When filling the education history in an Express Entry profile you must give a course start date — a problem if you only vaguely remember when classes began. The group's answers give a practical hierarchy of sources:
- Use the official session start, not the day you personally began attending. The program's session date is what counts, and it's usually published on the institution's website for each intake.
- Work backwards from your result sheets. Marksheets typically carry the course name and duration; members noted that if a semester result was issued in December, a July session start is implied for a standard six-month semester. Admission slips may also show the semester start date.
- When in doubt, ask the institution. The most-endorsed advice: contact the university or institute directly and get the official course commencement details. This gives you a defensible answer if IRCC ever questions the date.
The underlying principle: your EE profile dates should match what your documents (and your institution) can corroborate, because education claims are verified against your transcripts and ECA at the ITA stage. A reconstructed-but-documented session date is fine; a guessed date that contradicts your marksheets is not.