The Application Process

The application process for the Peace Corps is LONG, time consuming, and relatively expensive – especially for a married couple. If you happen to be reading this and are thinking about applying, this is one tidbit of advice for you.

Pretty much everything you read about the Peace Corps application process says the same thing – “you have to wait, wait, wait… it is a long and tedious process, and sometimes you have to wait months to hear back from them.” While that is true, be PROACTIVE during the process. If you read below, you will find out why….

I wish I would have written all of this out during the process, but hindsight is 20/20 right? So, the timeline of our application process was something like this:

• 04/01/2011 – turn in first part of application
• 04/15/2011 – turn in additional “couple’s questionnaire” - since my wife and I are serving together there were several additional things we had to do
• 06/09/2011 – Interview with PC in downtown Dallas

             *Side note: I think normally, if the recruiter likes you in interview, you will be immediately nominated for a position to serve somewhere - or as soon as one becomes available. For couples however, it is usually much harder. Lindsey and I both qualified to serve in different locations (based on what our majors were in college), but not for the same location. Lindsey qualified to teach, and I qualified to do…… something else? I honestly don’t even remember….. – so the recruiter basically told me, “In order for me to nominate you, you have to tutor someone in English and log at least 30 hours by September.” So, I found an ESL tutoring organization and tutored a family from Thailand in English twice a week until I had logged a total of 30 hours. After I logged the hours, we were nominated for Eastern Europe on August 10^th, 2011.

• 08/10/2011 – nominated to teach English in Eastern Europe, with a tentative departure date of June 2012. WHOOO HOOO
• 09/15/2011 – received medical packet, which is essentially a giant list of things to do. Blood tests, shots, dental checkups, and vision screening - all resulting in about 5 separate trips to health care clinics and about $500 of our own money. At least we both know we don’t have any weird diseases right?
• 09/24/2011 – nothing happened this day, but it was my birthday and I thought you should know
• 10/05/2011 – send off completed medical packet with all of the test results, signed papers, and X–Rays
• 10/20/2011 – DANGIT, we are informed that Quest Diagnostics ran the wrong blood test (Hep-B surface antigen instead of Hep-B surface antibody – what is the difference anyway?) Also, Lindsey’s dental X-Rays don’t have a date on them, so she had to get another copy of those with the dates on them and a Dentist’s signature. Sooo, we have to go back to Qwest Diagnostics and re-do the blood test and send the results back. Now we must wait to receive a letter from the PC saying that we are medically cleared.
• 12/14/2011 – I send an email to the medical office and ask about our status – they tell to me wait longer because it is still being reviewed……..
• 01/01/2012 – I remember to live to win
• 02/24/2012 – Lindsey called the PC medical office to ask about our medical clearance, and it was discovered that they actually put some of Lindsey’s lab results into MY medical packet, so they were under the assumption that we still had not sent all of the paperwork in. Again, this is why it is important to be PROACTIVE in the application process. If we had never called, we would have waited until our application expired. So, if you feel like you have waited too long, you probably have. It was an annoying experience to say the least
• 03/07/2012 – We receive an email from a different recruiter asking for an updated resume and several more answers to essay questions
• 04/18/2012 – Phone Interview with a recruiter (apparently, this is the LAST step before acceptance) We are now told that we could be going to Africa instead of Eastern Europe
• 04/24/2012 – We find out that we are accepted through the PC website on our profile page, but no specifics are provided as to where we are going or when. We have to wait for a packet to ship in the mail that contains of the specifics.
• 05/04/2012 – Packet received. Looks like we are going to Namibia, Africa on July 23^rd, 2012. We actually got on youtube to figure out how to pronounce Namibia correctly. 

Total time from original application to acceptance = 13 months, 3 days

Over the next month and a half, we had to get a Yellow Fever Vaccine and send an aspiration statement stating why we wanted to serve. Smooth sailing compared to the rest of the application J


-Tim