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Thanks both of you! I convinced myself I would be a NP or an A. @AnnMarie, Poland was only supposed to have 15 grants last year but there are 17 there now so extra funds may pop up!! I wish I had previous years data but there is a very good chance! I am crossing everything!

I am a finalist for the ETA. I just checked my email as I was leaving work...I am stunned. Maybe they made a mistake.

I am so happy for you!!!! Congrats!

Whoa!! It feels too real with people being notified. Congrats to all who are finalists and may the Fulbright Comission of your country find more funds to make alternates into finalists! ?

Mine was 15 minutes. I was close to sending an email to confirm it after quadruple checking the time and date. They called just before I hit sent. That was a relief! ? It's for Poland! I was nervous, could have done a lot better but I didn't blank and the interview lasted the estimated amount of time so that is a plus! Hopefully said things on topic, can't for the life of me remember now what I said! ??

First in the brainstorming, the dreaded: "did you check your spam folder?" They sent out interview requests Jan 23, with confirmation needing to be in within two days, I believe. There is no way any sort of selection was made between our notification date and the request to interview, so it could come down to an oversight on their end, too. It it could also be like the UK, where only some of the applicants are interviewed.

Different country, but same thing happened to me! ? it's so unnerving! Hope it it went well! ?

They didn't say anything in my interview (Poland) but I didn't ask either. Fulbrights are massive bureaucratic undertakings so it could be anything from the various offices involved in the State Department to the Fulbright offices in the host country to the conditions within the country or to the institutions (if you are applying for an ETA) or a combination of all the above. If it's something they told you specifically in the interview, then it's probably something on the host country's side. ):

I am pretty certain your Peace Corps training is pretty sufficient. A different way of living plus cultural and political sensitivity training is probably the main jist (I am just guessing this based on the fact that they don't require it for Western or highly Western-esque countries like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea but do for newer EU-admits like Croatia, Lithuania and Estonia, who aren't far from the Soviet era). If Fulbright will pay to get you to the PDO and you can take the three (or five days, depending on the flights you can get) off, then it sounds ideal tbh. It sucks to diminish a current opportunity for a future one so I really hope you can complete your Peace Corps then jump into your Fulbright easily. I guess I might be cynical but I am sometimes shocked about how much people are willing to help and/or accommodate others, even when their jobs have bureaucratic limitations so always email the right people to see if anything can be done! Oh, yikes, I didn't know Fulbright notified people all the out until May! I assumed mid-April was the latest, especially since that is when the exemption stuff comes out for the PDOs (finding out in mid-May then having to request an exemption for early June orientations sounds like something they wouldn't do...hopefully...) Looking at the doc, I want to say I am confident you'll hear back end of April by the latest. (The latest notification were 5/16 and 5/20 for Venezuela and Uruguay ETA for the latest Fulbright years, but that seems like an anomaly to me since most are mid-to-late April at latest, with a few early Mays in there) I feel like we're all obsessively checking our emails. It's the most healthy unhealthy option, haha! (better than worry or panic for sure!) Didn't know about the NCE status actually (EO here btw) -- that is so rad!!

"Attendance at Pre-Departure Orientations is mandatory. Exemptions will only be considered for extenuating circumstances by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. Department of State. Information on filing an exemption will be made available to grantees invited to the Pre-Departure Orientations in early April." (source) It's mandatory but 1) I think someone who has been in the Peace Corps would the proper orientation since looking at their list, the orientations are for countries in precarious geopolitical situations (historically and currently) and/or significant socio-cultural / political considerations that they really want fellows there to be aware of and 2) Your situation sounds like an extenuating circumstance, especially being in a rural African village (my family is from one on the other side of the continent and it's excruciating to travel to the main city or get a good phone connection) and you're already in a commitment that would be terminated if you had to leave to the U.S. for three days. There are a lot of Peace Corp --> Fulbright people that I have read about so I think it's something they have surely encountered. File an exemption in April or, if the dates and timings are sensitive, email when [not if! :^) Positive thinking!] you receive a grant. I would look into the process of applying for that three days leave from Peace Corps though, just to have it on the back-burner. It would suck to leave Benin two months early for those three days but it would suck to lose a nine-month Fulbright grant for two months also! I would hold off on when to end the Peace Corp thing until the exemption (in case you would need to leave in June) and departure dates come out. How much time do you have to give Peace Corps before you leave? (i.e. could you tell them in April/May that you are leaving, say, September 1st?)

Yes, I just had one last night and it was the most banal, Inception-esque of nightmare. I got rejected, just to wake up in my dream to realize I was actually selected so I got on a plane in a 60s-style airport on my way to start the program...just to wake up AGAIN and realize it was all a dream. This 'waking up in a dream and finding an acceptance' happened two more time before I woke up for real! Maybe it's my mind's poetic metaphor for the elusive acceptance.

I was thinking that since the board, made up of six members that probably don't meet everyday, has to approve them that they have some sort of rolling scale of approval for it, probably by some clearance factor (maybe to do with finalizing the grants themselves or maybe the institutions? On a quick glance, Europe seems to always be the earliest in notifying people, then Asia, Eurasia, then Africa?) I think that the March 3rd thing probably is a guideline to when they should have it done vs "get them all in or else." But the date for the IEE semi-finalist notifications was pretty spot on, it seems everyone received it by Jan 18th and 2015's version (via WayBackMachine) of that page didn't have any dates at all, so maybe this is a new thing? That page is password-protected now so maybe we weren't supposed to see it at all! Eek )^:

I have no clue how they responded to my answers, I could only see them nodding along and writing things down. My essays were who I was as a person so I really hope they read them! That could be it, not sure how much personality they could get from a 15 minute interview though. (I dunno why that seems so short to me. I guess I am used to 30 - 45 minute interviews normally!)

Haha, a month seems so long when you just wanna know! But you're right!

Yeah, I get that but it felt like repeating stuff and I was in the mindset from the statements never to repeat myself. (Another case of me psyching myself out, I guess). Ugh, that is actually really scary then, to be honest, because if they just interviewed me without reading my statements then...I am pretty sure that I am a non-select -- my interview was pretty weak by itself. But! Since I write stream of consciousness and I am just remembering now, Justyna (I think that was the main interviewer's name) mentioned that I had traveled a fair bit which means she had to have read my application or my statement to know that so they must have at least skimmed them.