<p>Thanks to everyone for chiming in. It seems like my interviews ratio was not an anomaly. Interestingly enough, my housemate also interviewed, but he went on a different day. He said it was an even 6-6 split which was very surprising. I mean, it is clear that a significantly higher amount of females apply, but I feel like that doesn’t correlate to a better chance for males. I suppose if you are looking to try to find a reason, there is a demand for male teachers in the teaching profession, and with TFA, you’re going into a lot of areas where the more troubled kids are males–many of which come from single parent homes where that parent is likely the mother, so I guess trying to position a positive male influence in their lives is a benefit, but this is all 100% conjecture. I doubt it has any kind of seismic impact on the decision process, if any at all.</p>
<p>I had one guy in my interview.</p>
<p>Have peoples Transitional funding changed?</p>
<p>Here is my thoughts on Transitional Funding. I could be WAY off so read with caution:
If there are roughly 40000 applicants per year that would be about 8000 per deadline. About 6000 go past the initial screening per deadline. About 4500 go to the final interview per deadline. Now my estimations say that a good majority of these apply for TF. Let’s guess 3000. Why in the world would the grants and loans office read through all 3000 of these and change the status to complete? Why would they waste their time when only about 1000 are accepted per deadline!? I see the TF status change to be a very positive thing. Why would admissions practically say to the grants and loans offices “Oh here you go, here are 3000 applications to go through. We will only pick like 1/3 of them but we want you to do a ton work!”
It doesn’t make sense, to me at least.
I hope this explanation was understandable.</p>
<p>laine17, that does make perfect sense. The only that scares me is that when reading over previous posts, people know of other people who had their status changed as complete but they weren’t accepted. Though in that case, it was always friends of friends. I think everyone on this board in the past who did experience a change, received acceptance.</p>
<p>Has anyone been accepted without their transitional funding status changing?</p>
<p>plb675, not sure. Reading past posts, a lot of people who did get accepted in previous deadlines saw a change in transitional funding either a week before the deadline or even a couple of hours before</p>
<p>We’ll see, my status has been complete for a few days now. Who knows? I wouldn’t put it past TFA to do the extra work even if it is unnecessary</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re right. Considering some people got emails to listen to webnairs even though they got a rejection the next day.Ah, only 5 more days</p>
<p>I can’t believe oly 5 more days, and now I don;t have positive thoughts at all with all of the great people in this thread not getting accepted…</p>
<p>Anyways, Laine, it makes sense what you are saying but here is my thought:
They check everyone’s TF just to see if they sent the information. So, even though its 3000 applications for TF, they are very specific with what they want: the first 4 pages of Tax return and the current amount of students loans (which is 1 page). So checking if we completed or not the application correct is pretty fast, all they need to do is download what you sent and check if the pages are correct.
Then comes the fun part, after checking to see who had everything right(remember they start checking the applications even before final interview), they only take the one’s that are granted acceptance and decide on the transitional fund AMOUNT because they need to know since they have specific amount of money to give away. So, this is why they let you know about the amount only when accepted.
For those that still didn’t get a status change this is what I think. They have specific days to check the applications, let’s say: Feb 11th-Feb28th, by Feb 28th they already know who is accepted, so if they didn’t have time to look over your paper, they will put you either with the accepted file or the non accepted file and then they will nly waste their time checking if you are accepted. They decide the amount of the TF grant from March 1st through March 6th, when they already know who is accepted and they are just placing people in different states, etc…
Did everything make sense??? sorry if I made any mistake, I am just typing fast because I am at work:-)</p>
<p>Ah! I forgot to ask!
I received an e-mail from teach for america today, have everyone received it???</p>
<p>@smarques, what email,? I got one too and it was quite unsettling. I do not have a decision yet but I am seriously considering withdrawing my application after a discussion I had today.</p>
<p>I did not receive an email today…
What were your emails about?</p>
<p>I didn’t receive one either. What were they about? (If you don’t mind me asking)</p>
<p>@smarques2 and plb675, would you mind posting or paraphrasing what the TFA email(s) were about? It might help all of us out by adding to collective information or granting a chance for opinions. And @plb675, hang in there - remember, we’re all waiting for information and this isn’t necessarily about ‘winning’ or ‘losing’. I don’t know that withdrawing gives the information you’ve been seeking.</p>
<p>At this point, some of us may be feeling dejected… but we’ve got to hang in there. In the event that we are to receive TFA, withdrawing now doesn’t serve our kids. And, in the event that some of us don’t receive TFA, we can still remain committed to the task of closing the achievement gap. It started before we were interested in TFA, it’ll be around as a problem for us to solve even after Tuesday, come what may. </p>
<p>Hang in there, guys!!</p>
<p>For me, communication is of paramount importance. I feel there has been a major breakdown in communication about issues of importance. I would never neglect to communicate with my students, families or school and I question what example this is setting when the institution I an applying to has communication issues.</p>
<p>Hi everyone, this is the e-mail I received… I thought they would send it to everyone so now I am very confused but I am kind of hopeful again(does that make sense)?</p>
<p>Hey there! My name is … (don’t want to expose her) and I was a 2009 corps member in …(her region). I now work at Teach For America on staff and help coordinate recruitment at UCF. Since we didn’t have the pleasure of meeting prior to your interview I wanted to reach out. With just less than a week until Teach For America final decisions are announced I wanted to check in with you and see how you are feeling about the application process.</p>
<p>Over the next few days I would love to connect with you via phone or email to answer any questions or provide more information to you. The entire application process is such a whirlwind and now that things have slowed down you may have thought about things you (or your parents) are curious about. </p>
<p>Feel free to reply back with your own questions or just let me know of a time that you would prefer to speak over the phone. To help me figure out how I can best help you I have jotted down a few questions for you to answer.</p>
<p>1.How can I best support you? Would you like to talk? </p>
<p>2.What are you curious about? (Logistics, timelines, finances, institute, living situations, training, etc?)</p>
<p>3.Do you feel like you know enough about Teach For America? Would it be helpful to talk to an alumnus about his or her experience?</p>
<p>4.Are you considering other options? Do you need info about possible deferrals for grad programs?</p>
<p>5.What questions do your loved ones or parents have?</p>
<p>Again, you don’t have to answer all (or any of these), but I want to try my best to support you because I remember waiting anxiously and being very nervous/ excited, but had a ton of questions!!!</p>
<p>plb675, ah I’m so sorry you are going through this. I hope TFA lets you know soon and everyone is on the same page</p>
<p>Oh ok. It was your recruiter introducing herself. Phew…I just breathed a big sigh of relief haha.</p>
<p>I had that same emails week ago but found this recruiter to be of no help essentially.</p>
<p>How is everybody doing today? I feel wayyyy better after getting some much needed sleep. My mind is clear and I’m ready to move forward! </p>
<p>Currently, I believe that I am going to take a position which has been offered to me by my fraternal organization. I’d get to travel throughout the country to different university campuses - can’t complain about that. I might continue to apply for some other Americorps programs that have April deadlines, but I believe that I’ll be heavily applying for other education/social change programs in August/September when deadlines are fresh. </p>
<p>My biggest mistake was applying to only one education organization: Teach for America. However, I had no way of knowing how big of a mistake that was a few months ago; the idea of a career in education or social change was all too new to me! With that, if I work my buns off gathering information and writing some good material over the next 3 months, then outcomes for Fall 2013 could look quite promising 
</p>
<p>Keep your chins up everybody. I’m sure you’ll have far more stressful days as a corps member!</p>