I can't really say exactly when you should expect to hear back, but its not unusal for it to take up to a year to get a decision and many people are denied at first and have to appeal it in a hearing....a disability attorney might be a good idea to maybe speed things up a little and give you a better change of getting approve initial instead of having to wait on an appeal hearing if you get denied.

I just had my appeal hearing this past week...but yeah its taken like two years. It can be a slow stressful process...so take care of yourself and do your best to manage stress. Not sure what your exact financial situation is with student loans or whatever...but if you're really needing financial help you could try and apply for assistance like food stamps or I had this thing called AND benefits for while you are trying to get on SSI it was only 175 dollars a month but better than nothing.

Anyways good luck with the process.