When a study permit sits in "background verification" for months with no movement, and your college is pressing you to either defer or lose your seat, the advice from the group was clear: defer, don't restart.
What group members advised:- Get a deferral letter from the college confirming your admission is pushed to the next available intake (e.g., from January to May).
- Submit a webform to IRCC attaching that deferral letter, so the existing application stays on file and linked to the new intake date rather than being abandoned.
- Don't withdraw and reapply. Restarting the process resets any progress made on background verification and wastes the months already spent waiting — deferring keeps your place in the queue.
One caveat worth flagging: submitting the webform doesn't guarantee the background check moves any faster — in the case discussed, the portal status stayed unchanged even after the webform was filed. So deferring protects your college spot, but it isn't a fix for the underlying processing delay.