ImABule said:
What I don't understand is how different countries processed through Singapore VO have different lengths of time for processing. My wife's country, Indonesia, remains unchanged at 17 months, but Singapore is 13 months, Vietnam 24 months, Thailand 29 months etc. How can one visa office have varying processing times of a year in some cases when they are processing all of these applications together.. Doesn't make sense.
how long it takes to process an application depends on many factors, including the size of the application. some visa officers can handle large applications quicker. if the application is not clear or has a lot of information, it's going to take longer to process.
you have to consider the fact that not all countries have the same relationships. meaning, perhaps part of the issue is that it takes substantially longer for vietnam to respond to security and background checks than singapore. CIC can't force other countries to comply with requests, and they are at the behest of those countries following through. that certainly adds to the reason some countries take longer.
also, the CIC website does not represent an
average processing time. the numbers don't suggest that an average of applications took that time. it suggests 80% of applications were processed WITHIN that time, so a majority were actually processed quicker. for a majority of visa offices, the ACTUAL processing time is significantly lower, especially if no interview is needed. so the long wait time for interviews is going to contribute to the higher statistics too, since they don't separate interviews from non-interviews in the numbers. MikeyMike's wife is from vientam I believe and she was approved in LESS than a year with no interview.
so you can see why it's reallynot worth stressing yourself over, because what you are reading isn't telling you the real story. there really is no reason to wait to continuously check if it changes. it's not going to change. it's always going to look horrible. the best way to get through the wait is to keep an eye out on the information on these boards. that is where you're going to find the truth about what happens.