EE Application rejected after AOR received: "missing education credential assessment"!!!

[Max Continuous]

So I would have been one of the first people to apply under the new EE system earlier this year. I'm a skilled worker with more than 12 months work in the country (helicopter pilot), I used to have a work permit through an LMIA and I am employed full time by a qualified employer.

All this gave me a bit over 1000 points so I was invited. I received my AOR within days of submitting the application, this was in February.
I submitted all the required documents that I was asked for. My proof of training/qualification are my various pilots licenses including my current Canadian one, and I added a letter of explanation, explaining this.

Today I got the dreaded message in my account:

"Your application is rejected for being incomplete.
Specifically, your application does not include the following elements:
- Proof of education
You did not provide an Education Credential Assessment."


No further explanation, EE profile cancelled, fees refunded, goodbye please try again.


My questions:

1) What do I do now? I have until January 2016 on my open WP. Obviously I need to apply again, but my points will have changed because I no longer have an LMIA, since I have an open WP instead.

2) Can anyone guess what sort of ECA they want? Do I need to go back to the flight school that originally issued my license 10 years ago in the US and ask them to print me off a letter of graduation or something? This is rather unusual in my profession, when you finish your training you simply get a license. There is no diploma, in the same way that you don't get a diploma when you do your drivers license..

3) WHY WHY WHY did they reject everything and make me start from square one? WHY wouldn't they simply sent me an email asking for the supposedly missing document, or an explanation?


I first tried applying for PR last year under the old system and missed the cap by 48 hours. I am at this point getting extremely irritated with CIC.



Edit: Oh god, how long are police certificates valid for these days? 6 months or a year? Because I had to submit them from three overseas countries, and the process of getting them and getting them translated took... a little while. And cost a lot of money.

 

[EET]

under which category did u apply, was it FSW? in FSW u have to submit ur ECA whatsoever if u don't have any formal education then it was a system glitch to invite u under CEC.

 

[GARJ]

My questions:

1) What do I do now? I have until January 2016 on my open WP. Obviously I need to apply again, but my points will have changed because I no longer have an LMIA, since I have an open WP instead.

2) Can anyone guess what sort of ECA they want? Do I need to go back to the flight school that originally issued my license 10 years ago in the US and ask them to print me off a letter of graduation or something? This is rather unusual in my profession, when you finish your training you simply get a license. There is no diploma, in the same way that you don't get a diploma when you do your drivers license..

3) WHY WHY WHY did they reject everything and make me start from square one? WHY wouldn't they simply sent me an email asking for the supposedly missing document, or an explanation?

Edit: Oh god, how long are police certificates valid for these days? 6 months or a year? Because I had to submit them from three overseas countries, and the process of getting them and getting them translated took... a little while. And cost a lot of money.

You're case is interesting, talk about spilling the milk.

1) You still have a good 8 months until your work permit expires, start gathering the required documents again now and reapply, the CRS scores will probably fluctuate and you might get invited with your current score. Really sucks your LMIA expired, but maybe you can get a new employer to provide you with one, helicopter pilot positions sound like they are in demand.

2) What you were missing here is ECA for at least high school education, did you provide that?

3) The new system now works on a pass or fail model, yes or no. This is done in an effort to speed up the process, that's why you weren't asked to submit the document, just got flat-out denied.

Really sorry to hear you got denied bud, serves as a cautionary tale.

 

[Singalingali]

Sorry to hear about your situation. Did you get invited under the FSWP stream or CEC? I think you need an ECA for FSWP. I've submited all my documents as best as I could. I hope I don't get rejected. Some people's bosses just flat out refuse to write that employment letter in the way that CIC asks. Some banks will only give a generic reference letter. They refuse to commit themselves further in the way that CIC wants . I hear that CIC officers are empowered to use their discretion at times. I hope that this is true.

 

[dobes]

So I would have been one of the first people to apply under the new EE system earlier this year. I'm a skilled worker with more than 12 months work in the country (helicopter pilot), I used to have a work permit through an LMIA and I am employed full time by a qualified employer.

All this gave me a bit over 1000 points so I was invited. I received my AOR within days of submitting the application, this was in February.
I submitted all the required documents that I was asked for. My proof of training/qualification are my various pilots licenses including my current Canadian one, and I added a letter of explanation, explaining this.

Today I got the dreaded message in my account:

"Your application is rejected for being incomplete.
Specifically, your application does not include the following elements:
- Proof of education
You did not provide an Education Credential Assessment."


No further explanation, EE profile cancelled, fees refunded, goodbye please try again.


My questions:

1) What do I do now? I have until January 2016 on my open WP. Obviously I need to apply again, but my points will have changed because I no longer have an LMIA, since I have an open WP instead.

2) Can anyone guess what sort of ECA they want? Do I need to go back to the flight school that originally issued my license 10 years ago in the US and ask them to print me off a letter of graduation or something? This is rather unusual in my profession, when you finish your training you simply get a license. There is no diploma, in the same way that you don't get a diploma when you do your drivers license..

3) WHY WHY WHY did they reject everything and make me start from square one? WHY wouldn't they simply sent me an email asking for the supposedly missing document, or an explanation?


I first tried applying for PR last year under the old system and missed the cap by 48 hours. I am at this point getting extremely irritated with CIC.



Edit: Oh god, how long are police certificates valid for these days? 6 months or a year? Because I had to submit them from three overseas countries, and the process of getting them and getting them translated took... a little while. And cost a lot of money.

You must've been invited under FSW. It is a requirement to get your educational credentials - even secondary school ones - assessed. They definitely want your secondary school records and perhaps your flight school - that I'm not so sure of.

You said you had over 1000 points. With the loss of your LMIA, you will lose 600 and be in the 400+ range. You have a very good chance at being selected again in the next 8 months, if you care to apply yet again.

Your police certificates cannot be older than 3 months when you apply for PR. I intended to simply send away to the 2 countries I need them from every 3 months until I got an ITA - but I got the ITA (and without LMIA) in the draw after I decided that. Luckily, my FBI one came in time - if you need that, it takes a long time. You can post your EE application again without it, though - just apply as soon as possible and keep evidence that you have applied.

Your IELTS score expires every 2 years, so be sure to take it again if it isn't recent.

See if you can get another LMIA.

What horrible luck you have had. I'm sure the reason they returned it to you is that they are trying to process EE in a new, streamlined way. In their view, you simply have to get the missing document, apply again, and get chosen again. No problem - except to you.

Good luck! BTW, my grandfather was Sikorsky's chief engineer and first test pilot as they invented the helicopter. I always smile when I see someone piloting one!

 

[Singalingali]

You must've been invited under FSW. It is a requirement to get your educational credentials - even secondary school ones - assessed. They definitely want your secondary school records and perhaps your flight school - that I'm not so sure of.

You said you had over 1000 points. With the loss of your LMIA, you will lose 600 and be in the 400+ range. You have a very good chance at being selected again in the next 8 months, if you care to apply yet again.

Your police certificates cannot be older than 3 months when you apply for PR. I intended to simply send away to the 2 countries I need them from every 3 months until I got an ITA - but I got the ITA (and without LMIA) in the draw after I decided that. Luckily, my FBI one came in time - if you need that, it takes a long time. You can post your EE application again without it, though - just apply as soon as possible and keep evidence that you have applied.

Your IELTS score expires every 2 years, so be sure to take it again if it isn't recent.

See if you can get another LMIA.

What horrible luck you have had. I'm sure the reason they returned it to you is that they are trying to process EE in a new, streamlined way. In their view, you simply have to get the missing document, apply again, and get chosen again. No problem - except to you.

Good luck! BTW, my grandfather was Sikorsky's chief engineer and first test pilot as they invented the helicopter. I always smile when I see someone piloting one!

under fswp, you only need an ECA for the highest degree for which you are claiming points. u dont need to assess secondary school cert. WES say so.

 

[scylla]

3) WHY WHY WHY did they reject everything and make me start from square one? WHY wouldn't they simply sent me an email asking for the supposedly missing document, or an explanation?

Mandatory forms and documents must be included with your initial application submission. If anything is missing, your application is deemed incomplete and refused. This is how the process works for all immigration streams. As others have said, assuming you were accepted under FSW, the ECA was a mandatory document for your application to be accepted for further processing.

 

[Max Continuous]

I qualified and applied under CEC, based on >12 month experience in Canada in a skilled profession.

I submitted copies of all my current licenses. I did not submit a ECA for a high school diploma, and that must be what they wanted. I was never explicitly asked for it, all it said on my list of required documents was that I needed to provide proof that I have the required qualifications in Canada. I provided proof of my current Canadian pilots licenses. Somehow I guess that isn't enough and my high school diploma from 15 years ago in Germany is required in addition. Not to mention that both my current visa AND those pilots licenses required me to have a high school diploma in the first place, but that's just details I guess.

I do not understand how it can possibly be legal to flat out reject and deny my application for a missing irrelevant document that I was never specifically asked for.

I do not understand why they can't make use of their own messaging system to request said document. On "application status" in myCIC there even is a line that says: "Additional documents required: NO".

Gathering all the police certificates and having them translated will take 2 months+. Again. Getting my high school back in Germany to send my graduation certificate from 15 years ago to some Canadian assessment company could take ages and a small miracle - I'm lucky enough that the school even still exists. All this makes no sense at all. Not even talking about the costs of all that.

I am by all reasonable standards a perfect candidate for skilled immigration into this country, but my experience with the CIC so far has been worse than hell.

This is by far the least competent, most inhumane government institution that I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with in any of the numerous countries I have lived.

 

[Max Continuous]

under fswp, you only need an ECA for the highest degree for which you are claiming points. u dont need to assess secondary school cert. WES say so.

So even if my application somehow did become a FSWP rather than CEC (which is how I originally applied), the missing document couldn't have been the irrelevant high school diploma?

But then what was it? I have a Pilots License that was issued by the Canadian Federal Government. Surely I don't need to get that assessed? Or do they want an assessment of my US pilots license, or my Australian one? How would WES even do that, the licenses are issued under an international standard (ICAO) and I highly doubt that this company knows the first thing about it.
That would just be completely absurd. Which, on second thought, makes it almost seem likely, the way things are going for me.

 

[mars_xiao]

I thought we only need ECA for post-secondary education...Is it not true?

I guess ECA is mandatory for you because you claimed points for your secondary education, which you shouldn't...

 

[lotusEsp]

This doesnt make sense and seems like a bug in the EE system

You cant physically submit your application with items outstanding as the forms wont let you progress until you've completed the fields or uploaded a document.

So how can it be required and let you submit your application without uploaded something?

 

[JB1234]

My first question would be "what is your highest level of education?". If it's secondary school, you need to show ECA for that. CIC did not get your education credentials.

 

[Max Continuous]

My highest level of school is secondary school. However my highest level of education is a professional license aka pilots license, for which I provided proof. I am still unclear whether they wanted an ECA for my pilots license (which doesn't make sense, as I have a Canadian license), or an ECA for my high school diploma from ages ago (which also doesn't make sense, because it is completely irrelevant).


Why, CIC. Why.

 

[sk2013]

My highest level of school is secondary school. However my highest level of education is a professional license aka pilots license, for which I provided proof. I am still unclear whether they wanted an ECA for my pilots license (which doesn't make sense, as I have a Canadian license), or an ECA for my high school diploma from ages ago (which also doesn't make sense, because it is completely irrelevant).


Why, CIC. Why.

ECA for the education you claimed. If you claimed high school level education, then you need to provide ECA for that.

 

[lotusEsp]

My first question would be "what is your highest level of education?". If it's secondary school, you need to show ECA for that. CIC did not get your education credentials.

and how do you do that?

as I said above, you cant go forwards in the web system if you havent uploaded a required document. So unless the OP uploaded a blank pdf for the education field - he couldnt show an ECA

it's not right if he got rejected for something he wasnt asked to provide (and therefore couldnt provide)