slaam u Alaikum brothers!
It seems, for me, the wait is over. I went to Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi today and filled in the pink form. And heres what happened:
you cant enter the embassy
you can only communicate with the security officer(s) and all they can do is provide you with the pink form
once youve filled and submitted the form to them, theyll pass them onto the personnel actually working in the embassy
here you have two options: 1. either leave and wait for the reply through phone/email
2. stay there (theres no place for sitting though, you can only stand and the the place can get very crowded. its only a corridor with elevators) and wait for the reply from the embassy personnel. the security guard will call out your name and tell you what info the embassy has revealed. the wait time can be as less as 15 minutes and can extend to an hour or more depending on the number of people there. The replies can either be (a.) your app is still under progress and you should expect an email/phone for further info so you can leave now (b.) they will request you to give them your passport so that they can place a sticker on one of its pages and give a letter alongwith it (yes, you have been granted the study permit) so its a good idea to bring your passport(s) with you in either case.
I was told that my app is still under progress that is reply (a.)
however other applicants who were there were asked for passports and upon submission they were asked to wait for a couple of hours for sticker placement. since the embassy is in a mall, you can take the elevator down and roam around or have lunch or snack at tim hortons or whatever suits you
in my case, after an hour or so when i left the embassy... on my way to sharjah i happened to check my email. to my surprise there was an email from cic which said i have a new message. i got really nervous as my friends told me that their permit acceptance is usually stated in the email and mine wasnt so most probably it was a rejection letter. when i quickly logged into my account it was a passport submission letter! Alhamdulillah!
Another tip, if you have received passport submission notification, try to take out some time and go to abu dhabi embassy instead of submitting the pp to vfs which can take upto two weeks for sticker placement. go straight to embassy with the letter and pp and get the sticker. it should only take a few hours. way better than the excruciating wait youll have to deal with even after being notified of acceptance.