It's been a long time coming, but I have finally freed myself from Foreign Service purgatory, that horrible place you are sent to when you fail any step in the FSO candidate selection process. Whenever you are sent to purgatory, you have to sit on your hands until a year has passed since your last FSOT.
I took the FSOT for the fourth time yesterday. Because I had passed this test three times before, I was not too worried about this. But because I am long finished with school and because my current job is not exactly the most stimulating one out there, I was a little bit anxious about my mind being rusty or forgetting random pieces of knowledge that I had gained over the years.
It turned out that I had been worrying about nothing. The test was challenging, to be sure, but there were a lot of gimme questions there that gave me confidence. And for the truly difficult questions, I was able to narrow my choices down to two possible answers. After the test finished, I researched these questions and was pleased to find that for all of the questions I could remember, I had guessed correctly. The essay was quite easy for me too, especially since the topic had personal relevance to me. In my previous candidacies, my essay scores were 8, 6 and 8. I am expecting at least a 10 this time around.
Unlike at the OA where I knew my odds were not good after that disastrous Case Management exercise, I walked out of the testing center yesterday feeling pretty confident and relieved. It really helps to have prior experience with this process. It does wonders for lowering your anxiety level and knowing what to expect.
I should be receiving my FSOT results around Halloween. While nothing is official yet, I am pretty sure that the first word in my results letter will be "congratulations." There are a few other FSO candidates I've been in touch with who flamed out last year as well and were scheduled to take the FSOT again this month. So I'm rooting for them too.
Not much else to do now but wait.
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