26JAN2026 IWC Board

[Gandalf_Actual]

The other side of this: way too many kids going to OCS and finding out their actual TS adjudication being ruled unfavorable and being in that purgatory spot to either redesignate or go home…

Valid points, all - though I’d be curious to know whether those unfavorable determinations were actually from DCSA’s side during routine TS adjudications or because the IWC applies more restrictive standards for personnel supporting its activities/programs.

There’s obviously a world of difference between a kid getting slammed at OCS for undisclosed foreign travel to a high-risk country and a kid who fully disclosed his or her grandma’s a dual citizen of a FVEY partner. It’s the IWC’s guidelines to set, sure, but if they’re going to list “international relations with a regional focus” as a desired educational background for a designator like Intel (for instance), great applicants are going to have degrees of exposure to risk. They’ll have lived or studied abroad, done language immersion programs, or even have family/personal contacts from regions on which they hold expertise. Obviously those factors present degrees of risk, but that’s why there’s a mitigation assessment built into the adjudication process in the first place.

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

Valid points, all - though I’d be curious to know whether those unfavorable determinations were actually from DCSA’s side during routine TS adjudications or because the IWC applies more restrictive standards for personnel supporting its activities/programs.

There’s obviously a world of difference between a kid getting slammed at OCS for undisclosed foreign travel to a high-risk country and a kid who fully disclosed his or her grandma’s a dual citizen of a FVEY partner. It’s the IWC’s guidelines to set, sure, but if they’re going to list “international relations with a regional focus” as a desired educational background for a designator like Intel (for instance), great applicants are going to have degrees of exposure to risk. They’ll have lived or studied abroad, done language immersion programs, or even have family/personal contacts from regions on which they hold expertise. Obviously those factors present degrees of risk, but that’s why there’s a mitigation assessment built into the adjudication process in the first place.

Apparently there was enough data, both on the officer and enlisted side, to implement the PSSQ process and pre-screen candidates on the front end. I will say, this practice has already been happening on the enlisted side.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

This is not at all how that works. A clearance is a clearance, and if you failed an investigation for a certain level of clearance, you will not obtain it in another designator. What you are talking about is "Need To Know" and this only applies once you actually have the clearance.

Technical Difficulties

There have been candidate declined for IP/IW due to clearance for foreign contacts who then were accepted for SWO which still requires a clearance.