Q & A: About Skills, Pay, Qualifications

How? Where? When? Why? Peace Corps campus recruiters answer thousands of questions about qualifications, assignments, selection, training and a thousand other facets of the programs.

Here are answers to the most frequently posed questions.

Q. Is the Peace Corps successful?

A. The best measure of success is the fact that host countries ask us back. The response of the 46 countries where Volunteers are at work has been overwhelming: Nearly every country has requested more Volunteers than are available. Requests by 20 other nations for Volunteers have had to be turned down for lack of Volunteers to fill them.

Q. Does a Volunteer have a choice as to where he is sent?

A. Yes. He may indicate preferences on the questionnaire. However, a person's skills and background are matched with requirements, and he may not be offered an assignment in his first-choice country. And he, in turn, may decline the invitation and request another more to his liking.

Q. To what extent does a person commit himself when he fills out an application and takes the test? Can he change his mind?

A. A person is free to change his mind at any time. Completing the application procedure indicates an interest in the Peace Corps to which the agency will respond.

Q. How much do you get paid?

A. Each Volunteer is provided with an allowance large enough to permit him to live at the same level as those with whom he will work. Each Volunteer also gets a readjustment allowance of $75 per month (before taxes) which is given to him at the end of service.

Q. What are the qualifications and standards for Peace Corps service?

A. The basic qualifications are brief: you must be an American citizen, at least 18 years old, without dependents under 18, and available for a two-year term of service. You need not know a language. Most people, for instance, don't know Urdu, which we teach you if you're headed for West Pakistan. The standards are quite high. More than 150,000 people have applied for the Peace Corps and only about 18,000 have been sent abroad.

Q. How long after applying do you find out if you are accepted?

A. You will be nitified within six weeks if you are to to join a training program do not actually become Corps Volunteer until you have completed training.

Q. What kinds of skills are needed and what jobs are availabel?

A. The Peace Corps has Volunteers working at some 300 cluding community development teaching, accounting, receations, public health, heavy equipment maintenance and agriculture enthusiasm and energy are as important as your skills, however