Oluwayemisi Peters: How I Finally Got My Canadian PR After Seven IELTS Exams and Two Years of Waiting

The first time I showed up for the IELTS exam, I didn’t get to write it because I was just a few minutes late. The door was already shut. I stood there confused and desperate, hoping someone would understand or show empathy, but nobody cared. I went back home disappointed, watching my chance slip away before the exam even started. It was the first of many walls I would hit in my journey to Canada.

Between September 2018 and February 2020, I would go on to write the IELTS exam seven times. Anyone who has written the IELTS exam for the Canadian Express Entry pool knows that to remain competitive in the pool, it’s not just about passing; you need a near-perfect score. At the time, one weak section in reading, speaking, writing, or listening meant retaking all four, with no option to combine results and no guarantee you wouldn’t perform worse next time. Each attempt came with its own cost: financial, emotional, and psychological. Paying for the exam and preparing repeatedly was one thing; the uncertainty was another psychological strain.

In February 2020, for the seventh attempt, I walked into the exam hall feeling very confident that it would be my last. I had become very familiar with the exam questions from reading and practising thousands of questions. I understood the format and rhythm even more than my own heartbeat. Then the results came: I had a suspiciously low score in speaking. I felt so miserable, and I could not focus on work throughout that day, but I also felt a gut instinct that the grade was wrong. 

So out of frustration, I decided to make a gamble by applying for a remark. It was a risky move because if the score didn’t change, I’d lose the fee, but I trusted my instinct and weeks later, the remark was out, and my score was revised upward. I finally scored the much-needed 8.5 out of 9. My IELTS journey was finally over.

Or so I thought.

I immediately updated my profile with the new score and watched my points go up. I was excited. For the first time, it felt like I was truly close. I thought, “This is it; I’ll make the next draw.”

Suddenly, everything paused. Within a week, COVID-19 changed the world, and Canada paused the draw in March 2020. Just like that, another waiting game began. For nearly six months, everything was still. I kept checking for updates, but there were none. It was a different kind of stress, the uncertainty of not knowing when things would move again.

In July 2020, the Express Entry draws reopened, and I received my invitation to apply for the Canadian Permanent Residence Program. I had become cynical by this point. I had learned that nothing in this process was straightforward. So, as a coping mechanism, I decided to live my life as if the relocation process wasn’t happening. When my permanent resident visa was finally approved and my passport returned in January 2021, it felt like everything was finally falling into place. I booked my flight, ready to begin a new chapter in Canada.

But another surprise was waiting for me at the airport. 

After packing my entire life into suitcases and saying a tearful goodbye to my family, I was denied boarding. A specific government travel restriction was in place due to the pandemic, and I wasn’t aware of it.  I stood in the terminal in total disbelief.

What followed was a nightmare of back-and-forth calls, emails and ticket booking. Every solution led to another problem. Then there were the COVID tests, each one only valid for two days. So, every delay meant doing another test. Eventually, I was advised to try a different airline; one that hadn’t yet adopted the same restrictions. So, I had to let go of the ticket once more to book another last-minute flight with Ethiopian Airlines. 

This time, I finally made it onto the plane. 

The journey took two days and multiple layovers — from Lagos to Addis Ababa, then Dublin, then Toronto, before taking the final flight to Edmonton. There are no words to describe the long-haul exhaustion of a traveller who was already drained before the flight even began. By the time I touched down, I wasn’t even thinking about how long the journey had been. I was just quietly relieved that it was over.

Looking back at the journey, it was a bumpy series of setbacks. Seven exams, a drained account, a global pandemic, and being turned away at the finish line. It took two and a half years to prove I had the patience, consistency and resilience to be here. People talk about moving to Canada as a big milestone, and it is. But what we don’t talk about enough is the grit it takes to survive the process. From being turned away from an exam hall and finally landing in Edmonton, I made it through everything it took to get here.