"Notice to Prepare for your Citizenship Exam"?

[coolkitt]

Has anyone received such notice as well? Does this mean anything? Is the test coming soon?

I have been RQ'd, and sent our my supporting documents in June. I haven't taken the test yet. This notice doesn't seem to provide any new info that I don't already know.

-----------------------------Here's the notice -----------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir/Madam,

You are receiving this letter because you and/or a family member have submitted a Residence Questionnaire and supporting documentation to your local Citizenship and Immigration Centre. Your documentation will be examined to determine whether you have met the residence requirement for citizenship. In the meantime, to ensure that all required checks are completed before referring your application to a Citizenship Judge for a decision, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will schedule you and your family members for a written exam in the coming months. We are sending this notice to inform you that your case is moving forward and to allow you time to prepare for your exam.

Every person between the ages of 18 and 54 years of age must appear for this exam. If you are 55 years of ageor older, you will be called in for an interview to verify your documentation instead. Minors, who were under the age of 18 when they applied, are not required to take a citizenship exam. If you have already taken your exam, please disregard this notice.

Your notice to appear for a written exam will be mailed to you at least two weeks before the date of your exam. The notice will explain where and when your exam will be scheduled and which documents you must bring with you on that day.

Yours truly,

Citizenship Official

 

[ramsfe]

Seems like this is a AOR for your RQ and probably means that someone started taking care of your file!

That's probably good news !

 

[coolkitt]

Seems like this is a AOR for your RQ and probably means that someone started taking care of your file!

That's probably good news !

It doesn't necessarily mean that the exam is coming quite soon, right? It could still be years before I see the end of this, right?

 

[krish ram]

can you also share your time line also , looks good to me there is some progress on your application

 

[coolkitt]

can you also share your time line also , looks good to me there is some progress on your application

Received application on March 8, 2012
Started processing on December 14, 2012
Received RQ in May 2013
Sent in RQ documents in June 2013

No test yet, and this "Notice to Prepare for your Citizenship Exam" is the first response I got since sending in the RQ docs.

What do you think is happening here?

 

[Nigela]

I received this notice as well. My timeline is similar to yours, coolkitt. I think this letter is a good sign and the exam will most likely be scheduled soon.
I have a question for anyone who received a similar letter and already had their exam, how long did you wait between this letter and the exam date? They sent mine on Dec 17, I´m going away Dec 29 till Feb 6, is there a possibility that I´ll miss my exam date? Should I call and tell them I´m going away or is it not likely to be scheduled so soon?
Thank you!

 

[coolkitt]

I received this notice as well. My timeline is similar to yours, coolkitt. I think this letter is a good sign and the exam will most likely be scheduled soon.
I have a question for anyone who received a similar letter and already had their exam, how long did you wait between this letter and the exam date? They sent mine on Dec 17, I´m going away Dec 29 till Feb 6, is there a possibility that I´ll miss my exam date? Should I call and tell them I´m going away or is it not likely to be scheduled so soon?
Thank you!

second Nigela's question.

Negela, have you tried calling CIC? I got the letter Friday night and I'll call them first thing tomorrow. I've booked my travels as well, can't believe the timing of this.

 

[hamedch10]

I received this notice as well. My timeline is similar to yours, coolkitt. I think this letter is a good sign and the exam will most likely be scheduled soon.
I have a question for anyone who received a similar letter and already had their exam, how long did you wait between this letter and the exam date? They sent mine on Dec 17, I´m going away Dec 29 till Feb 6, is there a possibility that I´ll miss my exam date? Should I call and tell them I´m going away or is it not likely to be scheduled so soon?
Thank you!

I got this notice too. It's dated Dec 17. I think this letter is something new that no one experienced before. Hopefully this is the end of long journey. I'm also leaving country for few months. I dont know I should cancel my flight or not..

 

[krish ram]

Has anyone received such notice as well? Does this mean anything? Is the test coming soon?

I have been RQ'd, and sent our my supporting documents in June. I haven't taken the test yet. This notice doesn't seem to provide any new info that I don't already know.

-----------------------------Here's the notice -----------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir/Madam,

You are receiving this letter because you and/or a family member have submitted a Residence Questionnaire and supporting documentation to your local Citizenship and Immigration Centre. Your documentation will be examined to determine whether you have met the residence requirement for citizenship. In the meantime, to ensure that all required checks are completed before referring your application to a Citizenship Judge for a decision, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will schedule you and your family members for a written exam in the coming months. We are sending this notice to inform you that your case is moving forward and to allow you time to prepare for your exam.

Every person between the ages of 18 and 54 years of age must appear for this exam. If you are 55 years of ageor older, you will be called in for an interview to verify your documentation instead. Minors, who were under the age of 18 when they applied, are not required to take a citizenship exam. If you have already taken your exam, please disregard this notice.

Your notice to appear for a written exam will be mailed to you at least two weeks before the date of your exam. The notice will explain where and when your exam will be scheduled and which documents you must bring with you on that day.

Yours truly,

Citizenship Official

received the same on this month and my time line is applied on oct 2011 and rqyed in aug 2012 and received the above notice in dec 2013 . also they have send a form asking for the permission to get the report from cbsa

 

[coolkitt]

Alright, I called CIC this morning. The agent said this means someone's processing my files now, and it should be no delay to scheduling the exam. However he doesn't have a timeline on how soon the exam will be. Suggestion is to advise CIC of your travel date so they can avoid scheduling the exam during those dates.

If anyone else has contacted CIC regarding this, please also share your comments here.

 

[eileenf]

I received the CIT 0521 as well.

The form is brand new (12-2013). Because the form was only recently invented, no one knows how long it will be between receipt of this form and scheduling of the test. The official form name is CIT 0521 (12-2013) GCMS. I believe that the GCMS indicates that it is generated automatically. I do not think this indicates that a human being has looked into ones file. I suspect that this form may be sent automatically to RQ recipients after a certain number of months.

While I was personally happy to receive this letter, I would caution people against putting absolute faith in a document such as this. It offers no definitive timeframe for test invitation ("coming months" could technically mean 2 months from now or 24 months from now). We won't know for some time whether it truly indicates that ones test will be soon and that our files have emerged from the depths of the CIC catacombs or if it was sent in order to assure pre-test RQ recipients that we have not been forgotten.

That said, even if the letter doesn't end up meaning too much, I appreciate the CIC sending it. They are acknowledging that we care about citizenship and that we have a right to information regarding the processing of our applications. Contrary to a lot of communication I have gotten from the CIC, this letter felt respectful. I appreciated that!

Okay. Coolkit just posted. I hope the agent is right, and I definitively advise people to always inform the CIC if they will be out of the country for two weeks or more, but as they say, "the proof is in the pudding" (what a weird saying), so we'll know for sure when people actually start getting test invites.

 

[coolkitt]

I received the CIT 0521 as well.

The form is brand new (12-2013). Because the form was only recently invented, no one knows how long it will be between receipt of this form and scheduling of the test. The official form name is CIT 0521 (12-2013) GCMS. I believe that the GCMS indicates that it is generated automatically. I do not think this indicates that a human being has looked into ones file. I suspect that this form may be sent automatically to RQ recipients after a certain number of months.

While I was personally happy to receive this letter, I would caution people against putting absolute faith in a document such as this. It offers no definitive timeframe for test invitation ("coming months" could technically mean 2 months from now or 24 months from now). We won't know for some time whether it truly indicates that ones test will be soon and that our files have emerged from the depths of the CIC catacombs or if it was sent in order to assure pre-test RQ recipients that we have not been forgotten.

That said, even if the letter doesn't end up meaning too much, I appreciate the CIC sending it. They are acknowledging that we care about citizenship and that we have a right to information regarding the processing of our applications. Contrary to a lot of communication I have gotten from the CIC, this letter felt respectful. I appreciated that!

Okay. Coolkit just posted. I hope the agent is right, and I definitively advise people to always inform the CIC if they will be out of the country for two weeks or more, but as they say, "the proof is in the pudding" (what a weird saying), so we'll know for sure when people actually start getting test invites.

I like your technical analyse Eileenf

I agree, the letter doesn't tell me anything. And I wouldn't personally suggest anyone to put their life on hold after receiving this letter.

 

[hamedch10]

I received the CIT 0521 as well.

The form is brand new (12-2013). Because the form was only recently invented, no one knows how long it will be between receipt of this form and scheduling of the test. The official form name is CIT 0521 (12-2013) GCMS. I believe that the GCMS indicates that it is generated automatically. I do not think this indicates that a human being has looked into ones file. I suspect that this form may be sent automatically to RQ recipients after a certain number of months.

While I was personally happy to receive this letter, I would caution people against putting absolute faith in a document such as this. It offers no definitive timeframe for test invitation ("coming months" could technically mean 2 months from now or 24 months from now). We won't know for some time whether it truly indicates that ones test will be soon and that our files have emerged from the depths of the CIC catacombs or if it was sent in order to assure pre-test RQ recipients that we have not been forgotten.

That said, even if the letter doesn't end up meaning too much, I appreciate the CIC sending it. They are acknowledging that we care about citizenship and that we have a right to information regarding the processing of our applications. Contrary to a lot of communication I have gotten from the CIC, this letter felt respectful. I appreciated that!

Okay. Coolkit just posted. I hope the agent is right, and I definitively advise people to always inform the CIC if they will be out of the country for two weeks or more, but as they say, "the proof is in the pudding" (what a weird saying), so we'll know for sure when people actually start getting test invites.

The funny thing is they sent this form to me TWICE. You might be right about the form that is "computer-generated". But the only reason that I want to keep my hope up is I called CIC days before I received this letter. The agent said "you will be scheduled for exam very soon". Apparently, someone is working on our application.

 

[arminbehzad]

Hi everyone.
Just received the same letter today. I was extremely happy until I opened the envelope. :-\ I thought it's the test letter; but sadly it wasn't. Nothing we can do about it, and we have to be patient as usual! BTW I like your reasoning @eileenf. It make sense.
Anyhow please share your stuff as soon as you get any news.
Thanks
Cheers

 

[wizdom]

Hi all.

Received this letter dated Dec 20.

Had received RQ May 2013 and responded with all documents in June. Hopefully this means the test will be in the near future.

It is about 29 months since I sent my application.