If you have applied for the North American Language and Culture Assistants, also known as auxiliar de conversación, program, then you were given an inscrita number. Every applicant who completes an application receives an inscrita number. Your inscrita number will come in an email from the Spanish Ministerio that will look like this:
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Email with Inscrita Number
The 14_1AXC0000013 was my inscrita number. The digits at the end of this long alphanumeric code are what people call your inscrita number. In other words, when people refer to their inscrita number on places such as the auxiliar de conversación Facebook group or the Expatriate Cafe they are simply referring to the last few digits. I would, in turn, refer to my inscrita number as “13.” Lucky 13, right?
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s get down to the question many prospective auxiliares are asking, “Is my inscrita number too high to receive a placement?”
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Well, if you’re asking this, you are not alone. Many, many, many are asking if they will get a teaching placement based on their inscrita number, so don’t feel embarrassed about asking. Here’s how the placement process works, as of the 2104-2015 school year.
First, 2nd year renewals are placed, followed by 1st year applicants, and then, 3rd and 4th years are placed last. (All applicants are assigned inscrita numbers, which means a 2nd year renewal with an inscrita number higher than your’s will be placed before you. Don’t fret. Your time will soon come.) So, you will begin noticing renewals being placed on the Facebook groups around the end of April or early May. Following that, 1st year applicants will be placed, and this is where your inscrita number comes into play. Placements are region first, and then a couple weeks later your city and school placement will come. All you really need is the region placement to ensure your job as an auxiliar de conversación, even though the city/school placement is more exciting.
For the 2012-2013 school year there were around 5400 applicants to the North American Language and Culture Assistants program. Of those, there were 4374 received a placement, and 1823 accepted a placement. I found this data here and here. The full 2013-2014 data was not available yet.
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In short, I would say that if you add 1,000 to your inscrita number, and you are below 4,000 that you will receive a placement to teach in Spain. However, if you are up in the 3,000 to 4,000 range, with adding on the 1,000 to your original inscrita, you will probably be wait listed and may not receive a teaching placement until October when someone who originally accepted their placement drops out. Everyone has 5 days to accept or decline their placement, but many will accept it and later decline it due to varying circumstances.
It’s not a bad thing to be wait listed. Trevor Huxham of A Texan in Spain was wait listed his first year and is now applying for a third year! He’s in Galicia now, but started in Jaén, Andalucía. Check out his blog if you want a great perspective on what it’s like to teach in Spain as an auxiliar. Being wait listed means that you could be placed in June through October. It really depends on when they get to you and when others decline their positions.
I was inscrita 780 the first year I applied and was given my region placement sometime in mid-May. Although, I later declined my position. This year, I flew through the profex application process and received the crazy, low inscrita of 13. I’ll be updating this once I receive my placement to see if having a lower inscrita number actually made that much of a difference for receiving a placement.
Don’t want to worry about having too high of an inscrita number? Follow this How to Apply Guide and apply to the North American Language and Culture Assistants Program as soon as it opens!
Filed under: Teaching in Spain Tagged: applying to teach abroad, Auxiliar de Conversacion, profex, Spain, teaching abroad, teaching in spain Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
