Tiggerific Tuesday Trivia ~ Disney Parks Moms Panel

Welcome Tiggerific Trivia Tuesday Blog Hoppers!

The Disney Parks Moms Panel, formerly known as The Walt Disney World Moms Panel is widely known as a go to forum of everyday advisors on every a aspect of Disney vacation planning.  

One thing you might not know, however, is just how much work Disney puts into vetting new panelists. 

Consider that for the 2014 Disney Parks Moms Panel Search for its seventh year panelists, up to 10,000 applicants submitted around five "100 word or less" essays not including short answer and multiple choice portions. 

• Third-grade students = 150 words per minute (wpm)
• Eight grade students = 250
• Average college student = 450
• Average “high level exec” = 575
• Average college professor = 675
• Speed readers = 1,500
• World speed reading champion = 4,700
• Average adult: 300 wpm
• Courtesy of Staples study cited here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brettnelson/2012/06/04/do-you-read-fast-enough-to-be-successful/

So to read through the five million words of submitted panelist hopeful essays at an average adult pace of 300 wpm would take a single reader 16,667 minutes (give or take a coffee break.) 

Five million words. 

Or one word for each hot dog consumed at Walt Disney World each year. 

Almost seven full forty hour work weeks of nothing but reading essays. 

To put this time in perspective, if we walked my four year old daughter's dawdling 16 minute mile pace from my house near Houston, Texas to Walt Disney World, Florida, for that same forty hour work week, my family could eat at Sci Fi Dine-In Theatre a day and a half before the reading was done. At a modest jog, I could be riding the monorail two weeks before the reader completed their review work. 

I don't imagine they employ a single reader, that every hopeful used every word or even that they read the essays for those of us hopefuls unlucky enough to err on the other parts of the application process. 

But I still think that is a mammoth undertaking. 

Just keep swimming, y'all.

And I'll keep hoping for pixie dust emails!