October 3rd, 11:00am. We will meet again. This time I come armed with an MBA. I'm going to get back to DC for the Oral Exams.
I've waited three years now since having a go at you. I wasn't sitting around either. Oh sure, I let you get to me. I even convinced myself for awhile I was OK with never being a Foreign Service Officer. But I just can't stop, I have to try for it again.
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Per usual, the hardest part was the general knowledge questions which felt way harder than they've ever been. Work experience and grammar were super easy.
Once again I submitted my essay with one second left. We'll see what happens.
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I got perfect scores on grammar both times I took that thing. But the essays are weird. I got really high scores on them the second time, but was much less happy with my answers. So who knows?
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Passed. Killed it on personal biography and general knowledge. Actually scored just under passing for English. I chalk that up to rushing through. I had 10+ minutes left there.
Time to start writing personal narrative essays.
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Round 6 is over. Not being invited to take the oral exams. Advised once again that there are so many people applying for very few slots, and that many people who have previously taken the orals are not being invited.
I have no clue what it takes to get in anymore. I'm not exactly discouraged, more unsure why I can't make it work. Not sure if I'm ever going to try again, I can't think of what else I could do other than work for the State Dept in some other capacity for the time being.
Have you looked into any small businesses in the DC area? I don't know the industry well, but I imagine there are at least some private companies that provide cultural analysis to federal departments and large companies at a fee.
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quote:Originally posted by JanitorBlade: Round 6 is over. Not being invited to take the oral exams. Advised once again that there are so many people applying for very few slots, and that many people who have previously taken the orals are not being invited.
I have no clue what it takes to get in anymore. I'm not exactly discouraged, more unsure why I can't make it work. Not sure if I'm ever going to try again, I can't think of what else I could do other than work for the State Dept in some other capacity for the time being.
We'll see.
The foreign service has in the past 10 years started to become a real ivy league only club. They changed the application process in 2009 or so to weigh education much more heavily (before they didn't even ask where you went to school or what you studied).
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