Excuse the slightly whiney sounding title. I really feel like I’m getting myself worked up/in a panic over nothing, but who knows–perspective would be fantastic.
Brief background: I am a young, recent graduate who previously held TS as an intern across two summers. Only major issue was underage alcohol consumption (which I stopped) and a fake ID (which I admitted to and got rid of). Towards the end of undergrad, I receive a US government scholarship to study abroad, along with a minor scholarship from a foreign government, a tenuous ally perhaps, but not a major concern in the vein of China/Russia/etc. Year abroad caused clearance to expire, refilled e-QIP in January. I made a number of casual, dumb clerical mistakes, all of which I have corrected on my own and filled in with updates after having realized them to the best of my ability.
My main concern is my previous SF-86, which I do not have a copy of–I deleted it from my files in preparation for my trip abroad out of an abundance of caution, and the USB that I held the backup on was destroyed by serious water damage.
I had a lot of foreign contacts from college, in the sense that they were FB friends and what-have-you or people I’d smile at on campus. I unfriended a lot of them since then, but still maintain a fair number, most of whom are from fairly innocuous countries. I assume this clearance process will involve checking my old SF-86 from 3 years ago, and I’m sure there are a pretty sizable number of foreign nationals in there who I never mention in my new one because I honestly don’t remember half of them if they’re not social media contacts (and I’ll be frank–the threshold for reporting foreign contacts, in my opinion, is far too low, but I still put every. single. one. in there, of course). Will this be viewed maliciously, and is that something I can explain in the in-person interview, or should I proactively send them an email via my recruiter? I’m sure it will take more time–I’m betting on this being a very long process at this point, despite having recently held the same clearance level; neither I nor my references have heard a peep from anyone since I submitted in January–but it’s not, like, damning, right?