Analyse | Warum die Bundesobergrenze für internationale Studenten Alberta erreicht hat – obwohl sie noch Platz hat | CBC News

Applications being down is going to be a problem. Typically you want as many applications as possible so you can select the best from larger pool of candidates, even if there are now caps. If the number of applications dip, competitive universities will just be taking what they can get.

In addition to potential applicants hearing about the cuts to immigration and universities cutting programs (making people weary about going to those institutions), the processing times are abysmal right now so by the time applicants hear from the government they might have already accepted an offer somewhere else and made commitments to move their life.

The double whammy here is that the most competitive people with the strongest resumes are most likely to get offers from other countries and more able to be selective on where they apply, so they are likely to not bother applying to Canadian institutions while the people who have less options and will accept anything will still apply everywhere that they can.

At the very least, we should be addressing processing times and be sending a message that things are coming under control and we still want people to apply, even in the face of caps, to ensure that we’re still getting a competitive pool of applications to choose from.