No PPR yet as your intake approaches: wait as close to the deferral deadline as possible before deciding

A member applied October 12 for a January 2023 intake and, with no PPR yet, asked whether to defer to the next available intake or keep waiting.

What another member's comparable real experience showed:

1. One member applied in a similarly backlogged period (late November for a January intake) and chose to wait it out rather than defer early. Their program's last deferral date was February 10; they held out until February 7 (just 3 days before the deadline) before finally deferring — and received their PPR in the third week of February anyway, shortly after.


2. The consistent advice: wait as close to your program's last deferral date as possible, rather than deferring early out of anxiety. Deferring too soon gives up time your decision might still arrive within.


3. Don't rush the decision — since your visa decision timeline is independent of your intake date, waiting doesn't hurt your application, and it preserves the option of avoiding a deferral altogether if your PPR arrives just in time.

The practical takeaway: if you're waiting on a PPR as your intake approaches, hold off on deferring until you're close to your program's actual last deferral deadline — real cases have received their PPR right around that deadline, so deferring too early can be an unnecessary step.