cali2bc said:
Random question: does anyone know or ponder how representative the members of this forum is to the entire outland family class pool that CIC has to go through?
I am hoping that most of us get DM before VOs slow down for the holidays...but from the way SA is going, I'm a little apprehensive. Predictions? :-\
I hope so, too. They historically slow down around the holidays, and for an understandable reason.
I got a hold of the data spreadsheet from last year's CIC case load. (Jan - Dec 2014).
In that year-long period, they processed 45,418 Spouses, Partners and Other applications under Family Class. They issued 50,116 Visas/COPRs for Spouses, Partners and Other.
That's an insane number of cases they handle in one year for
just spousal visas. (In total, they dealt with 146,816 cases for
all PR applicants, issuing 255,705 visas/COPRs in 2014 including economic, skilled worker, etc.)
Statistically, I'm not sure how representative our group is of how the CIC operates with times, etc. There are only 196 names on the 2015 Outland Spousal spreadsheet that we're making predictions with. Note, that doesn't include inland names, and it's a
VERY small percentage of the total number of applicants.
That being said, it also could be a great spread. Who really knows?
My thoughts are that they likely aren't a great distribution/representation because it's not random sampling, and let's be realistic: we're all English-speaking applicants who have at least enough money to afford computers at home, etc. Many of the applicants are not fluent in English/French, are not economically well-off, come from countries where applications are scrutinized differently, are not tech-savvy to find this forum, etc. Those applications with language issues, missing information, economic concerns, etc. are in the CIC offices but likely not showing up on our spreadsheets.
All we can really use is the data the CIC has provided, which isn't exactly telling. All we know is what 80% of the applications see time-wise based on VO. Beyond that, we're all trying to make the best-educated guesses we can.
I try not to think of the numbers because I feel more helpless than I care to feel. Still, I do enjoy being able to share the journey with you guys, and having some anticipation of when things happen—however statistically flawed or coincidental—is better than none!
