Ha! Geez, I feel you there. If anything this process has shown it’s not for the anxious and that maybe FSO’s need to be a bit more precise if possible. I acknowledge that any update request where results are not available is perhaps pointless since we are just observers in the marvelous journey that is the security clearance process. It’s just nice to know your case isn’t lost and is actually doing something. You read these stories online where people are like it took me “X” number of years to finally get my case adjudicated. Then you get to become the lucky individual to experience a weird timeline first hand and your just thinking “WHY ME!”.
Update for me:
Secret level for aerospace contractor
Dec 14 Eqip sent
Dec 16 fingerprints sent
Dec 20 Eqip accepted
Jan 12 Interim clearance granted
Jan 30 interview with investigator
Feb 6 and 7 references interviewed by investigators
March 23 Full clearance granted and submitted for PAR.
Now I have to wait for the PAR which I’m told is typically 6 weeks. So I should be able to start the new job late May or early June, factoring in 2 weeks notice to my current employer.
2 Likes
PAR? That’s a new one on me
Not much of an update for me. I passed 150 days of pending background a few days ago for a T3 secret. Still waiting for my investigation to even close.
Program Access Request. After clearance is granted, or if contractor already has a clearance, contractor uses this to get approval to work on special types of jobs.
2 Likes
I just received my approval for a TS clearance and I thought I’d add my timeline to the thread.
Nov 3, 2022: Submitted SF-86.
Nov 10: Subject interview via phone.
Nov 16: Polygraph.
Nov 30: Drug test.
Dec 12: More info requested.
Apr 6, 2023: Favorable adjudication.
This all happened more quickly than I anticipated based on comments I’ve read. Although my employer is one of the “three letter” or “alphabet” agencies, so I believe they may process these quicker. During the “hurry up and wait” months, they did send periodic emails basically confirming that I was still in background and they hadn’t forgotten about me, which I appreciated. In any case, it’s finally completed! 
Wow, your case is really quick. I also submitted the SF-86 on November 2022 but I didn’t even receive either any phone call or the subject interview. It really makes me nervous now.
Try not to compare your case to others, it will only cause mental anguish 
Yes, @elizabethkeen had a pretty quick timeline, especially when you consider that it includes the Christmas/New Year’s holidays. But there are a lot of factors at play that impact any individual timeline.
2 Likes
Do you mean that you were coming from another three-letter and this was a crossover? I ask because this timeline was exceptionally quick for a full-scope assuming it was an initial.
Faster than most, but not exceptional. Actually I’ve heard of several that completed in about four months. But some other “clean” cases take 8-9 months or longer.
I guess it depends on the field. I’ve never known anyone to get thru an initial FSP in less than two years.
1 Like
I do want to mention that my position was considered a “critical” hire, so that may have given me some kind of fast pass.
1 Like
No, this was my very first. It was done by one of the intelligence agencies. I’m also in my early twenties with a squeaky clean record, so they only had to go back a few years for the investigation. I was also told my position was considered a “critical” hire. I figure those factors may have sped things a long. They said to expect 6-9 months, and I was surprised it turned out that fast.
Obviously, Raymond Reddington got you fast-tracked.
7 Likes
In my heart, that is 100% true! I think I’ll go around telling people that 
For the subject interview. Did they let you know when they will call or did they just call randomly? Because I received a lot of scammer calls so I usually hung up on the strange phone number.
They called me on the phone to let me know they would like to schedule the interview. I also ignore unknown numbers and they left a voicemail explaining who they were and for me to call them back so we could discuss a convenient time for the interview. As long as your voicemail works, they’ll leave a message and then you can save their number for the actual interview.
It’s random. Just make sure you have voicemail set up and that it is not full and actually check it. But have no fear, you will receive multiple calls, voicemails, text messages, emails, calls to your supervisor, and I might just pop up at your house if I don’t hear from you.
4 Likes
I am also noticing the longer delay in case completion. For a few months, I was getting cases assigned to me where the case papers were signed within that same week. Now I’m seeing cases that have been sitting since November 2022. Here are the trends I’m seeing being the biggest issues:
- The required in person field work is causing a delay. I can’t physically drive to all of the places they want me to and complete my field work in a timely manner. It’s not mathematically possible. So some things sit based on where they are geographically. And yes, like it or not, some cases are marked higher priority over others, period. There is zero first come first serve.
- These timeliness metrics in conjunction with the required in person field work are putting TONS of pressure on investigators, and are causing a lot of investigators to up and quit. Yesterday, I had a subject contact assigned to me to clarify a supervisors name and a discrepant date of employment. The subject’s original investigator submitted the interview in December and then quit. When it went to review, it was determined that more work needed to be done and the subject contact bounced around before getting assigned to me last week. Literally all the subject needed was to clarify those two things and it took 4 months to get it assigned to an investigator (the subject moved and changed jobs and it took a while to track them down).
- Subjects are not giving us good leads. We will ask for contact info for people who are aware of foreign passports, foreign contacts, etc, and the subject will just be like, “oh all of my listed references are aware.” Meanwhile they are assuming that just because their friends know they are from India, that said friend would just automatically be aware that they had a foreign passport at one point, or that grandma and grandpa still live in Italy, and that’s simply not the case. It does not occur to a lot of people that if someone was born in another country that they would have had a foreign passport at some point to come to the US. Or they give us leads who don’t speak English and they don’t bother telling us that along with what language they DO speak so we can have it scheduled to an investigator that speaks the correct language right away. I had a source assigned to me that only spoke Mandarin, which I couldn’t even identify right away, and it took me weeks to get the subject to respond to they could tell me what language it was… then I had to locate an investigator that spoke mandarin and have it reassigned to them and it was another few weeks before they completed the source interview. Or the subject has previous drug use and fails to remind their references that they need to be honest about EVERYTHING, and the reference plays dumb, not wanting to get the subject in trouble, even though that reference was the one smoking weed with the subject every day in college. This is probably the biggest delay I see - leads/references that can’t back up what the subject tells us and then we have to go hunting down new ones.
Sorry for the long post. I was highly amused reading some of these comments from people who are not investigators, and I was trying to give a little more detailed perspective onto some of the reasons for delays. The truth is that there are hundreds of reasons for delays. It’s an unfortunate part of the clearance process, but that is the reality.
6 Likes
Has your investigation closed? It has already passed 180 days. Mine is passing 120 days now.