As applicants for permanent residence (PR) are still being invited by Canada's immigration system, March has seen another round of Express Entry lotteries. A few patterns persisted in the draws from last month, which could help shed further light on how Express Entry might function all year long.
What effects does the makeup of the Express Entry applicant pool have on draw sizes and score cut-offs?
There are certain general patterns that may be seen, even though it might be challenging to comprehend how the composition of the Express Entry pool affects Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cut-offs and draw sizes.
Score distribution and CRS thresholds:
The Express Entry pool's current score distribution is one of the variables that could affect the CRS score cut-offs for future drawings. In determining the next suitable cut-off score for eligible applicants and the size of each draw, the IRCC may be assisted by the pool's CRS scores.
The distribution of CRS within the pool may prove to be a contributing factor even in these cases, regardless of the presence of other factors in the decision-making process (e.g., labour market needs or special immigration policy), as it is a crucial indicator of the degree of adaptability of immigration candidates.
This distribution is also impacted by category-based draws:
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) holds category-based draws for Express Entry candidates in addition to regular CRS score-based draws. These draws especially aim to satisfy the needs of Canada's labour market and demographics by focusing on those with specific professional expertise or language proficiency rather than CRS scores.
When they invite candidates, these draws affect the distribution of scores in the Express Entry pool even if they take into account factors other than CRS scores. Therefore, it would be helpful to consider these drawings while doing analysis.
In the pool, what percentile is your score?
We may also ascertain a score's percentile in relation to the other scores in the Express Entry candidate pool by determining the upper bound of each score range.
Percentiles illustrate how a particular score stacks up against the entire set of scores. A person's percentile score, for instance, would be 52.07% if their CRS score was 420. This indicates that their score is higher than 52.07% of the pool's total scores.
The full score percentile breakdown can be found below:
Score | Percentile (%) |
300 | 2.54 |
350 | 15.89 |
400 | 42.12 |
410 | 47.07 |
420 | 52.07 |
430 | 56.46 |
440 | 61.32 |
450 | 66.12 |
460 | 71.40 |
470 | 77.64 |
480 | 85.71 |
490 | 90.75 |
500 | 94.66 |
600 | 99.53 |
1200 | 100 |