Make that three people :) I have been poking around the internet for some good info about the program, and I came across this thread. You guys have some great discussions and info on here, so I decided to sign up ^_^

This is a great site, so I'll be sure to keep coming back here often. Here's to hoping we all get in! :vsign:

September I think. The time sure did fly.

Here's the whole timeline for the application process:

Late September Application Process Begins
Mid October Early Applications Accepted
Late November Application Deadline* (Varies by Country)
January 1st Notice Sent to Applicants
February / March Interviews Held at Japanese Embassies / Consulates
Late March / April Interview Results Sent to Tokyo
April 2nd Notice Sent to Applicants
May Submit Health Check and Reply Forms
May-August Successful Applicants Receive Notification
May / June / July Sucessful Applicants Receive Placement Information
July Pre-Departure Orientation
July / August Departure on Designated Day

It seems like all of us are itching to apply, so I'd have them ready by the first day of the Early Application period :)

Woo, not too long now then! I'm going to have to dig up my graduation materials sometime, I think I shoved them in a filing cabinet somewhere... finally my degree is coming in handy XD I'm planning to take my sweet time to check over everything and hand it in when I'm 100% sure it's all ready :cool:

And yay, three of us!

*Cheers and claps* Yay us!!

Oh, and welcome to the board OsakaPapa. Everyone around here is nice and informative. You should be able to get a lot of good information here, and thanks for posting the time line.

We will all do our bests, and since the time is growing near, I should probably call the embassy to see about that situation I have dealing with my schooling.

I do know that I'm going to take my time on the application. I still haven't gotten started on my SoP. I think I'm focusing too much on it since this time last year I had a lot of ideas. I have no idea what happened. ><'

Thanks for the warm welcome! :3 This is by far the best forum I've seen which people talking about Japan. The only other one I knew of was BigDaikon, and there's a lot of jerks on there XD

I haven't started on my SoP yet either, and since I'm a well known procrastinator, I'll probably do it shortly before I hand in my app >_>; But I'll try my best to get it done before that! Maybe this will help break my habit XD And yeah, I'd really try to get your schooling issues settled a.s.a.p. Sometimes dealing with government agencies can be lengthy process (hey, look at the application process >_>)

Have either of you guys zeroed in on somewhere you'd like to live yet?

I'm vaguely hoping for something fairly central (so travel and getting to bigger cities every now and then won't be so difficult) or towards the south (since I have a feeling I'll be able to handle hot summers better than the cold north winters), but nothing more specific than that. I'm more or less ready to go anywhere, I'm in this for an adventure and a challenge and I think anywhere in Japan will give me that :) I'll probably put down Perth's sister city, Kagoshima and Western Australia's sister state, Hyogo as preferences since both places seem pretty cool and strengthening ties seems like a valid enough reason.

I've only briefly thought about my SoP... bit hard to decide what to write until I see what the prompts will be.

I'm guessing from your name you'd like the Osaka/Kansai area? That was where I requested, and I got Wakayama-ken, and a city less than an hour from Namba station in Osaka by train.

I'm actually trying to go to Hyogo-ken too :D I can't find it anymore on the JET programme website, but they had this table of all the prefectures in Japan, and how many people from each country went to them. If I remember correctly, the prefecture they sent the most people to was...Hyogo-ken! :vsign:

While Osaka is my favorite city (bet you never guessed that from my username :mtongue:), I know better then to apply for it. But, I love the Kansai area, and I think I found my "happy-medium" place: Nishinomiya-shi. It's a town between the cities of Kobe and Osaka in Hyogo-ken, and it really has everything I want:

- close proximity and easy access to Osaka and Kobe
- significantly smaller and less populated city, so it's not such a crazy place to live
- it's near the sea, which for me is really important
- there's a lot to do and see in the area
- Koshien Stadium, where my favorite baseball team, the Hanshin Tigers play, is in the same city! Win ;3

So yeah, I'm really hoping I can get that. If not, my second choice is Kobe, which is a sister city to my home city of Philadelphia. My third choice I'm really up in the air about whether I should pick another place in Kansai, or put down somewhere else. Still have a lot to think about XD

Big Daikon...I know of that place. Loaded with jerks, seemingly, and I'm not the type to say stuff like that.

I Think I'm Lost is a nice site to go to. Seems a bit milder than what it used to be. Not as many smart allecks like when I first went. I got bashed on that site because one person did a search, and saw I wrote fanfictions in the past and liked anime and manga and even bashed my avy, which I like, being a Legends of Zelda fan and all. But meh, it's a lot better now that I've gone back. Samurai007 (think that's the name), who is also on this site, goes there now too. He's very wise on the whole JET thing, as are a lot of others here.I know I mentioned the school issue early on in this thread earlier. Easy to miss, though. Here's the post. This is pretty much my only hindrance....so far. If things go right, I should be done by March or so.Hokkaido region, definitely. One of the places I mentioned earlier was Ishikari, Hokkaido, but even if not that, I'd still prefer someplace in Hokkaido, but "fairly central" so that I can travel, have access to public transit and stores and such. I don't want to live in a big city, but I don't mind being close to them.

The main reason I'd like Hokkaido, or even northern region of Honshuu, is mostly because of the weather. I think I can handle the cold more so than the heat, but if I do end up as a JET, and don't get my choice, doesn't matter too much. I'm already expecting that there's that chance that I won't get that placement.

My second choice would be Tochigi, but only for a shallow reason. I chat with one of the members on Tochigi BOE, and we correspond through e-mail, but of course it takes a while ot reply back and forth because of language barriers [he just sent me another message a while ago], so I'm sure that he would be very helpful to me if I were placed there. He was very nice, and seemed to really appreciate it when I helped him when I met him last year during a teaching convention.

My third choice, I'd probably have to say Saitama...maybe, but only because it's my sister city.

Edit: Here's the chart you mentioned.

I'm a bit curious now. For those who got to the interview process, did the interviewers ask why you chose certain placements?