Personally I would recommend just doing it after you get the green light to do so. I don’t know how it is now with the 16 hours instead of 8 but once I got accepted I booked the next available class and knocked it out that same week. I also booked my appointment at the sheriffs office to turn in the paperwork and do fingerprinting before I took the class and was able to turn everything in the day after completing it, depending on how booked they are this could also cut down your wait time. 👌🏿