Thank you for creating this platform for us to discuss and share our knowledge.
I am currently working in the Bay area as a Solutions Architect and started considering seriously about Canadian PR a couple of weeks ago.
During my research, I felt equally excited and confused.
I shall try to explain why I said this, but before that, my brief background:
Age: 36
Nationality: Indian
Education: Masters from the USA
Work Exp: Appx 10 years
Canada Exp: 0
IELTS: Yet to take
I went through the CRS calculator plugging my details and my score looks like somewhere between ~410- 420, which does not look like a good score at all.
But, apart from achieving a great IELTS score, it seems I don’t have any other leverage to improve my score!
That’s where my confusion is, please help/suggest me:
If someone does not have any Canadian experience, then it seems like he/she will struggle to score more than ~430/450. Am I missing something?
FSWC cut-off scores are pretty high (~440 or above)
The distribution of scores in 2017, looks like a lot of people received ITA at a score less than 400 (in the range 350-400)
How all these things are possible to happen a the same time?
And finally, what would be your suggestion for me?
Should I apply with a 410-420 score? What are my possibilities to improve the score?
CRS cutoff keeps increasing/decreasing (just like the stock market), the higher the demand (and thus the backlog), the higher the cutoff goes. This changes from fortnight to fortnight (they give ITA’s every couple of weeks or so, as you can see from the cutoff trends.)
Try simulating 8.0+ on IELTS and see how your score changes. It seems you should be scoring well on experience and your age isn’t that much to score less. At this point I would recommend that you (and maybe your spouse) take the IELTS asap and try to get the maximum score possible. Then create a profile and see what CRS score you (or your spouse) actually get (the CRS calculator was a bit off when I simulated my score; I actually received a lot higher than what it was simulating). You just need the ITA once, and the cutoff score might dip down again given that DHS isn’t going to cancel H1B extensions atleast for now .
Check out other posts on this forum that has addressed questions about how to improve the score. However, the longer you wait, the lesser you score on age.
Thank you and your response is extremely helpful.
It seems a small change in IELTS numbers in each section (reading, writing, speaking and listening) impacts the overall to a great extent.
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