I applied for the early deadline in August because luckily I knew that I definitely wanted to do this for the next two years. This consisted of submitting a resume, answering a few questions and submitting a 300-500 word personal statement. Overall, it was pretty simple.
Before that, one of the recruiters reached out to me since I was referred as a student leader on campus. She was absolutely amazing and supportive. She just finished her 2 years teaching and was incredibly passionate. This made me more excited.
I found out that I made it to the Final Interview in less than a week! Basically, they allowed me to skip the second round phone interview either because my app was very informative or because they thought they had enough info to skip straight to the interview process.
Since I found out so early and my interview was a month and a half away, I definitely procrastinated big time! I was recruiting for other jobs and dealing with school so the final interview just snuck up on me. In retrospect I wish I started preparing earlier.
The final interview is almost a full business day long. You immediately do a mock 5 minute lesson plan amongst a group of other candidates. It literally is 5 minutes so preparation is key! I was not as prepared for this part at all. I made it through my lesson but I didn't address all of my objectives which worried me a bit. I would have rated myself as a 6.
The second part of the interview is a group case where we work together to identify problems within a given situation at school. I am a social sciences major so I was very comfortable with outlining the issues in urban schools. Here I would have rated myself as a 9.5
Finally you have the one on one interview and my interviewer did a great job of concealing her expressions and opinion of me. Normally, I could gauge the rapport I have with someone, but this was more nebulous. I thought I was a little verbose in my explanations and thrown off by a few questions. I would personally have rated myself as a 7.
*In the downtime of the final interview day, you get to meet so many wonderful applicants! Get to know them! Many of them are sweet and genuine people who you can learn a lot from. I made so many new friends over lunch and I really loved hearing their stories.*
My advice:
1) The process was very simple. I would stress that you have a well thought out reason as to why you want to apply. Teaching is very personal and your application should be. I read a lot of applications through my campus job in admissions and if you could imagine how much generic apps come in, you would avoid doing that at all costs. Really SHOW who you are and why your experiences are relevant to the job.
2) Apply early! Particularly if you have a location preference or if you really know you want it, don't wait. Early applicants get priority, bottom line. It also gives you more time to prepare and evaluate other options
3) Connect with a recruiter. This person could be your advocate and can answer a lot of questions without being judgmental.
4) Don't be like me and prep hard for the teaching portion. I spent 2 weeks agonizing over my acceptance because I was not confident about this part of the process. On the other hand, I didn't panic! That's probably the worse thing you can do. I was still energetic, I made a few jokes and came off as very relatable.
5) If you are not from a low-income/minority area, you better show that you are compassionate and that your experiences are relatable. A lot of teachers panic because they do not know how to deal with the students in their class. I think TFA fears that these students will drop out so you need to convince them through your experiences that you are relatable and perseverant.
Cons: I personally cannot think of anything that annoyed me. If you don't like writing personal statements, it could be challenging, but other then that, nothing comes to mind.
