Peace Corps Timeline

One for the first questions a new applicant has about the Peace Corps process is "how long did it take". Unfortunately, there is no one answer to this question. Some people receive an interview almost immediately and some wait for many months. I suspect there are many reasons for this and not all of them have to do with your qualifications as an applicant as much as your placement officer and perhaps general luck. This is my experience.

Submitted Application 7/27/14
Country Assignment Form 7/27/14
Health History Form Received and Reviewed 7/30/14
Placed Under Consideration for Sierra Leone and Interview Scheduled 8/14/14
Interview 8/25/14
2nd Interview 09/08/14
Switched Consideration from Sierra Leone (program suspended) to Comoros 11/04/14
Follow-Up Questions by email 12/02/14
Invitation 12/03/14
Medical Clearance 04/09/14
Staging 06/08/15

It took about three week from applying until my first interview. A second interview was scheduled after we discovered a misunderstanding about when I wanted to leave for service. After my second interview it took about three months to receive my official invitation. Of course, this timeline is a little different since my original program didn't open. Sometimes when this happens a future volunteer is forced to start the application process over. Thankfully that didn't happen. Because they interviews are recorded I didn't have to interview for Comoros beyond answering a few specific questions via email. I believe all invitations for Comoros went out at nearly the same time (early December) but that is not always the case. Sometimes an invitation can go out right after the interview even before the application deadline and some can go out on the know-by-date. It seems to depend on your placement officer and your competitiveness. You'll hear the same advice over and over. Each process is a little different and all you can do it wait.