I had heard that the interview process was long and intensive, and a few of my friends had applied during the first couple deadlines and were not accepted into the program; going into it, I was pretty nervous but also didn't really care whether I got in or not, and I knew I was applying last-minute to the final deadline. Although I don't like speaking in front of groups of people (or at least I didn't then... it's kind of hard to avoid when you're a teacher!) it was good to force myself into that experience and it went really well. First I did the online portion, which I've heard is essentially rated based on points, and if your application gets X number of points then you get a phone interview. Very impersonal step. After that, your phone interviewer asks you a bunch of questions and TFA as a company starts trying to convince you how great it is and how much support you'll have (I remember getting additional phone calls from current corps members who wanted to talk to me about the experience, etc). Lots of marketing and branding. Then the in-person interview, at least mine, was a group interview. We presented 5 minute lesson plans to the other interviewees and two or three staff, and then had a group conversation (I forget what it was about, maybe a debate type thing) -- in the afternoon, we had one-on-one interviews. I remember the person who went before me was in there for like 20 minutes (it was meant to be a 30 minute interview) and mine lasted for over 45m, The lady seemed super into me being a part of the program, but obviously I don't know if she was like that for everyone. I later found out that I was the only person hired from my group of interviewees.
