daisy1:
PPR ALERT!!
My PPR came in today at 7am.
I am a first time applicant and I have had a USA B1 visa refusal before.
BACKGROUND
My initial target was to go to the UK to school because everyone I spoke to said Canada was hard to get into. Last year I applied to about 5 schools, 2 in UK and 3 in Canada.
Fanshawe responded really quickly, I almost didn't take it as I wanted George Brown, they had a course a bit closer to what I currently do, but one mind was like, just take what you see first, so I accepted their offer and I paid 9k CAD using my GTBank USD card. 2-3 months later, none of the other schools I applied to accepted me, George brown I really wanted, said my study gap was more than 5 years as the last time I was in school was in 2011.
I then came on nairaland and I read as much as I could from here, I even asked questions and I got responses. In my case, I have a fulltime job and 2 different side gigs, that pay me monthly so I needed to know if this would not affect me as I am self-funded.
THE APPLICATION
I did not need to write IELTS or verify my documents via WES.
My application to Fanshawe was done via www.applyboard.com.
I wrote my SOP myself, ensuring that I use headlines to break it so that it doesn't become a long read. One key thing I did here was explain how as an accounting graduate, I pivoted into Marketing. I treated my SOP as a story, ensuring that I hit the high notes really quickly without boring or oversharing irrelevant information. The headlines and a brief synopsis for what each section contains can be found below:
YOUR NAME
The Visa Officer,
Deputy High Commission of Canada,
Lagos Nigeria.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
- Introduction: In this section, I gave my name, a bit of my educational background and the course I want to go and study in Canada. I ended this section with saying how this course will improve my career
ABOUT ME
In this section, I gave some info about my family, If you are married, state that, have kids, state it here
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
in this section, I gave more information about my education, I only have a BSC in accounting, so to set the ball rolling for why I want to take a different path in my studies, I stated why I am making the switch to a different course of study.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
in this section, I talked about my work experience, showing a clear progression of my career from after university to date.
REASONS FOR PURSUING (INSERT YOUR COURSE NAME HERE) COURSE IN CANADA
here I talked about why pursuing this course in Canada was important to me, in my case it was very important to get an additional degree in the field I currently work in, if I wanted to advance in my career.
WHY FANSHAWE COLLEGE IN CANADA?
ExIplain why you chose this school and not any other. It would be great to look through your school's website and find out what makes them standout and add it in this section.
SPONSORSHIP OF MY CANADA STUDY TRIP
Explain who is sponsoring the trip, if you are self sponsored like me, state how much you earn monthly, if you paid any part of your fees, state it here, state how much you have kept aside for upkeep. If you are sponsored by someone, tell the story about why this person will pay your fees, show a clear relationship and also state their monthly revenue or salary.
MY FUTURE PLAN
here I talked about what I will do with the Canadian degree when I return to Nigeria
Overall, Make sure you stick to the point, tell a clear story about your life. The general rule of thumb for font size/type on SOP is times new roman, size 12 with a line spacing of 1.5 (I don't know if this is important, but it does make your writeup look neater.
THE SUBMISSION
I submitted my application on March 30, these are documents I submitted
I used the GCKey portal to submit.
- All the IMM forms
- Letter of acceptance
- Passport
- Digital photo
- Medical e-sheet
- Proof of funds (MBS for my USD account as well as MBS for my Naira account, Payment receipt from Flywire to fanshawe)
- Client Information (see all the documents below)
- SOP
- Invoices I sent to clients for my side gig
- My Payoneer account print out (if you are a freelancer, you will know what this is)
- A picture of my car
- My car ownership papers
- My old scheghen visa
-My full time job contract showing clearly that I am still going to be working for them, I am not on leave. This was my home tie. I did not need a study leave letter because of this.
- Shares certificate I received from this fulltime job.
THE WAIT
This is the timeline after submission
- Upfront medical IOM - March 20
- Apllication was submitted - March 30
- Confirmation of application - March 31
- Biometrics letter - March 31
Biometrics done - April 5
Then silence...
I scheduled emails via my gmail to send to the IRCC emails, Newyork, beijing, nairobi at least once a day. I just scheduled the email for 10 days in like 1 hour and I just left it, same email no changes and my subject line was URGENT - STUDY PERMIT.
May 30 - Medical passed
June 8 - Correspondence letter (BVL)
Then silence again, it was unusual as BVL comes a few hours before PPR but mine didn't, so I started researching again. Then angie88 told me to create an account via https://ircc-tracker-suivi.apps.cic.gc.ca/en/login to check if I would see my visa document number. On June 9, I checked and my visa and study permit numbers were there under the Document status. I sent a couple of emails but I got a generic response.
THE FINAL APPROVAL.
During the weekend, I had scheduled like 42 emails to go out to all IRCC offices starting from 10am today, but at 7am, I got the PPR. I had to stop all the scheduled emails immediately
June 19 - PPR
TIMELINE
- Upfront medical IOM - March 20
- Application was submitted - March 30
- Confirmation of application - March 31
- Biometrics letter - March 31
- Biometrics done - April 5 (Updated on GCkey same day)
- May 30 - Medical passed
- June 8 - Correspondence letter (BVL)
- June 19 - PPR Congratulations @daisy1 I'm also a prospective student for 23F. I sent you an email. Looking forward to connect with you. |
Travel / Re: Canadian Student Visa Thread Part 22 by onadebi(m): 10:13am On Jul 18, 2023