My DCP Application Journey

Welcome everyone! I’m so excited about creating my first blog to record my experience through the Disney College Program. Not only is this a great way to tell family and friends back home what I’m up to, it’ll also be an incredible time capsule for the future to look back on all the memories I make this upcoming spring.

As the first post here, I thought I would give some background info on how I got to the point of being accepted into the Disney College Program. This might even be helpful to anyone reading who is interested in applying in future seasons to better understand the process!

Step #1: Applying

The first day of my junior year of nursing school – August 19 - also happened to be the day applications dropped for the DCP. I was a little nervous and hesitant about applying the first day, because I did that last season, waited in application received the entire time, and never moved on. But I decided to go for it anyways, knowing I’d be upset with myself for doing it if the same thing happened again, but also too excited not to go ahead and apply! I filled out a form with basic info, my college details, past and current jobs, and ranked what jobs I was interested in being considered for at Disney World. Then the waiting began!

Step #2: Web Based Interview (WBI)

The hours passed on August 19, and dread started to set in as I saw many people immediately getting an email telling them they had moved onto the web-based interview while I still sat in application received status. As days went on, I started to wonder if it would just be déjà vu from last season, but finally, I came out of class on August 29 and saw on my email that I had moved onto the WBI! I was so excited and went ahead and took it that night. The WBI is basically one of those online personality quizzes where you rate on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, while another part of it was multiple choice questions. None are necessarily the “wrong answer,” but Disney is definitely looking for hard working, friendly, and motivated cast members, so they look for qualities like that in your answers. The entire time I was freaking out hoping I was making the right choices, but in all reality, it wasn’t bad at all! The time limit made you hurry but as long as you stayed consistent in your answers, this step of the process isn’t too difficult. After about 40 minutes of answering, a page suddenly popped up saying that I had passed, and I was moving on to schedule my phone interview!

Step #3: Phone Interview (PI)

I scheduled my phone interview for September 6 at 8:45 a.m. so I had a few days to prepare. Beforehand, I looked up a lot of potential DCP interview questions online and watched people’s phone interviews on YouTube which helped a ton in making me feel more prepared and knowing what to expect.  I made a few notes to reference throughout the interview, but I didn’t want to sound too scripted or unnatural on my answers so I tried not to over prepare. On the morning of the interview, I got dressed in a Disney outfit,wore my Mickey ears for good luck, said a prayer, only freaked out a little (maybe that’s a lie) and got motivated by listening to my favorite Disney music for the hour leading up to my interview! Waiting for the call to come through was so hard, but finally just a couple minutes after 8:45, Unknown Caller popped up on my phone screen and I took a deep breath and answered. I was so blessed to get Amy as my interviewer, because she was so sweet and easy to talk to on the phone. She asked me about past experiences and hypothetical questions to see how I would handle different situations as a cast member working for Disney. It was actually enjoyable and although I was nervous, it was fun to talk about my love for Disney and the 26 minutes I was on the phone really flew by! I had a great feeling after ending the call, but I knew I was about to enter the most anxiety-inducing part so far – which was the waiting game to see if I would be accepted. I didn’t know whether I would hear back good news or bad, and I knew there was the possibility I may not even hear back until the very end of the application season on November 15^th! I just prayed that if it was meant to be, it would happen!

Step #4: Acceptance!!

On certain days, the recruiters have “waves” of acceptances that are sent out and these are announced on Twitter the day of the waves. On the morning of September 17, I found out there would be a wave! I headed to my nursing clinicals at the hospital that day and tried not to get my hopes up too much since I hadn’t even been waiting 2 weeks yet. But, just a little after 11 that morning, I felt my Apple Watch vibrate and looked down to see a text message had come through from the DCP number; it said, “Exciting update! Check your email for more details!” and my heartrate immediately accelerated because I knew exactly what that meant! I almost started crying right there in the patient’s room - I couldn’t believe that my dreams were coming true! Sure enough, when I went on break I checked my email to see I had my offer letter waiting and I found out that I had been offered my dream role of merchandise, so I was ecstatic!

Once the shock finally wore off that I had been offered the chance to live and work in the most magical place on earth, I accepted the offer and paid the fees to secure my spot in the program. Out of the different move in and check out options, I chose to move in on January 13 and leave on May 14. This will allow me to finish up this semester of nursing school and return in time to do my nursing clinicals over the summer. Thankfully, I’ll still graduate on time! Although this will not give me any type of college credit, it will be a great way to increase my skills and add onto my resume for the future. Plus, it’s sure to be an incredible experience that I’ll never forget!

I wanted to add on that throughout this whole process, I prayed so much that if this was something God had planned for me, it would all work out. I was at peace that if it didn’t happen, it may just not be something God has meant for me to do. Last season, I thought it was going to be the perfect timing, so I was pretty upset that I didn’t get accepted. However, I found that not my own, but instead God’s timing is perfect, and everything really does happen for a reason. Everything has come together so perfectly this time and I know God is responsible for that. I’m so grateful for this opportunity He has presented to me, and also thankful for my family’s support of me going on this adventure!

I hope that this was helpful and interesting to read about the process of how I got to this point of participating in the DCP! I can’t wait to begin making magic and will be doing many updates on this blog throughout the process. I will make sure to keep everyone updated when I find out my exact job location closer to my check in date. Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll talk to you again real soon!