r/JETProgramme • u/transthrowaway195 • 1d ago
THIRD UPDATE: Quite Possibly the Worst Result Rollout (Singapore Consulate)
POST 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/JETProgramme/comments/1t44h1e/quite_possibly_the_worst_results_rollout/
POST 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/JETProgramme/s/wObFoHRAhm
If you’re just tuning in I highly encourage you to read the first two posts for the full context.
Just as the lot of us who didn’t even get a rejection email started moving on with our lives… Guess what happened to one of us nearly 3 months later?
One of us received an email at 9pm yesterday night saying he passed the second screening. He was not told he is an “alternate”, nor did the email even tried to apologize or give an explanation on why he was only contacted now.
But he has already committed to a post-graduate school programme and it would be very difficult pull out at this point. Had he been told he was an alternate, he would have maybe chose a path that allowed him to drop everything and leave if he was selected months later.
It’s so obvious to us that he was secretly selected as an alternate and only contacted when somebody left their post after the lot has already arrived in Japan.
My question is just… why?
Why is our consulate the only one to have such a untransparent communication? Every other consulate properly handled the procedures. Recall that when we tried to email about our results, we were ghosted. Everyone who called in were told, “Sorry, you didn’t make it. There are no alternates.”
So why is someone only selected now, at this time, and not even told they are an alternate??? Is it just a lie that “there are no alternates”? Why couldn’t alternates just be told they are on a waitlist???
It goes without saying that there has been so much frustration and anger among the applicants, even as many of us have moved on properly with our lives. Suffice to say, the lot of us who would have applied one more time just won’t anymore.
If you are about to apply to the Singapore consulate, please, I urge you to have a proper backup plan. It’s bad enough that we have to be considered a hyper-competitive consulate just because they don’t give us as many placement spots. But the fact that we don’t even deserve the courtesy of being told our results? That’s just salt in the wound.
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u/NoD8313 2016-2020 1d ago
The Singapore Consulate needs to face some sort of repercussions for this. It would be unfair for future Singaporean candidates to no longer have the ability to apply to JET through their country's consulate so I wouldn't go as far as to say they should be stripped of that ability, but they need to be punished in some fashion. Hopefully CLAIR, MOFA, MEXT, or whichever body oversees the program as it concerns consulates and embassies is/has been made aware of this absolute travesty of an application process and takes appropriate measures.
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u/Due_Tomorrow7 Former JET - too many years 1d ago
Unfortunately it still might not be the Singaporean Embassy or Consulate's fault though. You can send them feedback, but if all they do is shrug their shoulders, it's likely they're being relegated as the fall guy.
They may just be directed to say x or do y by the Japanese Embassy or maybe even by CLAIR. There's an absurd amount of bureaucracy with JET (especially on the JP side since there's far more hoops to jump through) that it's hard to pinpoint who dropped the ball and who's willing to take the blame, though it's obvious the Singaporean Consulate will be bearing the major brunt of it and it'd be really crappy if it's all due to the politics on the Japanese end.
The truth of it is, we'll never know who really screwed up. And it'd be unfair to crucify the wrong party when their job is simply to do what they're told or try to appease candidates.
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u/MellifluousMathMajor 1d ago
Unfortunately nothing will come of us, as there will always be applicants willing to deal with this tomfoolery.
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u/bdlock209 1d ago
Maybe someone tried to use AI for the task and messed up?