Less points for Common Law vs. Married or Single??

[tortmaster]

Am I seeing this correctly? I have 429 points and I have been struggling to figure out why what I can do to improve. I currently am listed as common law married on my express entry profile, 9 IELTS score, Masters + BA. I ran a couple of different scenarios on the CRS tool
and each time I played with a few different things to see what would increase my score and finally realized if I put married or single it increases my score to 156! Is that really the case? Why is the score lower for common law?

Thank you all.

 

[Asivad Anac]

Because 40 points across education, work experience and language skills accrue based on your partner's credentials/qualifications/test results.

 

[tortmaster]

In that case Married and Common law would be the same right? How come I have less points when I select common law instead of married?

 

[jes_ON]

1) There should be absolutely no difference between married spouse or common-law. Below when I say "spouse," the same applies for "common-law."

2) If you are married/common-law, you are treated as a couple under the CRS, and there is a different scoring system for couples than for singles, but you still have the same total possible points.

CIC wants to know what your spouse's qualifications are too - You can get points for your spouse's (common-law partner's) Language skills, education work experience - but that means is your spouse must also take the language test, get education credentials evaluated, etc. If your spouse is highly qualified, you will gain a lot of points.

But if you don't provide evidence of your spouse's qualifications, you get zero for them. This means that you could get fewer points as married/common-law than a single person.

 

[jes_ON]

In that case Married and Common law would be the same right?

Right.

How come I have less points when I select common law instead of married?

You must have changed another parameter.

 

[Asivad Anac]

In that case Married and Common law would be the same right? How come I have less points when I select common law instead of married?

You are probably making some mistake in the application. There is no difference in the way points are calculate for married/common-law. Marking your partner as 'Not accompanying' for some reason can also make a difference in the calculations.

 

[tortmaster]

1) There should be absolutely no difference between married spouse or common-law. Below when I say "spouse," the same applies for "common-law."

2) If you are married/common-law, you are treated as a couple under the CRS, and there is a different scoring system for couples than for singles, but you still have the same total possible points.

CIC wants to know what your spouse's qualifications are too - You can get points for your spouse's (common-law partner's) Language skills, education work experience - but that means is your spouse must also take the language test, get education credentials evaluated, etc. If your spouse is highly qualified, you will gain a lot of points.

But if you don't provide evidence of your spouse's qualifications, you get zero for them. This means that you could get fewer points as married/common-law than a single person.

This is exactly what I thought too but I promise you I am not making this up. I have run the same scenario multiple times and it comes out the same. My spouse has not taken IELTS, not done ECA, and has no Canadian work experience so I don't get additional points anyway BUT if I just select Married, I get 156points, Single 156 points, and Common Law 129. I was wondering if anyone else had noticed the same thing? If its true maybe those sitting on the fence can run and get a marriage certificate for an extra 27 points . If anyone has some time please run your stats on the CRS tool and see if changing between married and common law gets you more points, i'm curious to know if its simply an error on my end.

 

[tortmaster]

You are probably making some mistake in the application. There is no difference in the way points are calculate for married/common-law. Marking your partner as 'Not accompanying' for some reason can also make a difference in the calculations.

Hmm possibly just an error on my end, I will try it again tomorrow. I may be making a glaring mistake and just because I've been staring at it for too long I can't see what I'm doing wrong.

 

[tortmaster]

Hmm I closed it and opened a new browser and tried again. I swear I get 456 as married and 429 as common law, changing nothing else. This will drive me crazy now. If anyone else tries to run the CRS tool and see whether they get a different score as married vs. common law please let me know.

 

[Asivad Anac]

Assuming you are using this tool ---> http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp

If you want to compare 2 different scenarios, the best way of doing that is to open multiple sessions and control the variables on 2 different screens instead of one after the other. The system has to blank out certain follow-up questions if there is a change in one or more of the earlier questions so you might not be getting an accurate response when you simply change the marital status and click on 'Calculate your score' without refreshing all the follow-up questions as well.

To reiterate, there is no difference on calculations for married/common-law.

 

[tortmaster]

Aha! I see now, I was selecting no on bringing my spouse on the common law option for whatever reason. There goes my excitement over a possible extra 27 points