I wanted to do a timeline so that if people are looking at this wondering about applying or wondering what the application process is like, they might gain from my experience.  So here is my timeline of my Peace Corps-related life up to the point I actually leave.  I wrote it from memory so I might have missed minor details and the times might be slightly off in a few cases.

You might want to also reference my post on the Peace Corps application process, which talks about the general application procedure but not my specific experience.

Timeline

• February 2007.  Decide I want to apply and begin researching information on the Peace Corps.
• April 2007.  Start the application, which includes writing essays, getting recommendations, and gathering a lot of information.
• June 2007.  Get my application together and send it in.
• July 2007.  Initial interview with a Peace Corps recruiter.  She was litterally a block away from my office.  Receive more paperwork to fill out and am impressed again with the literal nature of the Peace Corps red tape.  It is a good idea to pay attention to the descriptions of requirements for different programs on the Peace Corps web site.
• July 2007 (1 week later).  Return fingerprints and other information for background and legal check.
• August 2007.  Receive a call from a regional placement officer offering me a placement in either english speaking Caribbean or in Africa.  For some reason incomprehensible to me, I choose the Caribbean.  I should have taken the extra few days she offered to think about it.
• December 2007.  I finally get my medical infomation together and everything else that they want.  My application goes complete.
• February 2008.  I receive medical clearance, the big hurdle that must be overcome before you can receive an invitation.
• April 2008.  After scouring the Yahoo peacecorps2 group and various Peace Corps facebook groups for information about trips, I finally receive my invitation for Dominica, Eastern Caribbean, leaving in August.  I get very excited and immediately begin researching everything there is to find on Dominica, which is a lot.  The ‘relatively untouched’ and ecotourism reputation excite me, though it isn’t quite as remote as I had imagined in my head.
• May 2008.  Send my resume and aspiration statement to the Eastern Caribbean country desk.  Tell my boss that I will almost certainly be leaving in July.  She’s known for almost a year, so it hopefully isn’t too much of a surprise.  Begin to make plans about what to buy and pack, and a million other things.  Discretely overlook the part of the invitation that says that I shouldn’t make permanent plans until my departure is less than 4 weeks away.
• July 2008.  My last day is July 11th, a Tuesday.  I am six weeks from leaving.  On Wednesday evening I receive a call from the Peace Corps.  My trip has been cancelled!  Something about sudden loss of training staff.  I spend a day wondering what the heck I am going to do and thinking that this is why you should always quit your job on a Friday while the Peace Corps puts together some alternative options for me (I should note that the Peace Corps people were very nice and it obviously wasn’t their fault at all).
• July 2008 (1 week later).  I was given an option between going to Samoa in October as an Economics Professor, or to Guinea in December as a small business developer.  I choose the later for a variety of reasons, some having to do with not wanting to teach economics in a university and some having to do with the (very) remote location of Samoa (although it looked extremely beautiful).  Since Africa again became an option I accept it rather quickly, much to the surprise of some family and friends who would have chosen Samoa themselves.
• August 2008.  I get my invitation to Guinea.  While I am again excited, I don’t quite have the patience and enthusiasm that I did when I began researching my first destination.  Also, I don’t quite believe that the Peace Corps won’t cancel this trip also.  Over the next couple of months I read a lot about Guinea and the Peace Corps in Guinea.  There is a lot less information than there was for Dominica.
• September 2008.  I find my first fellow volunteer through Facebook.
• October 2008.  Communication between fellow volunteers explodes.  We spend a lot of time talking about the minute details of what we are packing and every other topic I can imagine.  I also get to talk to some current volunteers in Guinea about what they think and get some of their advice, which is great.  Yay internet!
• November 2008.  I make a trial pack and am doing fine.  Two weeks later I find out I need to bring a bicycle helmet, and, coupled with some other things, I am starting to get nervous about space.  Plus, riots flare up in Guinea over gas prices and I suddenly am nauseous about my trip being cancelled again.  I ponder what I will do if that happens.  Can I wait another 3 or 4 months to leave?  I am basically out of money at this point and I’ve already been waiting nearly 6 months.  I decide against making a second trial pack, telling myself that I will just pack everything and then leave clothes behind if I don’t have space for them.  There is a nagging voice in my head saying this is a bad idea.
• December 1st, 2008.  I leave, hopefully.  Fingers crossed, prayer candles lit, salt thrown over shoulder, appropriate sacrifices made, random chance of cancellation modeled (hey, I needed a science alternative to the superstition).

Quite the adventure eh?  And I haven’t even left yet.  So if you are reading this and thinking of applying or in the middle of applying, keep in mind that it really can take a year or more, so start early and don’t procrastinate.  A lot depends on how quickly you get all your medical paperwork in.  If you schedule everything right away you can be ready to go a lot sooner, but if you wait then the time just keeps growing.  Anecdotally it seems like invitations are usually for about 6 months after you are medically cleared.