I spoke with PMI this afternoon, the following is some additional information about the PMP application process to help clarify the mechanics behind the process.
PMP Eligibility Requirements: to be eligible for the PMP credential, you must meet certain educational and professional experience requirements. All project management experience must have been accrued within the last 8 consecutive years prior to your application submission. To clarify, the requirement has changed recently from 6 to 8 years and is now in the PMP handbook revised July 2009.
High School Diploma or Associate’s Degree
Minimum 5 years/60 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience during which at least 7,500 hours were spent leading and directing project tasks*
35 contact hours of formal education (PM training)
Bachelor’s Degree
Minimum 3 years/36 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience during which at least 4,500 hours were spent leading and directing project tasks*
35 contact hours of formal education (PM training)
* Leading and directing project tasks as identified in the Project Management Professional Examination Specification. Within the total hours of project management experience, experience in all 5 process areas is required. However, on a single project, you do not need to have experience in all 5 process groups.
Audits: PMI told me point blank the audits are all done randomly and that there is no connection between how many projects or how many hours are reported, nor gaps in experience, etc. In short, the content of your experience reporting will not trigger an audit. That said, it is not out of the question for PMI to contact you if what you submit appears to have irregularities that they may need further explanation.
Overlapping Projects: the rule here is that if you have overlapping projects, you will only get credit for 1 month, however, you will get full credit for the hours reported from each project. There is no limit of how many hours per week you can report, they recognize some PM work on multiple projects simultaneously and may work 60-80 per week. PMI would not offer any guidance as to the effect of which project to list in what order, they said to experiment and look for variances in how the hours/months are tabulated.
Source: http://www.pmclasses.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=33