There several stages to the interview process that makes it quite a horse of different color than the College Program process. College Program there are only 4 stages: The Web Based Acceptance, The Phone Interview, and either Acceptance/Denied or Pending. For the Professional Internships its a lot more spread out and nerve wracking.
You have the Application stage, which could kick out an instant NLIC or No Longer In Consideration if there aren't key signifiers needed in the application.
Then the Submission stage, which means that the department has received it but hasn't opened/considered it yet.
In Progress is the next stage, meaning they have opened it and are passing it around under the first round of "auditions" of sorts. This is the stage where a lot of NLICs go out to thin out people who are barely qualified or need more experience to be considered for the role.
Depending on which application is you can the move onto the Phone Interview/Schedule Phone Interview, but be warned! The phone interview is for every position you wish to apply for under the PI banner so prepare accordingly. If you make it past this stage and apply for later positions the phone interview will be used for that position as well, so try to cover all of your bases.
If you do well in your interview your position will go to the dead zone, also known as the Interview Stage. This is where most of us sit for the longest periods of time. This stage allows the specific departments to weigh all of the applicants, decided how many positions they will offer if at all- it's not unheard of for a position to have applicants and then decide to pull the internship (I already had one do that but they kicked out an email that explained it, so I didn't develop too much of a complex). History says that an applicant could hit the interview stage in January and be in the interview stage up until May, just under a month of the internship starting. Here is the tricky part of the Interview Stage, a department can decide to schedule and/or conduct a second interview without much warning. Now VERY FEW departments actually do this, the most notorious are the Fairy Tale Weddings, but they tend to only take 1 internship a year so if you get this one by god take it. A second interview is a lot like a call back, it does not guarantee you have the internship they just want a second look. Basically in this stage the longer you hear nothing, the better off you are. I know its the complete opposite to the pending status of CPs but in this case no news is good news.
After this stage there is heaven or hell in that there are only 3 stages left, being Invitation, Post-Invitation, or NLIC.
Now, trends show that WDW is the first to go through their applications, interviews and offers with DL holding out to even hit interview stage until after the deadline. But as I have 3 for WDW and 3 for DL all in the interview stage, that may not hold true.
The big question is if you can be offered more than one internship and if you do is there a window that will force you to choose. I've only known of one or two that have been offered more than one, with an acquaintance being offered a Disney Institute PI and then a Fairy Tale PI. I don't remember what her final decision was, but I do remember her lamenting a two week window.
Now the problem is that with this new Dashboard system there are still major glitches. The Facebook groups are littered with people who were given NLICs only to call and be told that they were actually still in the running. Personally my dashboard hasn't been updated in two weeks and I called because one of my applications hadn't even been verified as submitted, only to be informed that it was in the system and had been sent to the department. So take your dashboard with a grain of salt. A decision might have been made and you might not know until much later, lol.
Hopefully I covered everything!!
