Personal history in the past 10 years - high school?

Hello!
I’m filling out the application after having received the ITA. One of the sections asks to provide the details of my personal history in the last ten years (or since his/her 18th birthday if this was less than ten years ago). Unfortunately, my last 10 years overlaps with my high school education (I’m probably dating myself here…). I’m asking because of-couse I didn’t get my high school diploma evaluated. So I’m in a dilemma. If I didn’t add my high school experience, then it wouldn’t meet the 10-year requirement. But if I included my high school, would they ask for my high school diploma or to get it evaluated?

Thanks!

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What specific details are you asking about, education details? The ECA is only for the highest degree achieved so you can get points awarded for this degree. You can provide them names of your schools, colleges, etc but no documents or ECA are required outside of the ECA you already have. You’re now past ECA, etc this is now the real application :smile:

Few question regarding personal history:

  1. Do we have to include internships in the personal history? Generally one does an internship under CPT (which is a part of the course as you are still enrolled in university for 1 credit). The internship duration gets covered under the total duration of study.
  2. Do I need to include my TA / RA work? It would be counted as part-time as it was 20 Hr / Week, but again it would look like I was doing it in parallel.

Any thoughts? @anon25417004

Your TA/RA work is probably not full-time work so it won’t go under “work experience”, but you may include it in your personal history. Basically it overlaps with your studies so you can just say Masters 2015-2017, for example. You can include CPT internships that you do in between as full-time work experience if they are , paid, full-time and you can get reference letters for them; it might add to your total work experience. Sometimes students do 40 hours of RA work during summer in their Unis so in that case you can include that under your work experience. I included both my full-time CPTs outside uni as work experience and also got reference letters for those. I did not include my TA/RA/PhD fellowship since it was part-time and overlapped exactly with my studies. In my time (yes I’m 100 years old), we did not have to take credits for internships so it was separate from studies.

True, but the internship exceeds my 3 year bracket, I don’t have reference letters for those and it would be a big hassle to get them. CPT as you stated can be included in personal history so that I declare that. However, I didn’t declare my internship, though it was full time, since it was outside my 3 year window. I did join the same company later and got a letter for the full time position that I was there for.

You can still declare the internship/CPT but not count it towards your work experience that’s fine. Then they won’t ask for reference letters.

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Everyone,

@vignesh.pr @avj @vik @sourabh.deshkulkarni

I have got decent score in IELTS, (L:8,R:9,S:7.5,W:7.5) with 453 as my CRS score. I have put only 1 year of my full time work experience under OPT. Although, I have another 1 year of full-time, paid experience under CPT but not sure if that would be counted as well.

Even with my OPT, I have been working as full-time from August 2017 but completed my graduation (Capstone Project - Submission) in December 2017. So will the immigration authorities count my work experience from December 2017 onward or August 2017? If the latter will be considered then I would apply for ITA in early September otherwise it would be December 2018.

Can I also add my CPT period (Full Time and Paid ) experice towards my work experience, although, CIC website states that Co-ops and Internships are not considered towards Full Time experience ?

Any advise would be appreciated.

TIA

Hi Aditya,

My 0.02 Cents

Visa status and work experience are not related. If you are working full time / 40 Hours per week, if its not an internship and can get detailed experience letters from the companies you have worked for, show proof with pays tubs - It is counted [ should match with NOC that you are choosing] . They wouldn’t check if you are on H1B or OPT.

Note: If its GA kind of a job, no It will not be counted. I will let others share their thoughts on this.

Regards,
Kapil Chandra

@kapilchandra
Thanks for the quick reply !

But aren’t we supposed to mention our graduation years (2014-2017) in the ITA application, this would automatically makes any Full Time Work Experience within this period as CoOp or Full Time. Even the positions mentioned on my Reference letter would make be like Software Developer Intern.

TIA

Answers from CIC website:

Can I count work experience that was part of my education toward the work requirement?
No. Co-op terms and apprenticeships completed before graduating do not count as skilled work experience. They are considered part of an educational program.

The work experience you can use to apply for the Canadian Experience Class must not have been gained while studying full time on a student permit (for example, experience gained while on a co-op work term).

I think Research/Teaching Assistantships definitely fall under the no category (co-ops and apprenticeships). I’m not so sure about the CPT thing. If you want to be sure you could get a letter from the university saying you had completed all requirements for graduation except capstone in Aug 2017 as well as add the offer letter you might be able to get past this strict requirement. Did you earn a credit for CPT? If not then really it wasn’t related to getting your degree.

Honestly, CIC is never going to ask you for your visa status while working on a particular job. You can be honest and submit the CPT as a full-time paid work experience at the same time add your degree whenever you did it. This way you are being totally honest and best case they ignore it and give you points, worst case they dont. Any way you have a good enough score to nudge past the latest cutoff without the CPT.

The important sentence here is They are considered part of an educational program. In that sense even OPT is considered part of a program even though you have graduated and CIC accepts it. But then one can make the argument that you were already qualified to do the work related to both the CPT and OPT when you first got qualified to work in this field. i.e. after Bachelors.

Other questions I came across on their FAQs

Can I count part-time work toward the work experience requirement?
You can count part-time work toward the work experience requirement, as long as you were not a full-time student at the time.

However, you must have gained the equivalent amount of experience as someone who worked full-time for at least one year (1560 hours)

Your work experience must be:

in the same type of job as your primary NOC
within the last 10 years
paid work (volunteer work, unpaid internships don’t count)
at skill type 0, or skill levels A or B of the 2016 National Occupational Classification (NOC)
at least 1 year (1,560 hours total / 30 hours per week), continuous:
full-time at 1 job: 30 hours/week for 12 months = 1 year full time (1,560 hours)
equal amount in part-time: 15 hours/week for 24 months = 1 year full time (1,560 hours)
full-time at more than 1 job: 30 hours/week for 12 months at more than 1 job = 1 year full time (1,560 hours)

Even the positions mentioned on my Reference letter would make be like Software Developer Intern.

I had added all my 3 internships I did during Masters and PhD (CPTs,OPTs) and they accepted it. I think you should be honest and add everything properly (with reference letters etc.) and let IRCC decide.

No, I did not get any credits for my internships. We just get Fail (F) / Pass § depending upon our employer’s feedback.

Yes, I will get Reference Letters from all my employers and will add my W2 forms.

Did you have Intern mentioned on your Reference Letters and were they accepted by CIC ?

Thanks

Yes “intern” was mentioned on it.

I have similar question. I had started full time CPT as Graduate Technical Intern from June 2015. But starting August once school started it became part time until May 2016 during which I ran out of all CPTs. I restarted the full time internship in the same company with higher pay per hour on OPT from July 2016. But I still had a semester to graduate during which I was part-time student only doing project and graduated in Dec 2016. I then switched companies and started regular full time from May 2017 till present. I was thinking if I should only include OPT time but based on answers here I am confused if I should also include CPT time because except a gap from May 2016 - July 2016 (was waiting for STEM OPT EAD) I was practically employed throughout and if i can add CPT time it would increase my work experience to 3 years and that would fetch me more points. Any thoughts if I should include CPT time?

You can/should include CPT/OPT/Full-time work. Part-time work is also acceptable just multiply the time in days x 0.5. As long as you can get the reference letters for these. Don’t include RA/TA etc.

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hey, did you include your TA experience in personal history even if it coincides with the study?

@ankita1 - Yes if I recall I did. As a TA I was paid for that work, it wasn’t a full time. But if they go validate / verfiy with the school they will see that I employed.

thank you for the reply. Also, in personal history i mentioned student organization in the activity “Organization” . There is a question “Have you listed all of [Applicant]'s periods of military service or government positions (if any), and all of the organizations that [Applicant] belongs to (if any)?” Do i select yes, no or NA? most people say it is mostly for millitary and government positions and if one says yes, schedule A is requested. Could you please share your experience?

How did u fill this detail?I am also stuck at this.