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

[kaziahmmed]

I agree!

I also do agree with this idea, although not sure will it make any difference or not.

 

[uwoguy]

Yes. Unfortunatelly for us, CPO is taking care of MI-1 Application that were submitted around May 2010.
I would say another year to go for us

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!!

 

[kaziahmmed]

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).

Once again, I suggest you process your application through Canadian Embassy is 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!!

Congratulations! Very interesting story. But I am just surprised how come you didn't share your application progress to the forum if it was so quick so that the other applicants could apply to their home country. Moreover, this is also true when you apply to your home country and CIC send you any documents, lets say medical request, PPR etc these always takes a long time to receive to the applicants who are living in Canada. For example, one of my friend (not on phd stream) got the medical request when there was only two days left to send the medical report. So, I am actually not sure how come in your case it was so quick. Anyway, congrats again.

 

[uwoguy]

Congratulations! Very interesting story. But I am just surprised how come you didn't share your application progress to the forum if it was so quick so that the other applicants could apply to their home country. Moreover, this is also true when you apply to your home country and CIC send you any documents, lets say medical request, PPR etc these always takes a long time to receive to the applicants who are living in Canada. For example, one of my friend (not on phd stream) got the medical request when there was only two days left to send the medical report. So, I am actually not sure how come in your case it was so quick. Anyway, congrats again.

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.

 

[a_nashed]

Me too

I agree

 

[mik11]

I wander if there is any applicant from McMaster university, I have requested school of graduate studies to get the Letter Of Attestation for the PhD stream, and they give me a letter without seal and they said it is will be accepted by CIC.

 

[Dani1982]

I wander if there is any applicant from McMaster university, I have requested school of graduate studies to get the Letter Of Attestation for the PhD stream, and they give me a letter without seal and they said it is will be accepted by CIC.

it won't be accepted, go and ask them to stamp and seal the letter for you

 

[zhengyilove]

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. I do not think my hone country (China) will be as quick as yours. There are a lot of applicants.

 

[asbereth]

uwoguy, congratulations for your PR. I'm sure a lot of us are probably regretting for choosing to send our applications to Buffalo (though it would not make that much of a difference for me since I heard the Singapore VO is also one of the slowest ones out there).

Anyway, I have to say though that we actually learned quite a bit about the process from this forum. All the things that you said regarding letter of attestation had been discussed in this thread during its early days (some early applicants got their applications returned precisely because of this reason, and it had saved several people maybe several weeks because these other people were going to send their applications without the proper letter of attestation, and because of the info from this forum, they managed to get and send the proper one). Several other things that we have learned from this forum that the CIO also checked the total number of points before issuing PER, though they only checked them on the face value (and that one may get NER from even the CIO if they don't have enough points or missing the minimum requirements).

And not to mention about whether TA/RA experience (and taxable vs. non-taxable) would be accepted by the CIC (there was a discussion earlier on this forum too regarding this, and we now know for sure that non-taxable income would count too). There are also other things that we have learned from this forum, especially if you're a student from Ontario (regarding domestic tuition rates [which made a huge difference for some students here], OHIP, child-care benefit, etc).

You may not agree with what I say, or some of these benefits may not apply to you, but some of the information here has saved several of us quite a bit of time (maybe weeks), and even thousands of dollars. Some of us got helped here in quite a significant way, so while you may readily dismiss it a 99% inaccurate and a huge waste of time, it worked completely the opposite for a lot of us here.

Once again, congratulation for finally getting your PR, and enjoy finally being a local resident of this country

 

[MSE]

I also do agree with this idea, although not sure will it make any difference or not.

It appears unrealistic to me to organize such a combined letter kind of thing. I guess emailing would be a better option.

 

[TyrusX]

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!!

Congrat for your application being processed so fast. However, I'm sorry to say, nothing you say here is new. All the points you make have been discussed ad nausea here long before you even applied.

 

[websphereguy]

Congrat for your application being processed so fast. However, I'm sorry to say, nothing you say here is new. All the points you make have been discussed ad nausea here long before you even applied.

You know what, I agree with TyruxX and asbereth. There are things which this forum helped alot. Its actually up to the individual to ascertain the value of the information given.

 

[phdapplicant]

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.

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).

 

[asbereth]

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

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?

 

[samer_eg]

I don't know whether I should agree or disagree with your statement )
Anyway, congratulations!

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

Hi,

Regarding your friend, do you mean that he applied in February 2012, and got his PR in October 2012 ?!! can you share his experience?