April 2NL analysis

OK – so we have an update of the CEAC data, but I was able to grab all the data a few hours after the “In Transit” update to the data. What does “In Transit” mean – that status is the point when KCC updates the status on cases that just received the 2NL and it is before the embassy “accepts” or receives the case (when the case will show as ready). Once the embassies accept the case we can see where the 2NLs have gone – but at this point we can see the number of 2NLs per region. So – first of all – let’s see  how many 2NLS were sent by region – and my estimation of how many selectees that represents (with derivatives). Also – I have added some columns showing how many of these cases came from cases that were current before the April VB increase, and how many are current from the new range of cases current in April. This is important as it gives a clue of how many cases are still not processed.
Feb252NL

 

When KCC set the VB numbers they already know exactly how many cases have completed their DS260 processing and are current – so when they chose the VB numbers they very deliberately chose to schedule this number of interviews – 3482 globally. I’ll be doing some comparisons to last month – but that looks like where they want to be.

However, you can see that in Africa for instance only 376 cases are April numbers – 1256 are cases that were already current but only just completed their DS260 processing. We also know now that those cases we submitted (mostly) during September (October 5 is the latest submission date I have seen – and would be very interested if you know different).

So – Africa could not increase very many cases in the last VB because 1256 cases were already current and processed when they decided how many cases to increase AF in the VB. This is higher than other regions and supports my hypothesis that the AF VB number started higher than KCC would have liked and the late submissions could keep the jumps lower for a couple more months at least.

The data itself is available in my latest CEAC data update.

 

 

So – what does this mean for the next Visa Bulletin?

I am assuming that KCC will ant to increase the interviews a little. The issued visas are behind the targets I would expect, so I am going to assume next month they will want to schedule slightly more interviews than this month. To predict the VB progress we simply have to guess whether the cases will come from new numbers or old numbers (old meaning cases that are already current before the new VB is released.

 

Africa

Comparing AF to the other regions we can  see that this issue is not so pronounced in other regions as it is in AF. Given the large number of current cases still showing “at NVC” for AF region (13020 out of 20485 cases current), we can expect the same scenario next month.   That means the VB increase will be low again – perhaps around 34XXX to 35XXX. I had previously been expecting up to around 37XXX.  Increasing to 34000 for example would make 1203 cases current and around 500 of those will have completed DS260 processing based on progress so far. It is reasonable to assume they will pick up at least 1000 processed cases from AF from cases under 30700. So – let’s assume they want to interview 2000 cases for AF (which is more than they chose to interview this month) – they could easily get that many cases without going over 36000 (1952 cases between 30700 and 35999).

 

Europe

EU had about an equal split between “old” cases and “new” cases this month. They have 10326 cases “at NVC” still out of 15962 current cases. It is likely that they will continue to get around half of their interviews from “old” cases next month, and if we assume they will need around 1500 interviews, we only need to see 750 or so come from new case numbers.  Using the same logic as above, that could be done with a VB number of 32XXX to 33XXX.

Asia

AS seems to have had less problem with the DS260 submission. I think that is largely due to the large agencies in Nepal who probably achieved most submissions early. Out of the 4470 cases already current, only 1794 are still “at NVC” and most of the interviews for May will come from new cases. If we assume that they will want to interview 450 cases – I would expect 300 to come from new cases. Using the same logic as above I expect the VB for AS to increase to 53XX to 54XX.

 

South America

SA has 571 out of 957 cases at NVC. Again, they seem to have taken about half their cases from old cases, and will probably need about 50 new cases next month. That should need a VB of 1100 to 1150.

 

Oceana

OC have 563 cases at NVC out of 907. I expect that to mean a VB number between 1050 and 1100.

 

Summary

OK – so those are my predictions for May interviews. I have said before I grew to hate doing predictions because people connect inaccuracy on the monthly predictions with cluelessness on the final numbers (which are more significant/important in my opinion. However, I did these predictions last month and was pretty accurate and I feel that we have so much better understanding now with the increased amount of data we are getting from CEAC that we can be pretty comfortable with these predictions. However there are still many unkowns and we will see some more twists and turns before the year is done.

But to be clear my predictions for the next VB (May interviews) are:-

AF – 34XXX to 35XXX.

EU – 32XXX to 33XXX.

AS – 53XX to 54XX.

SA – 1100 to 1150.

OC – 1050 and 1100.

 

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April 2NL analysis