₦airaland Forum

yacha77:
Hello everybody. Been quiet since I got banned sha, guys gcms is in and I just don't get it. Please help analyse my people. Thanks

Hello Yacha77,

The first thing in your gcms notes the VO was quick to point out or raised concerns about was your Home ties. In general, these are the VO's principal concerns:

1. Home ties: which youve failed to justify that the motivation that would ease or compel your return to you home country wasn't strong enough in assessment of it from the social, economic, or cultural perspective/angle.

If your refusal letter states "home ties in Canada...," don't get confused, it points straight to the available ties in your home country which you should be tackling than panicking because it stated Canada.

2. Purpose of visit: This boils down to your SOP. You failed to market the relation/correlation of your course to your previous studies transcending across its available opportunity in securing a better employment/job opportunity after undergoing a highly expensive foreign education. The VO wonders how is you going to offset the cost of such education and the benefits attached to it.

Maybe you did but the VO wasn't convince about you been a genuine student because you failed to outline the essence of wanting to do such course, whether due to self development, career progression, self fulfilment or aimed to develop your country etc. The VO wasn't concerned about your program or course been off or irrelevant but wasn't convinced about how you market it even if the price tag worth it but the way it was displayed undermined the price - remember, packaging is everything.

3. Financial Status: What many prospective applicant don't know is that most times when an application is refused based on "Personal Assets and Financial Status," doesn't always necessarily comes from the part of the PA but it could also be coming from the side of the sponsor and how the sponsor was able to show is capability to undergo such sponsorship task. Likewise the way an SOP should be well grounded and constructed, so also is the LOS should be. If you is a matured applicant, include your personal SOA and employment documents(if applicable) - this will take care of your Personal Asset especially if you don't have a landed property.

Some applicants just include all documents listed out on NL to show home ties or financial status or other reasonable fact that is perceived to strengthen their application without properly connecting the dots in their SOP likewise in the LOS.

The VO wasn't convinced on your source of income or sponsor's source of income especially if you is a matured applicant but you were able to justify your proof of funds as the VO didn't raise any alarm of insufficient funds like a vibrating early clock at 6am.

Go back to become a sketch artist and make the board useful, put out and analyze your employment situation likewise that of your sponsor and make a convincing and satiating source of funds that can suffice in presenting a steady inflow/flow of funds, do well to work on that of your sponsor also. Don't neglect your sponsor's family composition, assess it and make sure it doesn't outweigh the idea or necessity of your intended sponsorship.

This time, in support of your SOP, draft a LOE to explain the refusal reasons and how your situation has changes.

Good luck!

See esaay ...congrats sillysassysally, big ups.

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving upfront medicals), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance. I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

By the way, there's some happy news, processing time is 9 weeks.

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving upfront medicals), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance. I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Congrats once again. And amen to the prayer.

Kez911:
Not really...I know it's 15k there and takes a week but in lagos I did it 8k in 20mins

Thanks a lot

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving upfront medicals), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance. I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

By the way, I must comment that you are so meticulous. Well done!

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving upfront medicals), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance. I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

You are a very smart individual.

This is brilliant.

You put your heart into this, so impressive.

Congrats again !!!

WOW.

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving upfront medicals), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance. I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Thank you for the mention, its wholeheartedly appreciated. Best of luck in your career chase.

Someone should please volunteer to take the mantle of the Timeline Statistics Data Analysis from Sally, she won't be able to keep the routine in check due to the limited time at her disposal.

Best of luck Sally!

Congratulations! Well deserved

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Hello guys

I earlier mentioned I was called to pick up my processed passport while I had not been called for medicals so to me I assumed it was a refusal.

I was at the centre to pick up my passport and on opening the envelope I saw a slip that said an important mail was sent to my email address and that I should check the spam incase its not in my inbox proper.

Meanwhile the only email I received was the one I mentioned already about notifying me to pick up my processed passport.

No rejection letter and profile on CIC has not been updated as a refusal either.

Anybody with similar experience should help me with next line of action please.

Thanks!

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

How many pages was your SOP?

The theory is justified. Receive correspondence letter in the morning and by evening they send another

AgroNACT:
I concur

Hey sillysassysally congratulations on your visa once again, and thanks for the mention. May God help us to continue to be of help here.
I didn't know AAO7 was female, it's really good to know.

Us women are fewer than the men here, so we need to help each other out as much as we can.

May the Lord give us good success in the careers we've chosen to pursue. Amen!

Cheers.

I think you're supposed to send an email to the email address written on the slip, if you don't find the refusal mail in your email account.

OB411:
Hello guys

I earlier mentioned I was called to pick up my processed passport while I had not been called for medicals so to me I assumed it was a refusal.

I was at the centre to pick up my passport and on opening the envelope I saw a slip that said an important mail was sent to my email address and that I should check the spam incase its not in my inbox proper.

Meanwhile the only email I received was the one I mentioned already about notifying me to pick up my processed passport.

No rejection letter and profile on CIC has not been updated as a refusal either.

Anybody with similar experience should help me with next line of action please.

Thanks!

Bracha:
I think you're supposed to send an email to the email address written on the slip, if you don't find the refusal mail in your email account.

Alright, thanks

I ll do that.

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Is it a first application that took 25days or a reapplication?

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Amen. Thanks and congratulations

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Congratulations Sally!

This was really detailed and so helpful. I appreciate your time. I will work on all point noted.

JustMellow:
Hello Yacha77,

The first thing in your gcms notes the VO was quick to point out or raised concerns about was your Home ties. In general, these are the VO's principal concerns:

1. Home ties: which youve failed to justify that the motivation that would ease or compel your return to you home country wasn't strong enough in assessment of it from the social, economic, or cultural perspective/angle.

If your refusal letter states "home ties in Canada...," don't get confused, it points straight to the available ties in your home country which you should be tackling than panicking because it stated Canada.

2. Purpose of visit: This boils down to your SOP. You failed to market the relation/correlation of your course to your previous studies transcending across its available opportunity in securing a better employment/job opportunity after undergoing a highly expensive foreign education. The VO wonders how is you going to offset the cost of such education and the benefits attached to it.

Maybe you did but the VO wasn't convince about you been a genuine student because you failed to outline the essence of wanting to do such course, whether due to self development, career progression, self fulfilment or aimed to develop your country etc. The VO wasn't concerned about your program or course been off or irrelevant but wasn't convinced about how you market it even if the price tag worth it but the way it was displayed undermined the price - remember, packaging is everything.

3. Financial Status: What many prospective applicant don't know is that most times when an application is refused based on "Personal Assets and Financial Status," doesn't always necessarily comes from the part of the PA but it could also be coming from the side of the sponsor and how the sponsor was able to show is capability to undergo such sponsorship task. Likewise the way an SOP should be well grounded and constructed, so also is the LOS should be. If you is a matured applicant, include your personal SOA and employment documents(if applicable) - this will take care of your Personal Asset especially if you don't have a landed property.

Some applicants just include all documents listed out on NL to show home ties or financial status or other reasonable fact that is perceived to strengthen their application without properly connecting the dots in their SOP likewise in the LOS.

The VO wasn't convinced on your source of income or sponsor's source of income especially if you is a matured applicant but you were able to justify your proof of funds as the VO didn't raise any alarm of insufficient funds like a vibrating early clock at 6am.

Go back to become a sketch artist and make the board useful, put out and analyze your employment situation likewise that of your sponsor and make a convincing and satiating source of funds that can suffice in presenting a steady inflow/flow of funds, do well to work on that of your sponsor also. Don't neglect your sponsor's family composition, assess it and make sure it doesn't outweigh the idea or necessity of your intended sponsorship.

This time, in support of your SOP, draft a LOE to explain the refusal reasons and how your situation has changes.

Good luck!

JustMellow:
Hello agroNACT,

The new development in securing more funding is a welcoming improvement especially towards your financial status to acquire a much focused attention to actually study without thinking to work or panicking to see through your Canadian studies.

The area of your financial status "towards your Canadian/International studies" has been settled amicably but what you now have to focus on is your financial status "towards your family composition" esp if you married. If you ain't married, please ignore this advise of setting of a savings account or that of your spouse will suffice to deposit/save/transfer funds for the well-being or welfare of your family, it doesn't have to be huge maybe 2m - above. This could likewise be explained as an emergency or backup funds for the family to support the earnings of your spouse in your absence as she is gainfully employed.

In justifying your financial status towards your family composition, you can do this:

1. Attach your spouse's employment letter, payslips, CAC(if self employed). No need to include her bank statement to show the emergency funds transferred/saved but you can sound it convincing in your SOP

2. At least you can pay for 3 terms school fees for your kids(if any) then append the receipt to your application.

3. If reside in a lease, show rent payment receipt made/extended, if possible draw out a contract extension lease signed by your land owner and you.

4. If you do business, show evidence or draw a link of your spouse been in charge in your absence.

5. Get your spouse to write a letter of approval/support for your international studies and the provisions made/set aside by you that would cater for their needs and miscellaneous expenses in your absence. Herein, your spouse can then garnish from point 1-4 for you which should also correlate with your SOP.

Also, you done well to include a cosponsor, not that you won't be able to secure your SP as a self sponsored but its a right move getting a cosponsor whether a third party or not BUT I will advise you to change the title to a Sponsor because you is still self sponsored with a closing balance of 1.2m esp if you have a spouse, let the sponsor alleviate that burden.

The sponsor now don't need to pay or transfer a dim for your application purpose, what should be done is to state the responsibility to pay for your flight itinerary and other miscellaneous expenses upon your arrival to help you settle comfortably in the LOS. You might want to consider this:

1. In the LOS, your sponsor should intuitively construct points by points expatiating why the sponsorship and how come you, and what's the share from the benefits of such sponsorship.

2. He should avoid presumptuous/unsure/indirect words like "would/could/might" and rather replace them with "will/can."

3. Your sponsor should rather make a promissory commitment like: immediately your SP is approved or prior to the approval of your SP, that he will take responsibility of your flight and travel itineraries.

4. etc

The requited document for the sponsorship are:

a. Employment letter or CAC certification if self employed

b. Bank statement and other investment certificate(if applicable)

c. Payslips, reference letter, ID

d. Affidavit of sponsorship

e. etc

d. The sponsorship letter likewise your SOP should reflect your funding/scholarship and its sufficiency for your 1st semester tuition fees and living expenses. The funding should be given in the breakdown of how it was awarded, it would make more sense that just summing it up.

In terms of home ties, if you have no or don't have previous connection or work history with the company, don't do ask for an employment letter rather strengthen your home ties to your spouse and landed property, member of a social organization etc except you can improvise a tricky method to show a previous work history with the company.

It will also be advised to construct a LOE to address your refusal reasons to support your SOP.

Any family budget made to cover them in your absence should be a year except if you is capable to stretch it to 2yrs. Also, given that you won't be applying immediately as you awaiting for your gcms notes, try to keep the account you intend to apply with very active and the closing balance shouldn't stay the same - at least top it a little up. If you were to be reapplying immediately then it wouldn't have matter.

BTW don't change any previously stated information but you can rather add to it or reduce or include certain relevant documents.

Try to avoid including too many documents but given its a reapplication, you might also want to include any relevant documents that can buttress you application especially to make it convincing and satiating to the VO.

Good luck!

Wow, what a detailed advice. Thank you so much. God will reward you for your kindness.
I will work on it.

Pls is there schools in canada that dont requre application fees

prety247:
Good day all thanks for vast knowledge shared here to help us.
Pls am 32 yrs old female would love to study in USA. Sorry.
Married wit kids but don't intend traveling wit my family.
Pls I want to know if I have any chances of being admitted for a degree? As I HV non wrote my waec since 2004.
Been doing agricbusiness ND due to marriage had children too.
Or is it safer to seek for a diploma ?
Which schools would you advice I apply to I would love to study agriculture, agricbusiness or Information technology (Networking, hardware or alike cos I love working with you my hands)?
pls help

Congratulations again b @sillysassysally.

Lol yes Bracha...I'm a she

Bracha:
Hey sillysassysally congratulations on your visa once again, and thanks for the mention. May God help us to continue to be of help here.
I didn't know AAO7 was female, it's really good to know.

Us women are fewer than the men here, so we need to help each other out as much as we can.

May the Lord give us good success in the careers we've chosen to pursue. Amen!

Cheers.

Sally dear...congrats again...I am so happy for you girl

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

Ok but I am not the person who requires the information

bukonlami:
I did mine in Lagos for 7500 naira.

Only 6 months to get PR !
If not PR wetin we gain
Nna na wa oh
Deep freezer ke
We die there

JustMellow:
Manitoba is the most favorable to International students, 6 months of a Canadian work experience should qualify you for a PR only if you can stay inside a deep freezer, the province is always/extremely cold

I tire for you oh
You are asking for what you already have.

udomas:
Abeg anyone with Nairobi visa office email? I submitted since 7 March nothing nothing from them o.


nrobi-immigration@international.gc.ca

She better go there and domicile with them and help look for it until it is found.

kniru:
Hello friends,
Please i have a serious issue and i need your help, my sister have applied for her transcript for 6 years now at unilorin , up till today she is yet to get any positive feedback, they said they can’t find it.
Please have anyone had this issue before and how was it resolved ?
She read law.
Thanks

Congratulations again

sillysassysally:
Nairaland Fam!
Thank you all for the congratulatory messages
The past couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster! But knowing that we were all on a similar journey - each one at a different stage - was some sort of comfort.

My Timeline
Applied with upfront medicals – April 14th
Medical Request – May 6th (I was surprised when I got this medical request because I did upfront medicals, so I was wondering why they were still telling me to do medicals). I sent a web form with my e-medical slip attached and I also sent emails to Lagos, London, and Kenya. On May 7th (the day after receiving medical request), I went to the hospital to see the doctor who attended to me and doctor told me that he sent IRCC a message to link my upfront medical ID to my medical request ID.
Medicals passed – May 8th
Correspondence letter and Passport request – May 9th
Overall, my study permit took less than a month to be approved! Specifically, it took 25 days!

Things I believe that worked in my favour
1. The Grace of God that covered all my errors and colored all my efforts.
2. My resumption date (June 17th). I sort of feel that they give priority to people with nearer resumption dates. If you look at the timeline we have, you’d all notice that people resuming closer tend to get their decisions quickly – this does not mean that you should intentionally delay your application. At the end of the day, no one really knows the minds of these VO’s.
3. I have a strong international travel history (USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, etc)
4. I made my submissions as organized as possible. Infact, I did a table of content for each pdf I merged so that whoever was working on my application would easily understand it.
5. I explained all lump sums with proof… (Sometimes, I see people saying things like “they’ll increase the money in their account from 5 million to 10 million” and I feel this raises eyebrows as it would question whether those funds are really available to the applicant.
6. I wrote a banging SOP… details below
7. I was truthful in my application. I have like 5 half-siblings (one living in the US and one living in the UK). I mentioned all of them in my family information form even though I was scared that it could potentially weaken my home ties.

Things I believe were the weak points of my application and how I addressed them
1. This was what I perceived to be the main weakness of my application. I was using student loans as proof of funds for my tuition. Mind you, these loans were from a reputable and internationally recognized company called Prodigy Finance. I addressed this perceived weakness by using a sponsor who was financially capable of paying off all my loans (even though most of her asset were illiquid (land and truck). Also, I believe I was able to show a strong academic and professional track record that indicated that I was financially capable of personally paying off the loans on an installment basis.
2. The name of my sponsor across all her documents was not consistent because she is a divorcee. I addressed this by submitting an affidavit of change of name with a newspaper publication

My advice to prospective PO’s
The truth is that you have to do the hard work yourself... Even though you can easily get guidance here, you still have a lot of homework to do yourself... Understand your profile – its weakness and its strengths and address them.

Documents I submitted
CAQ (Mandatory for students schooling in Quebec)
CIC Forms
Digital Photo
My passport showing all previous visas and stamps
Proof of upfront medical exam
Evidence of work requirement in study (my program comes with co-op)
Letter of Acceptance (Unconditional – though I sent the conditional one via a web form. I also begged them to process my application speedily considering my close resumption. However, my web form was never acknowledged). The other documents I merged with my Letter of Acceptance includes; acceptance deposit receipt, academic qualification documents (such as my certificate, transcript, WAEC certificate and TOEFL results), professional qualification documents (such as my CFA level 1 badge, letter of introduction from current employer, my bio page on my company’s website, work ID, and letters of employment from internships I had done in the past), then other documents (such as my NYSC certificate and my birth certificate).
Proof of financial support – Prodigy Finance loan of about CAD 36k (30K for school fees and 6k for living expenses), Paid acceptance deposit of CAD 5K, Scholarship of CAD 8.5K, Dorm account statement with living expenses of CAD 11K… These were the funds that were budgeted for my studies. Apart from the aforementioned, I had about NGN 1m in stocks, NGN 100k naira in T-bills, NGN 250k in RSA, and NGN 70K in my salary account – all of which I showed. In addition, my sponsor (who was my mother) also had NGN 1.9m in her account, NGN 5m in T-bills and NGN 4 m in RSA. I also showed my sponsors illiquid assets such as landed property with valuation worth NGN 40m and sponsors business asset ownership (trucks) worth NGN 20m. The essence of all of these other funds and documents was just to show that my sponsor could actually pay off my loan. Someone (an Indian) told me that if I was using loans as proof of funds, it was important to use a sponsor whose financial situation showed that they could handle the loan.
Finally, under client information, I included the birth certificates of my siblings, as well as the international passport data page of my sponsor (mother). I also included a letter and affidavit of sponsorship, Sponsors business certificate of incorporation and memorandum of association, and sponsors affidavit of change of name with newspaper publication. Finally, my “banging” SOP was in this section.

SOP
Unfortunately, I cannot share my SOP on this forum because I don’t want a case of copy and paste. My SOP also contains personal information… Nonetheless, I can share the structure.
- I started out with an Intro about myself, as well as my academic and professional trajectory.
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “my purpose” where I spoke about my motivation for the course I wanted to do
- Then I moved to another paragraph I called “Why I chose McGill University” where I spoke about why I decided to opt for Mcgill as opposed to other options in Nigeria and in other countries.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Justifying the cost of my program”. This was important for me to do because – as I mentioned earlier, I was using student loans to finance my education and my school fees is freaking expensive (CAD $ 47,500) so it was important for me to “justify” the cost of my studies to the VO.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Family & Economic ties to Nigeria” where I spoke about my home ties being all my family in Nigeria. I also explained things that would make me return to my home country such as the amazing career I had started in Nigeria (evidenced by all the documents I submitted in my Letter of acceptance). I also spoke about specific things I wanted to use the Msc to achieve in Nigeria.
- Then I moved to another paragraph called “Funds available” where I showed a table of funds I had available.
- Finally, I finished with a section called “My responsibilities as a student” where I explained that I fully understood my responsibilities as an international student in Canada – bounded by the conditions of my student visa and by McGill University. I also wholeheartedly committed to abiding by all the rules and responsibilities that would apply to me as an International student in Canada and at McGill University.
- Then I ended SOP by telling them that their support is very essential to my dreams. I also humbly requested for the issuance of a study permit that was effective on or before the 1st of June 2019, as I wanted to travel to Canada by the 10th of June 2019 to acclimatize and get ready for my schools’ orientation on the 17th of June.

I have gotten so many emails today alone and I’m afraid that I may not be able to reply all in due time, but I would encourage us to share the questions here. There are so many amazing people on this forum that are committed to helping people! Special shout out to all the people doing this! Cc JustMellow, Bracha, etc. I can’t mention you all, but it gives me great joy when I see how selfless you all are to helping out willingly! Only God can reward you all!
On this note, I want to especially thank Frankrobbn1 - this guy is so amazing! He was so interested and committed to helping me that I started to think he was working for IRCC as a spy… I want to also specially thank AAO7 – amazing person! First time I sent her an email, we moved to WhatsApp and chatted all through the night to about 1 am. It was nice having someone to gist with and to both share all the frustrations we faced with the entire process.

Finally, I want to say a word of prayer to all TRV hopefuls…
Dear God,
You are in control of every situation of our lives and you know every one of our needs, as well as the dear desires of our heart.
I pray that in your grace, mercy, favour, and love, you would allow the application of the hopefuls of this thread to be approved quickly and without delay.
Thank You because you are a God who hears and answers the prayers of your children when we come to You with open hands and a humble heart.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

IT SHALL END IN PRAISE!

3 pages

wealthmiq:
How many pages was your SOP?

Hey Bracha are you also a female??

Bracha:
Hey sillysassysally congratulations on your visa once again, and thanks for the mention. May God help us to continue to be of help here.
I didn't know AAO7 was female, it's really good to know.

Us women are fewer than the men here, so we need to help each other out as much as we can.

May the Lord give us good success in the careers we've chosen to pursue. Amen!

Cheers.