<p>Hey lifeawaits,</p>
<p>Here is a link to pretty much all of the teaching fellows orgs in the nation</p>
<p>[Overview</a> | Teach | The New Teacher Project](<a href=“http://tntp.org/teach]Overview”>http://tntp.org/teach)</p>
<p>Also, for the recent applicants who listed Early Education as a highly preferred area, did you all get invited to attend a webinar on the 14th of December?</p>
<p>Sooo I got an invitation to attend a webinar for Early Childhood Education because I put it as highly preferred on my assignment preference form… The e-mail says it’s “designed to be an additional resource” and that it will “have no bearing on [my] admission,” but what do you guys think? Will not participating affect my admission in any way? I already took a day off of work last week for the final interview, so if I take another day off next week to attend the webinar, I’m afraid my boss might get mad… :X</p>
<p>LOL, Siva, i guess we were posting at the same time!! xD</p>
<p>I thought my interview and lesson went well…though the more time passed afterwards, the more I doubted myself! </p>
<p>As I’m originally from California, I preferenced the Bay Area first, and Los Angeles second. For the rest, I put about half the list as “highly preferred” and the rest as “preferred”. I didn’t put any in the last column, as I would have joined TFA no matter what region I got placed into. Tulsa (we weren’t Oklahoma yet) was about halfway down my list, towards the bottom of my “highly preferred” section. I honestly just hadn’t thought much about Tulsa: it was neither a city I wanted to go to, nor one that I wanted to avoid.</p>
<p>Subject wise, my first preference was elementary. I got accepted as an elementary teacher, and though your initial placement is never set in stone (in fact, there was one point where the region asked me if I’d be okay with switching to Early Childhood, to which I said I preferred not to), I did end up keeping that placement. I taught 5th grade (all subjects) last year. This year, I’m teaching 5th grade again, but I started out teaching language arts and social studies. After Thanksgiving, however, I moved back to teaching all subjects.</p>
<p>My biggest challenge has been in the area of classroom management. I knew I’d have trouble with it even before I started teaching, and it’s proved even more difficult than I thought. Aside from that, the district (Tulsa Public Schools) has undergone quite a bit of changes this year, as they consolidated schools. Though I don’t necessarily think the changes were a bad thing, any change is difficult, both for students and for the staff at both the school and district levels, so it’s caused quite a few challenges. </p>
<p>I will say that teaching in Oklahoma has been great, overall. There is a lot of support for TFA here from superintendents and donors, the cost of living is nice and low, and we’re a smaller (though growing) region, which means we’re fairly close-knit. Also, it’s great that I get a full teaching credential after my two years teaching, without having to take any grad school classes. Finally, I do like being part of a newer region (my corps was the second in Tulsa, and this is the first year we have CMs in Oklahoma City), as you really get to define what TFA looks like in the state.</p>
<p>I’ll be applying for TFA next year when I graduate college (class of '13). Does anyone know how competitive slots for Sioux tribe in South Dakota are. They have a few placements in S.D which would be my DREAM. Just wondering how quickly these selections fill up. Anyone have any insight?</p>
<p>BookAddict, thanks so much! Its so interesting to hear from a current CM. I didnt know you could get a full teaching credential without grad school classes. The strong support is something I would love and I think I would thrive in. </p>
<p>Subject wise, did you at all preference HS physics or chemistry? I didnt preference those, but with the strong push for STEM-background teachers, it makes me wonder if I should have. Also, how did you prepare for your relevant state testing? Did you buy study guides? Or would you say the tests were pretty easy?</p>
<p>Just curious! I know there is no need to worry about this just yet as I dont even know if Ive been accepted, but I want to catch you while I have the chance! :)</p>
<p>Haha, well, I might be slow to respond sometime, but I’ve been on CC for 6 years, so I’m not going anywhere. XD And once you get accepted, you’ll have tons of people asking you if you have questions! Though while those people will be honest I’m sure, sometimes it’s nice to have someone to answer who wasn’t given to you directly through TFA. So ask away at any time!</p>
<p>I didn’t preference HS physics or chemistry, though I have minors in computer science and math, so I wondered if they would put me in a STEM subject. In fact, I’m still kind of surprised they didn’t, because some people got put into STEM subjects who really are not STEM people at all. They do try to go by your preferences, though, as much as they can.</p>
<p>Every region is different, but I had to take the Elementary Ed PRAXIS. I took a practice test, but didn’t study much beyond that. The test was actually fairly easy for me. I’ve also previously (i.e. not for TFA) taken the CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test) which you will have to take if you’re in CA, and I didn’t find that one too difficult either. I do know that there have been some people who haven’t passed the test they needed the first time around, though.</p>
<p>The strong support is great! Not everyone in Oklahoma supports TFA (I know some people have had backlash from other non-TFA teachers, though that hasn’t been much of a problem for me), but it’s great to have some important people so solidly behind our cause. Education in Oklahoma needs a ton of reform, so it’s good that people are working at it!</p>
<p>So what choice was Oklahoma for you BookAddict. As far as preferred or highly preferred. And Fellow waiters, did none of youhighly preference Special Education?</p>
<p>Any insight on South Dakota in reference to my above post?</p>
<p>Beretta, admission into TFA is not based on your regional placements. </p>
<p>First, the admission decision is made, and if you are accepted, then they try to find a placement for you. </p>
<p>The TFA website states that currently there are 55 corps members in the South Dakota region, so I wouldn’t say placements in S.D. are “competitive” (since no one is competing specifically for one region) but maybe “scarce” since I think I read somewhere that around 4,000(?) corps members are placed nationally… That would mean what? 1/80 chance of being placed there? </p>
<p>But it would be hard to estimate how hard or easy it is to get placed in South Dakota since I have no idea whether the corps members there currently WANTED to go there or were just placed there against their wishes, which kinda makes it hard to answer your question… I guess all you can do is to put it as your “highly preferred region,” and hope for the best!! Keep in mind though that you only fill out the regional preference form after stage 2/ the phone interview of the application process (tho some people skip this step), so I would say for now, focus more on the actual application and the personal statements to be turned in. :)</p>
<p>And Mookie, I didn’t put special education under my “highly preferred” section because I figured teaching special education would be a little hard for me… I have no training or experience whatsoever working with special ed kids, and though I know we get training from the institute during the summer, I wanted to be placed somewhere where I know I’ll be comfortable. I highly preferenced Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education since I have some experience working with those age groups.</p>
<p>Tulsa (now Oklahoma) was “highly preferred” for me, but there were about 13 regions I ranked ahead of it. At the time, you ranked your preferences within “Highly Preferred”, “Preferred”, and “Least Preferred”, which from what my sister (who applied this year) says, you don’t now.</p>
<p>Bookaddict, how did your interview go?</p>
<p>Phone or in-person?</p>
<p>My phone interview was really awkward. There were all these pauses while the interviewer wrote down what I was saying. They warned me in advance that they were going to be doing this, but it would have been nice if they gave me acknowledgement that they’d heard my answer or that they knew I was done speaking. As it was, I had a tendency to babble to fill the silence, because I didn’t know if they wanted more. It was nice, however, in that the final interview questions were very similar to the phone interview ones!</p>
<p>My in person interview went really well, I think, despite the fact that the rain messed up the poster I made for my lesson, and I forgot tape so that I could put said poster up. I honestly don’t remember a ton of the details, but my interviewers were friendly, I enjoyed meeting the other applicants, and I think my lesson didn’t go badly compared with those of others. I came out of the interview feeling pretty good, though as time went on I kept doubting myself more and more, as I began to convince myself that it was only because the interviewers were so friendly that I felt good about the day!</p>
<p>We’re allowed to make changes on our regional preferences til early January, right?</p>
<p>I hope making these changes won’t affect admissions since I just made some… lol.</p>
<p>Placement is separate from acceptance, unless you are waitlisted, in which case they do look at your preferences to see if you’d want to accept a spot that has opened up in a region.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight, Do you think they’ve already accepted people considering interviews were 2 weeks ago?</p>
<p>Mookie, that’s what I was wondering too! </p>
<p>TFA website states that we may not make edits on our regional preference form after Jan. 6… so I’m thinking they work on admission til then, and work on placements from Jan 6 til the 17th when we get notified…?? Or maybe they make all the placements by the 6th so that they can double check on stuff before notification?</p>
<p>Aah, I don’t know. But I’m thinking admission decisions shouldn’t take too long-- if anything it should be the placements that are difficult. If I remember correctly, I think we waited about 2 weeks after each step of the selection process-- 2 weeks after app, after phone interview, etc, but I’m not sure about this one…</p>
<p>Someone said that they decide within two weeks of the interview and then the rest is about placements after that. I just want the seventeenth to get here fast. I only have two more days until the end of my semester and then I won’t have anything to take my mind off of this wait. Its gonna be the suck.</p>
<p>Hi Mookie08. I am also from SoCal and had my interview on Nov. 30th. Like everyone else, I am anxiously awaiting the results but trying to keep myself occupied with other things so as not to stress too much. Good luck and thanks for sharing your experience.</p>