whoah - I really mis-interpreted that. 1500 in total including derivatives?
KCC have been smoking something. No-way they'll issue enough visas from that lot.
I think it might include derivatives? Doesn't say on the VB, so I'm going from memory.
But I wouldn't be so sure about the number of visas issued. Time for some numerology and rampant speculation.
I previously made predictions about final CN cutoffs based on visa quotas and rates of issuance of visas per case number. That's where the 1580 figure came from for DV2015. And I think I can see where I went wrong: I presumed the rate of visas per CN is static. It's not. Rather, it's increasing.
I now have an hypothesis that works on the fact that AU and NZ people likely have high rates of success in getting visas if they get an interview. In essence it is: the higher the proportion of AU and NZ people amongst the selectees, the higher the number of visas issued per CN, which dramatically lowers the maximum CN and number of selectees needed. And I think this relationship is something other than linear.
In the 2013 lottery, about 62% of the OC selectees were from AU and NZ. The highest interviewed number was something like 1630 -- although the region went current. 838 visas were issued. That means a rate of 0.513 visas per case number.
In DV2014 it was 66% Australian and NZ. The highest interviewed number was 1448 and 761 visas were issued. That's a rate of 0.526 visas per case number.
In DV2015 it was 68%, with an even higher -- probably much higher -- rate of visas/cn. We don't know the highest interviewed number, but it could easily fall below 1450 and there are an estimated 831 visas to be issued. Let's estimate 0.581 visas per case number.
This time, it's 70%. Let's extrapolate that curve to its next value. We're looking at about 0.662 visas per cn for DV2016. That means if the max CN for OC this year is 990, and if the quota falls below 654 visas, then the region won't go current.
So I think that far from under selecting this year, they've tried to be realistic and minimise the amount of superfluous DS260 processing they'll need to do. And the fact that the number of selectees is so low suggests that the quota
has significantly dropped. So people on high (900+ CNs) will be uncertain. Yay!
There are many things that could debunk my hypothesis. First is if the CN cutoff for DV2015 is significantly higher than 1440. Second is if the number of visas issued is significantly lower than 831. Third is if my non-linear curve fitting is bogus. Then there's the catch-all 'barking up the wrong tree caveat'.
But hopefully this iteration of the 'cutoff CN hypothesis' is closer to the truth than my earlier attempts.