I ain't no SithLord, and maybe he could give you a more proper answer, but my timeline has some similarity with yours (in the sense that I too was asked to pay for RPRF early in my process).
AOR: November 2nd
MEP: December 1st
RPRF: January 14th (Yeeeei! moment)
Don't want to scare you or turn you down, but no updates whatsoever since then for me. Still in Ip1, and yeap, even when I'm already over the 6-month mark; the same story as many other users in this thread.
The truth is that it's hard to predict how it's going to be for you, I think that, based on what has been shared here, we can conclude that there's no visible pattern on why CIC processes some cases faster than others. There are some theories (whether it's because of the CSR score, or the NOC, or if you are single, or married, or your travel history, or your nationality, or if you decided to pay RPRF upfront or not) but almost each one of these theories have been proved wrong by someone's testimony. Some pages ago someone pointed out that those applications with "eligibility met" are being held back, which if you think about it doesn't sound logic at all because those cases would be easier to process anyway. There's not much visible logic in CIC's process, at least from the applicant's point of view. There are even cases of users reporting that the information received by calling to two different call center agents is contradictory, so not even that is entirely reliable (I really hope there's an organized process at the back-end though). Sadly, If we can't tell which logic is CIC using, then it's hard to predict a date.
Who knows? Maybe you are among the lucky ones! Let's hope for that!
Hey!
Agreed that Eligibility Met cases are easy to process; however looking at the trend none of the "Eligibility Met" have received PPR as yet. Even for October applications!
Dont know if m missing out on anything.
