Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

Hello! It's my second post, you were all so helpful and informative on the last one so I decided to post again!


Right, we have decided to go down the path (or should I say rabbit hole!) of applying under Skilled Immigrants EE :)

I've booked myself and my now wife on our IELTS tests for March, and I've applied to have my nursing degree assessed by the NNAS (I'm not hopeful about that, but I've got to give it a go!)

So the next thing to be done is to get our degree's, A levels, and GCSE's assessed and verified!

I see there are several comparative services that the CIC endorse;

• University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies
  
• International Credential Assessment Service of Canada
  
• World Education Services
  
• International Qualifications Assessment Service
  
• International Credential Evaluation Service

So, for people who have gone through this process...

1. Who did you use?
2. How long did it take (TSCS states it's currently at 17 weeks turnaround time!)
3. What is this going to cost me? At a brief look at each of the websites costing wasn't apparent. Any ballpark figures anyone can throw me?

As always your expertise and advice is muchly appreciated :)

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

1. Most just use whoever has the quickest processing times at the time of applying.

2. TSCS might be 17 weeks, but others are much quicker. For example, WES is stating a current processing time of 20 business days on their website - https://www.wes.org/ca/evaluations-and-fees/eca/. They're usually pretty accurate.

3. $200 according to the WES website (see above), I think all the others are the same price but they do all say what they charge somewhere on their website, you just might have to hunt around for it.

HTH.

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

Thankyou very much :)

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

No probs - note I amended my post above, I typed 7 business days without checking, as that's what it was last time I looked, but today it's saying 20 business days. Doh! Sorry. :o

Still quicker than 17 weeks by quite some way though!

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

Under no circumstances use University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. A friend of mine did this and it took 30 weeks beginning to end. He nearly ran out of time to get his application sorted and a BOWP application approved before his TWP expired.

Note if you have a degree you do not also need to get GSCEs and A levels done. Only the degree.

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

We used WES but it took longer than we thought... I'll have to look up the timescales but I think the 20 days to process was after we applied, figured out what to send them, sent it via air mail and them checking they were the right documents.

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

1. WES
2. WES said they'd take 20 days once they'd received the documents. Around day 18 I had an online PDF and I think it was day 20 that my post report arrived.
I had three qualifications assessed, 1 college and 2 university.
College sent the next day but it turned out that it had to actually be the awarding body (Pearson) rather than the college. Pearson took around a week to send.
Manchester Met University took around 2 weeks.
Lancaster University said it would be up to a month and it was exactly that.
3. WES Fee: £141 (may have changed due to exchange rate change)
Pearson fee for college documents: £60
Manchester Met fee: £0
Lancaster fee: £60
My girlfriend went to Salford University doing Nursing, Salford charged £30 and took around 3 weeks.
All up for me with 3 qualifications it was: £261
My girlfriend with 1 qualification it was: £171


Her NNAS registration fee was around £500.


Just for your information, so far, all costs for me and my girlfriend for Express Entry, her nursing registration and my engineering registration plus all other costs such as medicals, IELTS etc. is:
£3578

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

Good information, 30 weeks is insane.

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

I just checked and I submitted my application on 17th September 2017, the documents were posted by my universities by the end of September, and I received the electronic copy of the report on 7th November 2017.

One of my Uni's sent the document without charge, for the other I had to pay £5 for the certificate and £25 for international postage I believe. The cost of the WES evaluation was CAN$200.

Re: Questions about ECA from you wonderful people!
 

We used WES too. I submitted my application on the 8th May 2017 and got the PDF report on the 30th May (Royal Mail delivered the envelope two weeks later) and my wife submitted hers on the 20th May and got the PDF report on the 7th July (there were some complications, which explains why it took them longer to process). Cost was CAD200 plus taxes (roughly around CAD240), which includes CAD7 for the standard delivery option. You can get a courier service for a lot more.