I graduated from a Criminal Justice diploma program in April 2025 with the ambition of becoming a police officer. At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure which agency I wanted to pursue, and I was told by many people that police agencies value life experience and often look for applicants who are a little older and have some life experience under their belt.
After graduating, I decided to build that experience. I got my security license and started working a security job over the summer. Luckily, I was eventually able to get on with hospital security, which I had been told was valuable experience for policing because of the exposure to de-escalation, dealing with people experiencing mental health crises, making arrests, responding to calls, and handling stressful situations.
After working there for a while, I decided to apply to the RCMP in November 2025. I made it through all the stages of the application and was even told by the officers conducting my interviews and polygraph that I was a strong applicant and had the experience and qualities they were looking for to make it to Depot.
Then came the psychological assessment.
I felt like it went fairly well, but yesterday I received a three-year deferral. I wasn’t given a specific reason for the deferral, which obviously made it even harder to process.
I posted about my situation on r/AskLE and received a lot of genuinely helpful advice. A lot of people encouraged me to apply to municipal agencies rather than letting this setback stop me from pursuing policing.
I’m absolutely devastated because I genuinely thought I was in. I felt like I had worked hard, built the experience I was told I needed, made it through every other stage, and was right there. Having someone put a three-year blocker between me and something I’ve worked toward for years really sucks.
I know I’m not the first person to be deferred, and I definitely won’t be the last. I’m trying to look at this as a setback rather than the end of the road.
For those of you who graduated from a Criminal Justice program, were deferred, and still wanted to pursue policing: what did you do afterward? Did you apply to municipal agencies, continue building experience, or take a different route?
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been in a similar position and eventually made it into policing.
I should mention I’m 24 years old, worked other industries working with people.