When: NSN Referrals
The last 12 referral batches arrived at 36, 18, 24, 39, 32, 47, 30, 32, 31, 52, 51, and 27 day intervals. Thankfully we didn’t go for another 50 plus days this time – that 27 looks nice, yes?
The average is 35 days, and the median is 32 days. The shortest interval is 18 days and the longest is 52.
Does this mean they had met their 2009 ceiling and had to wait until December to release more referrals? Maybe. Maybe not. It certainly looks suspicious, though.
If we were to look purely at numbers then the soonest we’d expect to see referrals would be Friday, January 22, the latest would be Thursday, February 18, and the most likely date would be Monday, February 1. And most months that’s all we need to do for the When post, look at raw numbers. But not this month, this month there is more to consider. We need to take CNY into consideration.
If the CCAA is going to mail a batch on or around February 12, then that could possibly mean we aren’t likely to see another batch until somewhere around that date. But by the time they arrived that would be a 48 day interval. Could they do two 24 day intervals? It’s possible, sure. Should we hope for it? I think we should keep the possibility of both scenarios in mind and not get too attached to either. I think our best window in this case is that the next batch will arrive either around Wednesday, January 20 or Monday, February 15. (Give or take a few days, obviously). Unless the CCAA is no longer going to be concerned about clearing their desks before Spring Festival. Which, with a new director, is possible. But Spring Festival is a really big deal, and one of the important traditions around Spring Festival is cleaning up, so you come back to a new start.
Last month I divided the time left by three and said if there were going to be three batches then the intervals would be about 24 days. With that in mind, a 27 day interval (where it would have been less without the weekend) bodes well for their being two more batches of referrals before they break for CNY. But, as I said, unless we start seeing matching rumors on or before the 18th, then I still think it’s best to realize that either scenario could happen. Both 24 and 48 are at the outer edges of the number spread. Only time will tell. As always.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
What are the dates that they will be breaking for the CNY?
December 30th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
daughter4us – From RQ’s last “When” Post: “Spring Festival is February 14, and I believe the official holiday is going to fall from February 13 to 19.”
LID 4/5/06 (and really really hoping to be next…)
December 30th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I’m not sure that there’s really much of a tradition of sending referrals just before CNY:
2009: Referrals 1/22; CNY 1/26 — (4 days)
2008: Referrals 2/1; CNY 2/7 — (6 days)
2007: Referrals 2/1; CNY 2/18 — (17 days)
2006: Referrals 1/25; CNY 1/29 — (4 days)
2005: Referrals 1/27; CNY 2/9 — (13 days)
The range is 4-17 days with an average of 9 days before CNY.
CNY 2010 is 2/14, so referrals the week of 2/1 – 2/5 (9-13 days beforehand) would be well within past practice. Given the last few months I think the possibility of two batches before CNY is pretty remote.
December 30th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I should add that I assume the referral dates (which I got from this site and chinaadoptionforecast.com) were the days referrals arrived, so the day they were sent was even earlier.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
DCMomtobe – Thanks for the information! We just received our referral on Monday. I know exactly how you feel right now. I’m hoping you are next too!
December 30th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
daddyjack – you shouldn’t compare it to CNY, you should compare it to the last day CCAA was scheduled to work. They are generally off for 9 or 10 days at a time, and CNY falls somewhere in that 9 or 10 days.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
RQ – I assumed that time wouldn’t start before CNY eve since the festivities occur between then and the lantern festival. But now that I think about it, I recall hearing that some travel time is often built in. Do you know how the referral dates compare to CCAA’s holidays? If so, can you post it so we can gauge how much of a tradition there is? I tend to put too much hope on plausible theories and so I might be inclined to think its less plausible in order to mitigate the possibility of dashed hopes.
Also, I noticed that my referral date for 2005 is wrong — chinaadoptionforecast.com doesn’t go back that far.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about the CCAA’s holiday schedule each year, but I’m not up to going back and searching to find it. I’ve got my memory telling me that most years the CCAA mails referrals within three or four days of their last day in the office. Some years it’s a week or so before they leave, but most years it’s within a few days of their final workday. I remember it being really off one year, and I remember the CCAA had a reason for it, but can’t remember the reason.
December 30th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
daddyjac – thanks for looking at this. i think we can look 2009 and 2008 to give us a clue as to what this year will hold, but i doubt that anything in the years prior to that will tell us anything since they are doing a fraction of the referrals they used to do.
December 30th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Does anyone know what the next cut-off date will be? Can anyone guess? I am wondering if China will be going 3 days at a time, which would be April 6, 2006 for Jan. Just thinking out loud.
Congratulations to all the lucky ones who just recieved their referrals. You must be overwhelmed with happiness.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
StillwaitinginWI – your guess is as good as anyone else’s is! who knows! if the did one day it would be the about the same size batch as this week’s three day batch. so it could be one day….and send people further over the edge.
the biggest days in april 06 are 4/3 (done), 4/4, 4/5 and 4/12. so if they did 4/4 AND 4/5, we’d have three of the four largest days in the month done. so if the next batch was two days it might be cause to celebrate. how sad is that???!
December 30th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
should have included 4/11…that’s a relatively big day too.
December 30th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
We have a SN referral, and just today found out our gotcha and consulate dates – 1/17 for gotcha, and 1/26 for consulate. We were originally expecting to travel 1/31, so leaving 1/13 caught us quite by surprise. Our agency said they’re trying to get as many of their ready families in and out of the country before the end of January as possible. I’m not sure whether it’s because of CNY…?
December 30th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Noendinsight,
Yeah, I was thinking about what you were, just hoped I was wrong. We are 4/11 so I am wondering if they would actually make us wait 8 more months, and go one day at a time. How unfair is that?? I know we are close but really don’t know that I can do it if I have to wait that long.
Congratulations triathlonner, awesome news for you!!
December 31st, 2009 at 8:27 am
Given the craziness of the last six months, I don’t think we can make any accurate predictions. I still appreciate RQ’s number crunching because it helps us see patterns or randomness. When a new pattern emerges, the number crunching will show that. But for now, all I see is randomness, and I don’t think we have any reliable pattern from which to make predictions.
And while I appreciate the rumors (the name of the site serves as fair warning about that), I don’t think there’s any way for those of us on the outside to really understand what’s going on withing the CCAA. We get second-hand information hear, fourth-hand information there. And it all has been translated to and from at least two languages. Sometimes, the telephone is played through multiple languages (CCAA speaks in Chinese to someone from Spain, who speaks in Spanish to someone in the US, who then gives a third-hand, twice-translated version.
The bottom line is that:
1) we don’t really know what’s going on in China or why;
2) there’s no good reason to expect the NSN process to speed up;
3) there’s every reason to expect it to slow down further; and
4) there’s no accurate way to predict when the next batch of referrals will be released.