When the federal government conducts Express Entry draws, it does not first decide on a specific cut-off score under the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). Many people believe that the government selects a score and then invites everyone above it. In reality, the process works in the opposite way.
The government first decides how many candidates it wants to invite in a specific draw. It then selects the highest-ranking profiles from the Express Entry pool until it reaches that number. The CRS cut-off score is simply the score of the lowest-ranked candidate who receives an invitation in that round.
This means the cut-off score depends entirely on the scores of candidates in the pool at the time of the draw.
A simple example can help explain this. Imagine a basketball team captain who wants to choose the five tallest players. The captain selects the five tallest people available. If the shortest among those five is 6’2”, it may appear that the captain chose players who are at least 6’2” tall. However, the captain did not set 6’2” as a rule. The captain simply picked the five tallest players. The height of 6’2” is just the result of that choice.
Express Entry draws work in the same way. The government invites the top-scoring candidates. The CRS cut-off score is the result of selecting a set number of top profiles. It is not the reason candidates were chosen.
In other words, the government does not invite candidates simply because they are above a certain score. It invites them because they rank among the highest-scoring profiles in the pool at that time. The cut-off score simply shows where the last invited profile ranked.
Sometimes, more than one candidate may have the same CRS score at the cut-off point. In this case, the government applies a tie-breaking rule. This rule is based on the date and time when the profile was submitted. Candidates who submitted their profiles earlier receive invitations, while those who submitted later do not.
An increase in CRS cut-off scores can happen for several reasons. It may occur if the government holds smaller draws or conducts them less often. It can also happen if many new high-scoring profiles enter the pool or if existing candidates improve their scores.
In the end, the government decides how many invitations to issue and which types of candidates to target. The cut-off score is simply the outcome of those decisions.
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