A candidate at CRS 473 (458 without sibling points, NOC 2147 — in demand in Ontario) asked whether to drop the sibling points to target an OINP nomination while FSW draws were paused. This is a draw-strategy thread from the FSW-pause era (a historical, time-bound situation), but the tactic is instructive:
- PNP draws can have an upper band, not just a floor. The key observation: OINP's tech NOIs at the time were going to candidates roughly between CRS 455 and 467 — Ontario tended not to send NOIs to profiles above ~470, presumably because those would be picked up by federal draws. Sitting at 473 could mean falling into a gap: too high for OINP's window, with no FSW draws running.
- Optional points can be removed. Sibling points are claimed, not automatic — removing that entry drops the profile to 458, inside the observed nomination band. Members broadly endorsed this: 'remove the sibling points for now.'
- The move is reversible. If federal FSW draws resume, re-add the sibling points to restore 473. Nothing is lost except positioning time.
- One dissenting caution: wait to see the first FSW draw's cutoff before giving up the higher score — Ontario invited roughly quarterly, so there was time to observe. The trade-off is between chasing a known provincial window and waiting on an unpredictable federal one.
General principle: read the recent draw
bands (floor and ceiling) of the streams you're targeting, and position your truthful profile inside them — never by misstating facts, only by choosing which optional points to claim.