
Cognizant Off-Campus PAT 2025 | BGV stuck at 50% ("Data sent for approval") | DOJ 21 July | Anyone faced this?
Hi everyone,
I'm an off-campus Programmer Analyst Trainee (PAT) 2025 candidate with a DOJ of 21 July, and I'm looking for advice from anyone who has gone through a similar onboarding process.
Timeline
- Received my LOI in February 2026.
- Received my Offer Letter at the end of June after waiting several months.
- Received access to the Background Verification (BGV) portal and uploaded all the required documents within 3 days (the deadline was 7 days).
- Later, I was asked to:
- Upload my Passport + Citizenship + Voter ID together as a single PDF in the Passport section.
- Correct my house number.
- I completed these changes on 2 July.
- On 3 July, I received another email with a blank checklist, but the email clearly mentioned that if the checklist/table is blank, I should ignore the email.
- I also completed all my Pre-Joining Formalities before the required deadline and received the "Thank you for Completing Pre-Joining Formalities" email on 5 July.
Current Status
When I checked the backend Inspect/API response, it shows:
- ✅ Offer Acceptance – 100%
- ⏳ Background Verification – 50%
- Status: "Data has been sent for approval."
- Pre-Joining Forms – 1%
- Onboarding – 0%
I have already:
- Raised a support query through the portal.
- Contacted my recruiter through email and LinkedIn (no response yet).
- Attended the onboarding/helpdesk sessions, but since I'm an off-campus candidate, I was advised to raise a support query through the portal, which I had already done.
My DOJ is approaching, and I'm getting worried because I've heard from a few candidates that if the BGV approval is delayed, the DOJ may also get postponed.
My Questions
- Has anyone else's BGV remained at 50% with the status "Data sent for approval" for a long time?
- After BGV approval, did your status change to "Good to go for onboarding" before your Onboarding Pass was generated?
- Did anyone receive their Onboarding Pass while BGV was still showing 50%, or does it always have to be completed first?
- Did your DOJ get postponed because of this, or did everything get approved automatically?
- Is there anything else I should do, or should I simply wait for the internal approval process?
I've attached the Inspect/API screenshot for reference.
Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!