Peace Corps Application Process

I want to preface this by saying that everyone’s application process is different. When I was in the middle of it, I spent a ton of time reading current volunteer’s blogs to find out how long it took them to get their medical clearance, invite, etc. to figure out how much longer I had to wait—this can help put your mind at ease, but it totally depends on your individual application.

I started the whole process in January 2007. I think I finished my on-line application by the end of January or early February, and then I had an interview up at school (I went to Middlebury College in VT). I was nominated on May 7. I didn’t start my medical/dental paperwork until I got home from school, but I sent it in at the end of June (I think they got it on the 25th or 26th). At that point, I didn’t think it would take very much time for me to get medically cleared. I have never had any serious medical problems and am ridiculously healthy. I got my dental papers back about a month later saying that I needed some cavities filled, but since that doesn’t hold up the invitation process I decided to wait until I got back from school (I spent the summer studying Portuguese). I tried to tell myself that it would take time and not run to my mailbox every day, but it was hard to put out of my mind.

The waiting continued through the summer and into the fall. I didn’t want to call the medical office because I didn’t want to come across as pushy, so I just waited. Finally by mid-September I decided that I had to figure out what was going on, and I called. They told me something about having to wait until at least the end of December or beginning of January to receive clearance, and I got off the phone feeling incredibly frustrated. How could it take six or seven months to review my very simple medical file? Well, it turns out that whomever I talked to must have been confused because I received medical clearance about four days later. I have no proof of this, but I think he must have been confused and looking at the date my file would be considered for an invitation based on the program date. I’m also convinced that if I hadn’t called, I would have waited even longer. I would advise anyone in this situation to give it a reasonable amount of time, but then to call and check in. Everyone says you should start your application early, but since I sent it in about a year before I wanted to leave I was at the bottom of the list in terms of priority.

So then the waiting continued, and I spent the majority of my free time scanning the internet, trying to figure out how long it usually took from receiving medical clearance to getting the invite. I then started getting emails from the placement office asking for an updated resume and for a confirmation of my earliest date of availability. Since I was graduating from college that February, I had originally said that I would be available in mid-May to give myself some time. However, after waiting so long I figured I would tell them that I could leave as early as the second week in February to give myself the best chance. I had a long series of back and forth emails about this date, and finally the placement officer just told me that he would add it to my file. Then I continued to wait.

By the end of December I was getting a little panicked, not because I was desperate to know where I was going but because no one could tell me if I was definitely in or not. They said that the majority of people who are medically cleared get invited, but no one could give me a guarantee. The problem was the timing; I was a little more than a month away from graduating, and started to worry that I wouldn’t get in and then would be jobless. Peace Corps was by far my first choice, but I worried about what would happen if I didn’t get in and hadn’t applied for anything else. When I went home for winter break, I decided to email the placement office about my concerns to see if there was anything they could do. That’s when the real craziness started. After several confusing emails, the guy from the office that I had been talking to told me to call him so he could explain everything. He told me that the program I had been nominated for (Community Development, Portuguese-speaking Africa, April 08) had been moved to late June, which was causing the hold-up in my application process. The Peace Corps reviews files by date the applicant is scheduled to leave rather than order in which the application is complete, which I can understand but is still really frustrating for those of us trying to plan ahead and get everything done on time. I felt like I was getting screwed for getting my application in early and that people who waited until the last minute were getting preference. I then found out that the program had again been bumped back, this time until late July. The problem, the P.O. explained, was that they didn’t consider applicants for the July programs until at least early February. At that point, I tried to explain without bursting into tears of frustration that I couldn’t wait until February because I wouldn’t be able to plan my post-grad time (for example, I thought about traveling but wouldn’t be able to make plans because I could receive an invite saying I was leaving in as little as six weeks). He then asked me if I had finished my medical forms, and was totally shocked to hear that I had been medically cleared for three months. He told me to hold on for a minute, then came back and told me that if I would be willing to teach English instead of community development and to learn French, he could move me to a program in a Francophone African country and consider my application immediately. I think my response went something like this:

Emily: “Uhhhhh.....what? How do I learn French?”

Smooth. He told me that it didn’t have to be at Middlebury, that I could take a class anywhere and have the teacher give them an update on my progress. I considered it, and then told him yes. He said to write him an email with written confirmation of my agreement to learn French (since I told him that I didn’t want to sign up for a class until I knew that I would actually need to). It was around the 16th or 17th of December at this point, and when I asked how long it would take to consider my file, he told me that guy who makes the official nomination switch was in that day but that he probably wouldn’t be able to get to it right away so I would have to wait until the end of the month or early January (they were about to leave for the Christmas holiday). I didn’t really know what to think at that point. I had gotten kind of attached to leaving in April and going to a Portuguese speaking country, but I realized that the only reason I felt that way was because that was what they had originally told me. In my application, I said I would go anywhere and I meant it. I started to look at the on-line map and read about the countries I could possible go to, and I got really excited. So I resigned myself to a few more weeks of waiting.

Then, for the first time in the whole application process, I got lucky. The next day, my on-line toolkit reported that my application review was complete and that my invitation had been sent. Unfortunately, I hadn’t updated my address because I didn’t expect it until I got back to school, so it was on its way to Vermont while I was in Massachusetts. I had to wait until after Christmas, but luckily my parents were going up to Vermont on the 27th and agreed to go to the college and check my mail for me. We weren’t sure if they would let her get my mail or not, and I was totally prepared to get hysterical and cry on the phone to the people at the mail center and beg them to give her my mail. But one of the best things about going to a small college in the middle of Vermont is the trust—they gave it to her without any problems. She called me and told me that I was going to Mauritania, and I can honestly say that I have never been so excited.

So that’s the long story. It took about a year from submitting my application to receiving the invitation, but it was worth the wait. For anyone going through this, I would suggest keeping in contact with the Peace Corps whenever you have questions or worry about the status of your application. Don’t be unreasonable about it (it will take time, that’s just a fact), but if you have questions about what’s holding up the process, don’t hesitate to call or email them.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions!

First Post

So I feel a little weird posting here already because I haven't left the US yet, but I figure it's a good idea to get everything up and running before I leave. I can't wait! At some point soon I'll write a post about my application experience and everything--reading other people's blogs was really helpful when I went through it.

As for right now, there's nothing too exciting to say. I'm trying to learn French, which is going...well, it's going OK I guess. My class is a lot slower paced than I'm used to (anyone from Midd, regular midd or language school, knows what I'm talking about!). I'm hoping to spend a week in Montreal doing an immersion program at the end of this month, so we'll see. I feel like if I could get just a little more under my belt I could just use the Rosetta Stone and find a conversation partner here in Boston. It gets so frustrating because I can read a lot and my brain feels like I should be able to speak it, but that's not quite the case. Everyone keeps asking me why the Peace Corps didn't send me somewhere Spanish or Portuguese speaking, but I'm really looking forward to picking up new languages. I just hope I'm not totally incompetent when I get there!

Alrighty, that's all for now. More to come soon!