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I needed to have Wayne, the person that did submit my tournament for me, email both Walter Brown and Chuck Lovingood. They needed to have Wayne email them saying that I did direct the tournament.
Try reading the Frequent Questions document on TD/A, it says how to submit corrections to rated events, including what information the office needs. (Some changes require more information than others to ensure that the right records are changed.)
For obvious reasons, the USCF only accepts corrections from the TD who submitted the original event, or on rare occasions from the sponsoring affiliate. (For example, if the TD has passed away.)
From being continuously questioned about the rules no doubt… 
It’s only been a week so far since I sent in my test, so no need to hit the panic button yet. I have heard from others that sometimes it takes months, even for Local and Senior tests.
I am not part of the TDCC in any way, but…
There are a limited number of graders, in no small part due to a desire for consistency and because it is not the most fun job in the world - and the pay is $0! So sometimes there are delays. My NTD test took 3-4 weeks to grade.
The higher level exams are as much about exploring the way the TD gets to the answer and the justification for the result as the questions focus in areas that could have multiple “OK” answers. So grading an essay test takes longer.
But the delay in getting tests should be at a minimum which my understanding is not.
I would guess that a list of some of the possible reasons for a delay in getting tests would start with:
Not listing the experience
Not meeting the experience requirements with what is listed (maybe oversights, maybe misunderstanding the requirements)
Not having been listed as a TD for some of the tournaments cited for the experience requirements (might require getting a response from the chief TD to verify the cited experience)
Vacations
Major projects tying up staff time (I would guess that right before Supernationals would not be the best time to expect a quick response to a test request)
Needing to check to see which versions of the test were sent before (if a candidate had already taken a test at that level and either the candidate failed to pass it or the candidate had not directed enough to maintain the certification)
e-mail difficulties (I don’t know why but at work I sometimes receive an e-mail more than a week after it is sent while hundreds of other e-mails came in normally during that week or so)
The multiple choice tests (Club, Local, Senior) generally would not need to wait for a grader. Grading the ANTD and NTD essay questions would be likely to take more time.
I would guess that a list of some of the possible reasons for a delay in getting tests would start with:
Not listing the experience
Not meeting the experience requirements with what is listed (maybe oversights, maybe misunderstanding the requirements)
Not having been listed as a TD for some of the tournaments cited for the experience requirements (might require getting a response from the chief TD to verify the cited experience)
Vacations
Major projects tying up staff time (I would guess that right before Supernationals would not be the best time to expect a quick response to a test request)
Needing to check to see which versions of the test were sent before (if a candidate had already taken a test at that level and either the candidate failed to pass it or the candidate had not directed enough to maintain the certification)
e-mail difficulties (I don’t know why but at work I sometimes receive an e-mail more than a week after it is sent while hundreds of other e-mails came in normally during that week or so)
The multiple choice tests (Club, Local, Senior) generally would not need to wait for a grader. Grading the ANTD and NTD essay questions would be likely to take more time.
Moderator Mode: Off
Well, as of just about a half hour ago, my situation is handled completely. Walter Brown emailed Wayne and me saying the tournament I directed and had to have Wayne submit because of my certification lapse, was changed back to me as the TD on record. I checked the MSA page and it is now done.
Nonetheless, if Wayne would have not been there, I would have needed to wait a couple of days to get the thing submitted, after my certification was re-entered. With the technology of tournament submission (using SwissSys or WinTD and the USCF web site) being so simple and straightforward, and players coming to expect the speedy delivery service of submission, this would have been quite the hassle. Right now Wayne and I are the only TD certified people in our area.
All that Korey needed to do was look at my MSA to see I had TD’d enough tournaments when I emailed him yesterday to see that I was qualified for the re-certification. In fact TD’s should just be re-certified without needing to ask, period.
When I saw that little message saying that my certification had lapsed and I could not even enter the TD/Affiliate area, that irked me. I had used the Affiliate ID and password earlier when I downloaded the updated rating database, so I didn’t know I would be shut out when I needed to enter with my own ID to enter the tournament.
The USCF should do pretty much anything they can to encourage and keep TD’s on board and directing and submitting tournaments and games for ratings. Having the system not allow entry into the TD/Affiliate area definitely makes it difficult for one to want to remain a TD.
I know of 2 local fellows that have been certified to TD in our area and they have decided to not get re-certified because of all the hoops needed to maintain. Those hoops are totally needless.
One of those 2 fellows was a Local TD and he had directed more than enough tournaments to be re-certified. When Wayne has called him to direct a tournament he has directed before, he has literally used the lack of re-certification as an excuse to not TD. Wayne and I have talked about it and we agree that if this guy would have been automatically re-certified he would still be directing for our area.
So, the USCF really does need to make it so that TD certification is done automatically or very close to it when the TD has qualified for re-certification.
While I have complained in this very thread about the office not notifying TDs about imminent expiration of certification, I’m sorry, but I can not buy “all the hoops needed to maintain [certification]” as a reason. Even when requests for new certification exams were handled most improbably slowly, e-mail requests to have one’s certification renewed were handled expeditiously. (I personally know several TDs who discovered the hard way [unable to submit a rating report] who simply e-mailed the office and had their certification renewed in quick order.)
Yes, the renewal should be automatic, or at least the office should let the TD know the expiration date is approaching.
Sure, that makes sense for the ANTD and NTD tests. But aren’t there answer keys for the Senior TD tests and lower? Can’t one of those tests be graded within a matter of minutes?
It’s not the delay that I have a problem with. If the manpower available means there’s a month or two delay between turning the exam in and having it graded, such is life. The problem I have is that there is no confirmation email that the test was received or an idea of when it might be graded. I would be perfectly fine with a response:
“Thank you for completing and submitting your Senior TD test. Your test will be graded within 60 days and you will be emailed with the results at that time.”
Hey, if it takes 60 days, it takes 60 days. But I’d like to know that it takes 60 days.
My Local TD test was graded in one day, in May 2009.
After our long-time club TD retired suddenly, I emailed USCF a request to renew, was told I had to take the test since I had been ‘off’ so long, requested said test, received it via email, filled it out and returned it the next day and the day after that it was graded and finished. I passed the test and my certification was renewed.
The whole process took just a few days. Phil Smith was the office contact for this. The Senior test might be more involved, but I cannot imagine why it would take weeks rather than days as SOP to grade any objective test. As others note, the NTD/ANTD tests are another story.
Maybe I do not have enough information, but my sense is that the office staff is burdened with too many “unfunded mandates” and at times lacks direction as to which priority—high, medium, low or under permanent review—should be assigned the many tasks that need to get done.
My understanding is that local and senior TD exams (and club renewal exams) are normally graded by the office staff handling TD certification with no outside involvement. This makes sense, since these exams are multiple guess and only require checking the selected answers against an answer key.
The ANTD and NTD exams are absolutely entirely different beasts. 
When did the Senior test become multiple choice? When I took mine back in the early 80s, it was an essay test.
– Hal Terrie
I let my certification lapse in 1988. I remember being certified as an “intermediate TD” in late 1978 (I think – it was just before the experience requirements changed, and I barely squeaked in under the deadline). I remember the title changing from “intermediate TD” to “senior TD” a short while after that. I do not remember any essay exams from that time, but my memory may not be reliable.
When I came back to directing in 2005, I took the local TD exam in February, 2005, and the senior TD exam in September, 2005. Both of these exams were multiple choice. I am quite certain there were no essays on the senior TD exam.
I’ll have to leave it to someone else to fill in the rather large gap in my history.
The Senior TD test was multiple choice when I took it in either the late '80s or the early '90s.
Sorry - I didn’t pay attention to the level mentioned! 
Somewhere in the code there is a TD expiration check. It apparently is something like
IF ((certification_date+4 years) < now)) THEN expired = TRUE;
Change it to
if ((certification_date+4 years) < now) AND (last_tournament_directed+ ??days < now) THEN expired = TRUE.
With that change the certification does not expire for four years, and after four years it does not expire as long as you keep directing tournaments.
This is a change of probably one line to code to a different one line of code. The only reason that it wouldn’t be trivial would be because the code is a mess and it is hard to find the one line of code to change. That wouldn’t surprise me much. However, the more likely reason for it not being done is simply a lack of will to do it, or a lack of definition about what change to make.
Brian
Certification / duration / number of tournaments during duration to renew without retesting
Club / 3 years / 3 (since Club can be obtained without a test, the first renewal requires a test)
Local / 4 years / 4
Senior / 5 years / 5
Associate National / 6 years / 6
National / lifetime
Probably requires more than changing a single line of code
Having a computed field for ‘TD certification expiration date’ would be inefficient, since that’s something that is needed far more often than the starting date of certification or the length of the certification period.
Moreover, having a separate TD certification expiration date allows it to be extended as needed by authorized staff.