But this changed on July 8, 2020 when hopeful prospective candidates - like us - woke up to the news of all-program draw being resumed after 4 months of dormancy.
Even though the cutoff CRS score was an all time high of 478, it wasn't as high as I had expected keeping in mind that the last draw was months ago and had a cutoff score of 471.
A peek into the past
Based on my data analysis (for all-program draws data going back to March 2019), a draw is conducted every 11 business days with few exceptions.
May 29, 2019 draw was conducted 21 days after the previous draw on May 1, 2019, which deviated from the regular cycle by one missed draw. This brief disruption resulted in a jump of 20 points in CRS cutoff score (from 450 to 470)!
Similarly, October 30, 2019 draw was 21 days after its predecessor resulting in a jump of 11 points in CRS cutoff score (from 464 to 475)!
The missed all-program draw allowed room for a specialized draw for Federal Skilled Trade stream, PNP stream, etc. Please refer to the graph below that relates CRS Cutoff Score to Draws (since March 2019).
Few critical observations that need to be highlighted in case of a missed draw:
1. Cut-off score jumped to an all time high level till that point (red arrows in the graph). Till May 29, 2019 draw, CRS cutoff had never been as high as 470. Similarly, CRS cutoff was never as high as 475 till October 30, 2019 draw!
This is because of "pile-up" effect due to a missed draw. Thousands of candidates that may have had ITAs issued in missed draw crowded the following draw. Also, new candidates entered pool at a consistent rate and there is an upward movement of candidates in the pool. This resulted in overcompensation of CRS cutoff to issue ITAs to backlogged candidates. This does make statistical sense because what happened between these unusually distant draws was allocation of candidates at an expected rate.
2. After the expected jump in CRS cutoff score, correction begins in the form of a steep decline in CRS cutoff scores (green arrows). Merely 4 draws after the one that marked an epic high of 470, cutoff scores dropped below 460. Similar story can be narrated for October 2019 episode.
This is expected. Since after draws resume at a normal rate, scores begin to normalize as "crowding" candidates from missed draw begin to receive ITA's. This should help calm some anxious souls!
3. This is where the rub lies. Correction is steep but never as steep as to drop the CRS cutoff scores to "the way things were". On May 1 2019, CRS cutoff was 450, it hiked to 470 due to a missed draw, and ultimately receded to 459 after four normal draws. That is still 9 points higher than before the missed draw. And on October 2, 2019, cutoff was 464, that ballooned by 11 points to 475, before deflating back to 469 after two months - still 5 points here than before the missed draw.
This is the trickiest of all to decipher but my best guess is that it's the norm! Even if there was no sudden hike, eventually the Cutoff scores would increase albeit at a slower pace. This is because there is a continuous push by candidates to move upward in rank (by retaking language test, or even earning a diploma or a graduate degree, etc.) which results in net positive movement because drop-offs (due to aging, ITAs received, etc.) are not as high. Hence this slow, but steady, upward crawl prevents scores to fall to as low as they were before. Unless there is a missed draw or some other extraordinary situation, candidates should not expect cut-off scores to go down (at least not significantly).
This is disconcerting for people who are daunted by latest cutoff of 478 and were expecting (because of observation # 2) a steep decline. Please continue to read for a ray of hope!
COVID - AN ABNORMALITY LIKE NONE OTHER
Now let's get back to today! After 3 months of abstention, there was a jump in cutoff score of 8 points! If historical data is to be used for extrapolation, I would expect a hike to the tune of 20-30 points or more! (Imagine a cutoff score of 500+!!).
This abnormally dampened jump can be attributed to the fact that WE ARE NOT LIVING IN NORMAL TIMES. COVID-19 has essentially shut the world down. Folks cannot gather documents such as ECA and most important give IELTS in most of the countries. After such a major gap, total number of candidates have dropped from previous draw (by 300) - this is perhaps the first of its kind! Even if by a small margin, I have noticed an increase in total number of candidates in future draws. COVID has resulted in more drop offs than upward movement!
This is again expected. It is becoming exceptionally difficult (or impossible in most cases) to take (or retake) language tests or request documents during this time. This has resulted in people having to wait till things "open up" before they can attempt to move upward in rank, or even enter express entry.
And this is a ray of hope for people who had all their documents sorted out before COVID caused shut downs. There is a decent chance that as we see a "corrective" decline in CRS cutoff scores, it may actually go quite low - lower than in examples provided above. This is because all the factors that prevented scores to drop further (the upward crawl of candidates) is missing (or halted to a vast extent).
Whether cutoff score will drop to as low as ours, is to be seen!
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