FollowYourBliss

Just received my ceremony invite (by email) for City of Sydney

Updated timeline:

1. Date applied: January 22nd 2017
2. City/Council area: City of Sydney
3. Online / Paper: Online
4. Date of the acknowledgement email: January 22nd 2017 (automatic email)
5. Date of the Citizenship Test invite email: February 6th 2017
6. Date of the Citizenship Test: May 22nd 2017 (Sydney CBD)
7. Date of the rescheduled Citizenship Test: March 24th 2017 (Sydney CBD - rescheduled on March 6th)
8. Approval letter: March 31st 2017
9. Date of ceremony: June 28th 2017 (Invitation received June 2nd)

So thrilled - was expecting July or August. Best of luck to everyone!

Hi all, thanks for the great advice earlier. Some hope for City of Sydney applicants: on the lucky 13th call to the Citizenship hotline, my test appointment was moved forward by two months!

This is my updated timeline:

1. Date applied: January 22nd 2017

2. City/Council area: City of Sydney

3. Online / Paper: Online

4. Date of the acknowledgement email: January 22nd 2017 (automatic email)

5. Date of the Citizenship Test invite email: February 6th 2017

6. Date of the Citizenship Test: May 22nd 2017 (Sydney CBD)

6b. Date of the rescheduled Citizenship Test: March 24th 2017 (Sydney CBD - rescheduled on March 6th)

7. Approval letter: TBD

8. Date of ceremony: TBD

Really hoping to get into the July or August ceremonies, fingers crossed! As a note, all the agents I spoke to confirmed that you are no longer able to switch between the CBD and Parramatta offices for tests once you've been assigned a date.

The keyword (phrase) to use is: "Hello, I'm scheduled for citizenship test in Sydney CBD on XX and I'm calling to see if there are any cancellations for an earlier date/time." Very important, because if you just say oh I want it sooner they'll say that's where the queue is at. Also try to keep the intro short, they don't need to know your name or anything, be as painless to them as possible. They'll tell you if they found a date and then they'll need your name etc. I got it changed at the beginning of December so not too recent, but this worked.

 

Last I checked (December) Parra was far worse than CBD.

This is so helpful, thank you!

I'm booked at the Sydney office as well for April 28th, have been calling everyday for the past 2 weeks to check for any cancellations, no luck!! They do politely tell me that I can continue to check!

 

One of the agents once told me that they had cancellation for the day I called on but they are not allowed to give those spots.

 

Key is to continue calling everyday I believe, unless you are in Melbourne, where you can reschedule online at https://appointments.border.gov.au/login

 

 

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That's somewhat frustrating, but I guess all we can really do is keep trying. It really does sound like it boils down to the agent you happen to get. I suppose one cancellation is all is takes for a domino effect, in theory

Finally have a timeline to share!

1. Date applied: January 22nd 2017
   
2. City/Council area: City of Sydney
   
3. Date of the acknowledgement email: January 22nd 2017 (automatic email)
   
4. Date of the Citizenship Test invite email: February 6th 2017
   
5. Date of the Citizenship Test: May 22nd 2017 (Sydney CBD)
   
6. Date of ceremony: TBD
   

Working on bringing the date forward, spoke on the phone an hour ago (after waiting 3 hours for a callback) to a seriously grumpy lady who stated that the earliest appointments in Sydney CBD are at the beginning of May. She mentioned that there was no way of moving my appointment to the Parramatta office, even though I've seen people on here do exactly that. I'll start calling first thing in the morning instead...

Has anyone been successful recently with either a date change in the Sydney office, or being moved to Parramatta? Thank you!

Hi all, firstly thanks for sharing your timelines and experiences - thanks to this board I've found out that I'm eligible for citizenship six months earlier than I'd previously thought, due to a conveniently-timed vacation before making the move in mid-2013. I thought the gap between the visas rendered that time moot, but it seems DIBP decided otherwise fortunately!

I'm in a similar position with my eligibility as user sapphilor a couple of pages back, but I noticed that they received two different answers. So I just wanted to share what I'd learnt - I called the citizenship hotline number, who acknowledged that my eligibility date was currently four years following my entry to Australia on my first tourist visa, and that there is no hard rule stating that you need to have been in Australia on Day One of the four years ("you can apply when you're eligible") as long as you had entered the country. I found this somewhere else on this forum: https://www.border.gov.au/Citizenship/Documents/acis-july-2014.pdf , and on page 75 (thank goodness for Ctrl+F) they have a guidance note on this exact scenario. As long as you had a valid visa ticking away in the background for the whole time (like my 651 eVisitor) and you had previously entered the country as has been oft-repeated here, you're fine.

My timeline for reference:

Dec 2012: Entered Aus for 2 weeks

Mar 2013: Primary applicant (my mum) relocated to Aus on an eVisitor

Jul 2013: Relocated to Aus on an eVisitor

Aug 2013: Approved for BVA as secondary applicant (dependent) on 820

Apr 2014: 820 approved

Mar 2015: 802 PR applied for

Nov 2015: 802 PR granted

Mar 2016: Finally notified that 802 PR was granted

Dec 2016: Eligible to apply for citizenship (pushed to mid-Jan 2017 due to travel slightly exceeding the 365 day limit)

Anyway, sorry that's long winded but hopefully it can help someone else! See you guys in January when my eligibility rolls around