In my previous post, I talked about the usual process in immigrating to Canada and ITA. To be able to create a MyCIC profile, you need two important documents; your IELTS general training result (Test Report Form Number) and an ECA Number. You should also be listing down your start and end dates for each company that you have worked for. If you can, secure a Certificate of Employment (CoE) from each.

In the Philippines, there are two organizations that conduct IELTS general training exam, IDP and the British Council. We (My wife and I) took our tests from IDP because it’s cheaper by a few hundreds. You may opt to go to a review center, which will cost you a lot. Of course you can always review on your own. I recommend the Cambridge IELTS series (7 to 10). IELTS is really not that hard, you just need to practice, practice and practice. I did not go to a review center because I’m a “cheap person” and since I’m not that good in English, I studied for 2 months (bugging my wife and friends from time to time to interview me as a practice for the speaking exam). IELTS is expensive and it will be a waste to take it more than once (so retaking is not an optiton), and yes, you can retake it if you are not satisfied with your score. Note though that if you will be retaking IELTS, you will be retaking all the disciplines (Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking) which may or may not preserve your previous score if it’s already good. Results are usually out in 13 days.

Education Credential Assessment (ECA) verifies that your education outside Canada is valid and at par with the education in Canada. There are a couple of designated organizations that can do this for you. The most popular are WES and CES.

We chose WES since their processing timeline is much faster than CES. Requirements are English diploma and transcript of records. If you are from the University of the Philippines, which issues diploma in Filipino by default, you need to have it translated to English. UP can do it for Php50 per copy. TOR from UP is English by default, so you’re good.

After securing your English diploma and TOR, you can now create a profile in WES. Pay the fee, then print the form that will be signed by the university registrar, you will then bring this to the registrar for signing. Note that you will be the one to send the diploma, while the university is the one to send the transcript of records together with the form from WES.

UP can give you options, whether they will be the one to send the sealed envelope containing the form and TOR, or you. We chose the latter and we ensured that the sender is the registrar by putting in the UP registrar’s office’s address. We used DHL to send it to Canada and the results are out (online) after two weeks. I received the hard copy after 1 month since the online result has been posted.

Now you have the two critical requirements to create an online profile. You can now determine your eligibility by going to this site. After this process, you will receive an email with your Personal Reference Code. This will be used to speedup the creation of your application in MyCIC.

To create a MyCIC profile, go to MyCIC website and register for a GC Key. You will be needing this to log-in to your MyCIC profile. Once you are able to access your MyCIC you can now create your application. Under “Apply for” section, click Visitor visa, study and/or work permit button. You can also determine your eligibility here, but since you already have your personal reference code, you can enter it into the field provided. Once you have entered the code, most of the forms will now be populated. Complete the forms. After completion, if you are eligible, you will receive an email regarding instructions in creating a job bank profile and linking it to your MyCIC profile. After the linking, the system will determine your points based on your age, work experience, language availability and education. You’re all set, all you have to do now is to wait for your profile to be drawn. You can check current round and previous rounds  to check the cutoff for each draws.

For more information, you can check this forum. So far this is the best forum where you can get almost real-time conversations about the express entry.

We created our profile and applied last January 28 with 451 points. For the pass two draws, we felt that we need to increase our points so I asked my wife to also take the IELTS. With her result, we got 471 points and on the 6th draw last March 27 (March 28 our time), we got our ITA.

I will be detailing the next processes post ITA in the next entry. Stay tuned.

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