Question for seniors...one of my received NOI and his points were only 403 and mine currently is 418. How many of all feel that we have a chance of low scores this year? Is CIC getting tougher these days?
I am assuming (could be wrong) your actual question is that whether you/your friend should go for the NOI, or wait for CRS cut-off to drop below 420? If that's the case, I would recommend to go for the NOI. Although, as mentioned on this thread by experts, there will/should be a month, this year, with 3 draws, that will drop the CRS cut-off (in my assumption to around 430-440), we don't know what month that would be. But regardless, I highly doubt it will come down to 420 (reasoning below).
'One' of the purpose of NOI (PNPs) is to pick up legitimate candidates with a score between 400-430; so this is going to be an increasing trend moving forward, where most of the candidates with a score between 400-430 will (should) opt-in for their NOIs, as soon as they get one.
Above is my assumption, based on factors such as i) increasing popularity of 'Express Entry' all over the world (ii) bad global-image of immigration in US, resulting in large influx of H1-Bs (iii) political situation in Canada: with next year election (and JT's disapproval rates and Jagmeet Singh's NDP selection), there are high chances that NDP could take up % of Liberals votes , giving an unfair advantage to Conservative party, which has been known to curtail immigration in the past; I don't expect conservatives to completely stop the Express Entry program, but we could, for sure, foresee reductions in quotas.