Comments on: Because a Picture is worth a Thousand Words

By: ray and shannon

ray and shannon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:16:15 +0000

My prediction is they will getthrough April 10th in the next batch that we might as well say will be in March. This is OK, i guess i can handle this…LID 4-12-06 puts us in hopefully with a referral early April and travel early June!!! now i wonder what are the average ages of the most recent babies??? would love to be able to spend her first birthday in the states as a family!!!

By: JustWait

JustWait — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:01:48 +0000

Interesting. But remember that the CCAA took more than five months to issue four sets of referrals, so the referrals per month are worse than they otherwise would appear. Of course, a 20-25% error rate is well within the margin of guessing, and the RQ never pretends that she’s doing more than educated guessing based on the limited data available. She gives us the data, we can sort through it.

By: Dragon Fly

Dragon Fly — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:56:51 +0000

Now this is the kind of graph I like.

By: LouiseMe

LouiseMe — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:01:49 +0000

This is so helpful RQ–thank you. And I want to add my voice to the hearty THANK YOU for all of the work you do for us waiting parents. I know your girls are home and this is a ton of work for you, so it would be completely understandable if you wanted to step down. Your whole site is a gift to all waiting parents, especially those who get zero information from their agencies. I know I echo most people when I say that words cannot express my appreciation for the time and energy you put into this website. Thank you.

By: WNCwait

WNCwait — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:21:01 +0000

This was a wonderful way to look at the numbers- thanks for doing this for us!!

I have heard that dossiers have advanced in the review room through april 2008? I guess that this is some good news if true.

LID 3/08

By: portlandval

portlandval — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:57:37 +0000

Wow this is so informative and to literally see that between 50-60 referrals have been made in recently batches highlighted by the rainbow colors is very self-explanatory. The days of hundreds of referrals are over. Makes me sad but this is old news. It was also very helpful to see independent validation of your predictions.

Every time I look at the table of colors I hear Kermit The Frog singing Rainbow Connection! Argh…too much kiddie media lately. That song is stuck in my head.

By: Mom2Isabel

Mom2Isabel — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:54:12 +0000

Wow!
For a math-crippled, visual learner like me this colored chart ROCKS.

: )
M2I
http://www.MyChineseShamrock.blogspot.com

By: chinathistime

chinathistime — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:29:24 +0000

Thanks for the info daddyjac. That info makes me almost giddy!

Very impressive RQ, keep it up.

By: Lina from Sweden

Lina from Sweden — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:27:57 +0000

Thank you for the picture, RQ. Since my first language is swedish I sometimes have difficulties in understanding all your projections, figures and more… The picture made it much more clear! Hopefully I will see my baby´s face sometimes in summer… Thanks for all the information on this site, RQ, it makes the wait much easier to stand!
Lina
LID 04-28-06

By: daddyjac

daddyjac — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:43:41 +0000

So I just spent a few minutes trying to figure out how accurate RQ’s predictions have been — not as a criticism of course, but as a way to figure out how excited I should be to be in the 5-month projection group (particularly since my subjective prediction is somewhat more pessimistic). My conclusion is that on average RQ is remarkably good at predicting even 5 months out:

I looked at the last 14 referral batches, and went all the way back until that 14th one was still 5 months away, and I used RQ’s Small-Spr. 08 predictions. Here are the averages, with positive numbers indicating that RQ was more optimistic by that many days and negative numbers indicating that CCAA went that many days beyond RQ’s prediction:

1 batch out: 0 days
2 batches out: 0 days
3 batches out: -1 day
4 batches out: -1 day
5 batches out: -2 days

On average, therefore, RQ is spot on for 1-2 batches out, and CCAA has outperformed RQ’s predictions for 3-5 batches out! The actual data are a little more scattered with high and low values of:

1 batch out: -3 to 3 days
2 batches out: -6 to 6 days
3 batches out: -7 to 9 days
4 batches out: -7 to 9 days
5 batches out: -8 to 8 days

Even so, this shows to me that it’s reasonable to think that when you get to the 5 month box, CCAA will likely be within a week of your LID 5 months later, and half the time, your LID will already have passed!

Thanks again to RQ for all of her hard work!!!