cover letter)

Here is the Buffalo reply:

Your question relates to a process being carried out at the Centralized Intake Office.

You may contact them.

Now I have sent an email to CIO. I will post their reply here too.

 

[TyrusX]

Hi Asbereteh.
Thanks for your reply. I think I should do the same thing (sending the corrected form with a cover letter)
Here is the Buffalo reply:

Your question relates to a process being carried out at the Centralized Intake Office.

You may contact them.

This is weird, and it is not the first time it happened. It is like our documents have been sent do Bufallo yet.
Also. SIX MONTHS since this stream started in two days! Time flies!

 

[AST]

This is weird, and it is not the first time it happened. It is like our documents have been sent do Bufallo yet.
Also. SIX MONTHS since this stream started in two days! Time flies!

Tired of wating for the AOR.... Hope that we will get medicals along with the AOR. For some streams, Buffalo VO is doing like that.