sushiblue said:
My husband is the primary applicant for our CEC application. We submitted the application in March, and just received a letter telling us that we are in queue for assessment, and giving us the file number. The letter also tells us that we need to get take the medical exam within 60days to avoid delaying our application, however the letter is dated July 7, and we only just got it this week!
I am confued about the process, as I thought that they do not request a medical exam unless they have assessed and you are okay to go ahead to the next step. Can someone enlighten me on what the next steps are?
Traditionally, the sequence was: AOR (the letter with the file number), IA (Initial Assessment) with medical request, PPR (passport request = approved). Earlier this year, they started sending medical requests before IA. I got my medical request 2 months after my AOR, and many people who applied more recently are getting medical requests with their AORs, as you did.
The only downsides are
1) medicals are valid for 1 year, and you must land with valid medicals, so if processing takes a very long time, you might have to do medicals again;
2) if your application is rejected, you will have wasted your time and money getting examined.
1) is really not a problem unless you do medicals before receiving AOR. (And maybe not even then.) 2) is a risk, but if your application gets rejected you'll already have wasted tons of money anyway (application fee, IELTS, police certificates etc.). And most applications are approved.
The rest of the process depends in part on how quickly you do your medicals. You do
not have to do them within 60 days, but if you want your application processed quickly, you should do them as soon as possible. The reason is, at some point (hopefully within 1-2 months for you), a visa officer will review your application "properly" (someone already reviewed it before sending your AOR, but they didn't read it in detail). As soon as that happens, they will look you up in the system and see if there are medical results for you. If your medicals are in the system and they don't need any other, unrelated documents, they can approve you then, without sending an IA. Otherwise, they'll send an IA, and eventually check again to see if your medicals are there.
Quite a few people (at least on certain websites) had been doing "medicals in advance" because they had figured out that if the medicals are done by the time the application is reviewed, you jump straight to PPR and save 2 months or so. CIC was, apparently, smart enough to recognize this as well; it's less work for them and less waiting for us.
