This is part of a series in which I’ll describe our experience applying to the Peace Corps. It took 17 months from our initial contact with a recruiter to when we departed and there was a multitude of tasks involved, from the initial applications to online learning before we left.

After a Skype call with a recruiter to ask some questions about the Peace Corps, Jon and I decided that we wanted to apply. I updated our resumes and created an application for each of us. I won’t discuss all of the questions and steps on the application, but will mention a few of the more interesting or pertinent to someone applying in the future.

One of the first parts of the application, after filling in your name and personal information, is to check whether you want to apply to a specific country and program or apply to “go anywhere”. Our recruiter stated that we would have a greater chance of being accepted if we applied to “go anywhere”, which is what we did. However, we did discover that it didn’t necessarily mean that your application would be open to all countries and programs. All that meant was that the Peace Corps would decide which country and program to pair you with rather than you deciding. This was a surprise to us, since it ultimately wouldn’t have made any difference if we had chosen to apply to a specific country and program; we were still interviewing for only one at a time. If you are rejected from a program, you have to reapply anyway. The first program that we matched with was for CED (Community Economic Development) in Namibia, which matched our preferences exactly. It was the program that we would have applied for anyway, had we selected it ourselves rather than choosing to “go anywhere”. In the end, we were rejected from that program and had to reapply anyway in order to be considered for another program.

We applied to “go anywhere” and got matched with different programs based on our preferences and where there were the most openings.

The part of the application that took some time for us to do was to write our motivation statements – a few paragraphs describing why we wanted to join the Peace Corps. I would have liked to have known about this ahead of time, so that we could have prepared our essays and had more time to proofread and consider what we wanted to say. Since this came partway through the application process, we felt a bit rushed to write these in order to complete our application (it didn’t help that we were in the middle of traveling at this point as well). In case it helps future applicants, here is what they asked us to write (as of May 2017):

Peace Corps service presents major physical, emotional, and intellectual challenges. In the space below, please provide a few paragraphs explaining your reasons for wanting to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer and how you plan to overcome the various challenges associated with Peace Corps service. This essay is the writing sample Peace Corps uses to assess your professionalism and maturity as a candidate. Please spend time editing your essay/writing sample (up to 500 words).

After submitting our applications, we were sent emails giving us the country and program that the Peace Corps had matched us with. In each instance, a representative from that program contacted us shortly after to schedule interviews. Typically, a couple will have three interviews: each one an individual interview and then an interview together. Our individual interviews asked the same questions of each of us, which were things like “Why do you want to join the Peace Corps?”, “Describe a personal failure and how you overcame it.”, and “Tell us about your experience teaching or training.” After the individual interviews, we had a couple’s interview that we completed together. Prior to this interview, our contact emailed us a list of topics/questions that they would be asking, so we had time to prepare. A few of these were: “What are some advantages/disadvantages to serving as a couple?”, “Discuss a crisis you have had and how you handled it together.”, and “Have you ever moved together and what stresses did you face?”

Jon and I ultimately applied for three different programs. For the first (CED in Namibia), we went through all the interviews as described. For the second (Agriculture/Environment in Senegal), we each completed individual interviews, but they did not request a couple’s interview. For the third (Youth Development in Morocco), we did not have individual interviews, but conducted another couple’s interview. Since our previous applications and interview notes were kept on file within the Peace Corps, subsequent programs chose which interviews they wanted to hold with us.

Finally, after finishing the last interview with the program in Morocco, we were emailed with invitations to serve in the Peace Corps! The hardest part about the entire application process was the length of time it took and how long we had to wait in between each individual step. Refer back to the timeline of how long it took us from our initial application to departing and you’ll see that we frequently had weeks or months with no contact from the Peace Corps between steps. In the end, while the process took a long time, we are both happy with the country and program we will be serving with, even if it isn’t the one that we originally thought we would do.

I took a selfie to submit for my headshot, so the Peace Corps will know what I look like.

He’s actually smiling a bit in his headshot; usually it looks more like a mug shot!

To learn more about our Peace Corps application process, read the other posts in this series:

• Applying to the Peace Corps: Timeline
• Applying to the Peace Corps: Legal and Medical Clearance (coming soon!)
• Applying to the Peace Corps: Invitee Tasks (coming soon!)