Peace Corps Odds

I was thinking of volunteering for the Peace Corps. I decided it would be worthwhile to calculate my odds of getting in. It turns out that there are 8,236 active peace corps members around the world. According to the CIA World Fact Book there are 298,444,215 people in the United State of America. This makes my odds 1 in 36,236.5. This is just from the general population, what about college graduates? Well according to the NSF there are 40,621,000 college graduates in the work force as of 2003. This makes my odds 1 in 4,932.13. Not quite as bad but it still doesn't look very good as this would only be a 0.020275% chance.

If I did get in where might I go? I ran the numbers and here's how it breaks down:

Active Volunteers: 8236

Pacific Islands (356): 4%
North Africa and the Middle East (253): 3%
Central America and Mexico (1061): 12%
South America (729): 8%
Eastern Europe and Central Asia (1637): 19%
Asia (444): 5%
Africa (3335): 40%
The Caribbean (421): 5%

So the odds of me going to Africa are 1 in 2.5.. Interesting, so I should start learning Arabic, Swahili, Yoruba or maybe I could just get by with French. Well, they do provide a language field, let's find out. Here is a table ranking the languages by total number of volunteers currently in a country that speaks that language.

Language	Volunteers	Percentage
Spanish	2019	24
English	1637	19
French	1549	18
Russian	860	10
Afrikaans	706	8
Zulu	669	8
Ndebele	611	7
Northern Sotho	611	7
Southern Sotho	611	7
Swazi	611	7
Tsonga	611	7
Tswana	611	7
Venda	611	7
Xhosa	611	7
Quechua	471	5
Hausa	426	5
Pulaar	383	4
Wolof	383	4
Ukrainian	371	4
Arabic	347	4
Kiswahili	345	4
Ewe	305	3
Mandinka	289	3
Romanian	282	3
Malagasy	262	3
Fulfulde	260	3

~2% (Gulmancema, Soninke, Mi`skito, Tamazight, Tashelheet
Portuguese, Bulgarian, Kaqchiquel, Kek'chi, Buli, Dagare, Dagbani, Dangme,
Fanté Ga, Gonja, Guruni, Kalenjin, Kasem, Kikuyu, Kusaal, Luo, Luyha, Mampruli, Moar, Nankam, Nzema, Sisaali, Taleni, Twi, Waale, Wassa, Jaxanke, Pulafuuta, Seereer)

~1% (Albanian, Bemba, Kaonde, Lunda, Nyanja, Tonga, Tumbuka, Guarani, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani; also Russian in Baku, Bambara, Dogon, Khassonke, Malinke, Sonrai, Tagalog, Hungarian, Bamun, Bulu, Duala, Fang, Fe-Fe, Fulfudé, Ghom alà, Kako, Pidgin English, Tupuri, Antanosy, Bara, Betsimisaraka, Sakalava, Bassar, Cotocolis, Gourma, Ife (Ana), Kabiye, Komkonba, Moba, Tchamba, Tchokossi, Tem, English Creole, French Creole (Kweyol), Island Carib, Bissa, Dioula, Gourounssi, Jula, Lobiri, Kanuri, Zarma, Jola, Sarahule, Serrar, Kazakh, Guerze, Maninka, Pulafuta, Soussou, Patois, Western Caribbean, Adja, Bariba, Creole, Dendi, Ditemari, Fon, Goun, Gourmatche, Ife, Kotafon, Mina, Naténi, Yom, Yoruba (Nagot), Chinese (Mandarin), Macedonian, Mongolian, Romani, Thai, Oshik-wanyama, Oshindonga, Otji Herero, Rukwangali English, Hassynia, Bislama)

This is all based on a the data file here. The data file is used by the Flash application on this page to display the information on the map. It's all simple stuff from there.