Long post ahead, but I have some general observations based on cases in this thread and our own. I hope this post will be helpful for others putting in CR and PR applications with regards to expectations about processing order/times (relative to other applicants). The timeline for CR applications that are submitted with a PR application seems to be very different from people who applied for CR alone.
Our CR was submitted in the same application package as our PR application (literally the same envelope). However, our two sets of GCMS notes from our PR and CR case reflected the following:
-our PR application was considered received and started on May 24, 2019
-both our PR and CR application have been at the New York VO since October 9, 2019
-however, the IRCC did NOT even consider the CR application "received" until October 1, 2020
Our CR timeline is as follows:
1 Oct 2020 - CR application "received" (according to GCMS notes)
8 Oct 2020 - digital file made for our CR application (information entered, etc.)
8 Oct 2020 - AOR (previous to this, we did not have a file number for our CR application and could not even inquire about it)
(interestingly, we received pre-arrival letter for our PR application on October 9 2020)
13 Oct 2020 - CR "approved" (according to GCMS notes)
14 Oct 2020 - Request for additional fee payment (we originally paid $200 for criminality; IRCC requested additional $800 for serious criminality)
17 Oct 2020 - Additional fee payment receipt submitted
27 Oct 2020 - Received letter stating CR application is approved
The detailed intermeshed timeline of both our CR and PR application is in my signature in case anyone is curious. In summary though, it only took them 4 business days starting from when they truly opened/started looking at the CR application until they approved it, even for our extremely long and complicated application (compared to most).
As a general observation, there were a number of other CR applications in this thread that were submitted many months after our application was already at NY VO, but were approved months earlier than us.
As such, I speculate that it is possible CR applications submitted alone are prioritized and processed first before those submitted together with a PR application.
I would also speculate that the sheer size of our application (it was over 200 pages total for both CR and PR having to deal with 4 criminal charges, plus 2 being "assault" related needing a lot of proof of rehabilitation) was intimidating enough that the officers basically put off looking at it for as long as possible and preferred to open and process the shorter, simpler applications first. If they have a quota where they must complete processing x number of cases per month, it would make sense that they'd go straight to the short ones in order to meet their quota and skip over the more time consuming ones.
Therefore, I speculate that applications are NOT processed in the order they are received (which they claim to do but I sincerely doubt based on what was in our CR GCMS notes compared to the timelines of other cases in this thread). Rather, I speculate that simpler and shorter applications skip to the front of the line since it helps them meet their quota.
All in all, we received approval about 17 months after the submission of both our CR and PR application together. I'll try to still be available on this forum to answer any questions for anyone else who has questions about this process. It's a long and arduous one, but well worth it. All the best to everyone still waiting in this tough time. Keep holding on!