How long after submitting an MMC application to the REC will it take to hear back from USCG?? Do they respond within a month a week a couple weeks?
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Yes. This is an important topic. We need to shine as much daylight as possible on the NMCs inept bureaucratic bungling.
My last several times dealing with them they were lightening fast!
OP could have used the search button and found this thread.
In our case, it took 4 days from submission to receiving two emails (one for the ap, one for the medical) from the REC stating that they had received the application. About 5 hours later two more emails stating it had been sent to the NMC. This was an initial application for 100T.
I submitted a raise of grade application on 5/26 to the Toledo REC. On 5/29 I received an email saying it had been received by the REC and forwarded to the NMC. I did not receive any emails from the NMC on the rest of the application status updates. Today 6/15 I received my raise of grade stickers in the mail. Just over two weeks!
I applied for my original mmc with 100 ton, AB unlimited, radar observer unlimited, etc… On april 19th the nmc received my application. On June 29th they emailed me notice that my mmc was issued. So it me quite awhile for my original.
It’s important not to wait around for them to get back to you. There are set number of business days depending on season they give you for the various stages in the application process. I always mark those days on the calendar and then call incessantly until something happens (unless I see it go on to the next stage via email).
I gotta tell ya - I sent my stuff in for renewal two weeks ago to the Houston REC. Just got an email from the NMC telling me it’s all been approved for submission. I haven’t had the same problems with the NMC that some people have had on here - they’ve been nothing but fast, responsive, and nice.
There is a performance report and current application backlog report on NMC’s website. They’re very visible with this information which is a more accurate representation and expectation of process time as compared to a specific individual’s personal experience.
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It depends upon how routine and simple your application is, and how understaffed and incompetently staffed NMC is when you application goes in.
Apply for one simple endorsement with one seatime letter with service on one ocean vessel over 1600 tons, and your application might get processed fairly quickly.
If you apply for something out of the ordinary, like an unlimited license using combined tug and barge tonnage seatime, expect it to take at least six months, even with a good license consultant working hard to move it along.
When I lost the bag my MMC was in, it took a month just to get a replacement. After several months of trying, I gave up on getting a replacement medical card. A new physical and an application for a new medical card was issued in about two weeks.
My request for a reconsideration was granted after 11 months. A good license consultant worked hard to move it along. Part of the delay was that that the NMC had such a backlog of new applications that they suspended processing of reconsiderations for four months and reassigned the evaluators doing reconsiderations to help clear the new application backlog. My request for reconsideration was granted about two weeks after a very effective staffer from a US Senator’s office raised the issue with the Senator’s USCG liaison.
People who have had good luck getting simple routine application processed at NMC, and then say NMC is doing a good job, have no idea what they are talking about.
NMC is an incompetently staffed, understaffed, and failed government program.