ghitchi2

Hi Andrew,

I've seen you give lots of people your assessment of their chances of qualifying, so as a glutton for punishment I thought I'd detail my own case and see what you think.

I applied for PR in late April 2004 to the London CHC. My AOR is dated June 30th 2004. At the time of application I had a BSc in Computing and 1.5 years professional experience in that field under my belt (as an ICT Specialist - programmer/tester/maintentance guy).

Since then, I have completed an MA in Economics at Carleton University in Ottawa (3 full time semester, 2 part-time semesters due to timetabling of required courses...so 2-years full-time equivilent), having finished the degree I got a job as Business Analyst, also in Ottawa and am now working here with a post-graduate work-permit.

So...basically, I'm 25 years old, a UK citizen, fluent in English, an MA in Economics and a BSc in Computing, working in a full-time, permanent job in Ottawa for really good wages. I've been working now for 6 months so I've now completed 2 years experience in total. ...living in Canada almost 3 years now...very settled, and in my own humble opinion, a very successful immigrant.

Obviously the number of points I qualify for has changed substantially between applying and today. +5 for education, +5 for adaptability, +2 for experience, ....and from what I gather, depending on what mood they're in on the day of IA, +10 for arranged employment and another +5 for adaptability.

My case therefore appears to have a lot of discretionary lee-way. In your experience do officers tend to use this discretion positively or negatively?

I expect CHC London will be looking at my case very soon if they haven't already. Just wondered if you could add your 2-cents on my chances.

Thanks

Gareth.

Andrew Miller

First - did you submit to CHC London updated evidence of your upgraded education level and years of study in Canada (degree and sealed transcripts), your work permit as well as letter from employer offering to keep you permanently on indeterminate basis after you become a PR and anything else what was not in original package but should be updated? If not then CHC won't grant you any more points. Points for arranged employment are not so automatic as you think either - you should have been working on valid work permit at the time of PR application and have the same at the time of assessment. What you have doesn't meet requirements for Arranged Employment points, so you need another indeterminate job offer with AEO from HRSDC just to assure points.

If you have all of the above then I don't see any selection problems.

ghitchi2

I've sent them quite a few updates. I sent them proof of completion of my degree - official transcript (the thing is like a bank-note, it would be very difficult to make a forgery), plus sealed letter from university department administrator. The transcript has on it which semesters I did which courses so they can see from that that I was enrolled for 5 semesters in total, I'm pretty sure that'll get me the 25 points for education and the 5 for 2 years study in Canada. so +10 to my total compared to my original application.

My job offer said the words "indeterminate period" but didn't mention anything about PR because I'm not sure my employer even realized at the time the job offer was made that I'm not Canadian, it never came up...and work-permit didn't require anything on his part because it was post-graduate. He knows now of course because my SIN number begins with a 9, and I've given him a photocopy of the work-permit for his records.

In any case I'm not really expecting them to award official points for arranged employment, more likely they'd just see it as more reason to use positive discretion if nessesary - since i think mine is a case where the number of points awarded might not be a good reflection of my chances of economic success in Canada - since I'm already economically successful in Canada.

I've also sent them copies of my workpermit, my job offer and my pay-stubs to-date to show that I am in fact working and being paid. I've sent enough pay-stubs for them to be sure I've now got 2-years experience. So +2 compared to original app.

I also sent references from the on-campus employment i had as a student and the volunteer work I did off-campus - voluntary school IT teacher.

Anyways here's the points I'm awarding myself right now:
Age: 10
Experience: 17
Education: 25
Adaptability: 5
Language: 16
= 73 points.
It meets the current pass mark but likely won't anymore if they bump it up again before the visa is issued....given that, I'm hoping my ongoing employment will give them reason enough to use discretion if nessessary.