<p>Take a good look at Tufts. It has the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy!</p>
<p>How about getting foreign experience by studying in a foreign country? McGill University in Montreal?</p>
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<p>Both of these ideashigh school study abroad, Peace Corps after undergradare excellent ones. Living abroad, and in a foreign language, will help you find out whether the foreign service life would suit you. (If you have a choice, try to stay with a local family rather than in housing with other Americans.) The Peace Corps is a very common path to the Foreign Service and often a way to pick up an additional foreign language or two. </p>
<p>Do check the State Dept links others have citedtheres a wealth of information there. As youll see there are five careers tracks (cones) you can pursue: consular, economic, management, political, and public diplomacy. Likely some will appeal to you more than others, although most fresh-minted FSOs start with a tour in consular, which always has a ton of entry-level jobs to be filled.</p>
<p>Right now, in high school, focus on getting your French as fluent as you can. Hone your writing, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. If available, take a world history course. FSOs have to be willing and able to be posted anywhere in the world, so its not too soon to start learning about farflung places. Almost any social science course could be useful toonot just international relations, but economics, psychology, anthropology, if your high school offers them.</p>
<p>As several posters have mentioned, once you get to college it is not necessary to major in international relations, though you could certainly choose to do so. Just be sure you take your French as far as you can, and, ideally, start (or continue) a second foreign language. Check the course catalogues of all the colleges youre looking at to see which languages they offer and to what level. Theres tremendous variation, even among elite schools.</p>
<p>Btw-- if French is your only foreign language when you graduate from college, the Peace Corps is going to want to place you in Africawhich may or may not be what you want. (My son was in exactly this position actually. He had to tell them many times, over and over, that he wanted a different region of the world. They finally agreed and he ended up in a country where he was able to learn two new languages. He’s currently an FSO, on his second tour.) </p>
<p>It is also possible to enter the State Department directly from college/graduate school. The Pickering Fellowship program was set up for this purpose. Scanning the on-line bios of current fellows gives you this list of ug schools: GW, Penn/Wharton, American, Clark Atlanta, Columbia, NYU, UT Austin, and Morehouse. So you can see there are many options. You dont need Tufts or Georgetown.</p>
<p>Foreign language mastery is important to getting into the Foreign Service in the first place as well as to getting your forward assignments. If you attain a certain level in a Critical Needs Language, or, better still, a Super Critical Needs Language, you will get bonus points on the hiring Register.</p>
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<p>Subsequently, the more languages, at higher levels, that you command, the more openings you can bid on when the bid lists come out. </p>
<p>Many FSOs find they need or want to learn additional languages during their career; if youre adept at learning new languages you will achieve the required fluency level more easily and more quickly, and earn the salary increment that comes with it. </p>
<p>One cautionary note, which another poster touched on: Foreign Service jobs are not a growth industry in our current political environment. There may well be significantly fewer FS jobs in the future. </p>
<p>Good luck! The Foreign Service can be an incredibly rewarding career for the right person.</p>
<p>I live in Asia and interact frequently with ambassadors and foreign service employees, both in the State and Commerce Departments. I can say categorically that they are a bright and well educated group, but I can also attest that their undergraduate experiences vary widely. My host country, Indonesia, always gets a career diplomat for the top posts. The last 5 or 6 ambassadors and DCMs have undergraduate degrees from big State Universities, elite LACs and the Ivy League. Their graduate degrees, however, are from a much smaller pool of universities.</p>
<p>In the first place, there are two types of ambassadors: political appointees and career diplomats. I assume your daughter wants to get on the path of a career diplomat. Even within the foreign service there are two groups: one that leads to ambassdor-type diplomatic relations and strategic thinking positions and one that is more nuts and bolts administrative. It is possible to move from one to another, but ambitions are fairly transparent.</p>
<p>You’ve received a lot of diverse advice here which only reinforces that there is no single approach. (I especially agree with the perspective of DadinPA and MarkBass.) </p>
<p>For undergraduate, your daughter should focus on the college/university that provides the best academics and the best fit. During her undergraduate years, she absolutely must make connections through internships, summer jobs and through her professors and alumni/ae network. It’s true that the DC IR programs offer good geographic connections but, again, the undergraduate degree can really be from anywhere and in anything.</p>
<p>After getting a BA or BS, she might seek out a position with a goverment agency or an NGO, either in DC or abroad, then choose the graduate program that best suits her interests. This is where her internships and connections come in to open doors to programs at the big name FSO feeder schools like Georgetown, JHU, Tufts, Princeton, Harvard. </p>
<p>Languages are important, but less than you would imagine (unless she is only interested in a specific part of the world). Exposure to different cultures IS very important.</p>
<p>Most Foreign Service employees in the diplomatic track move up by jumping from one culture/continent to another with Washington assignments in the middle. Aside from a few specific positions where prior language proficiency is required, language training will be provided. What determines the assignment are skills, experience and connections. As Ambassadors and DCMs move from country to country they often arrange for their staff to follow.</p>
<p>A good safety school to consider might be Dickinson. My D is a graduating senior therewith a double major in political science & public policy. You mentioned that you might want to spend a semester abroad – if you want to be in the foreign service or something similar, you should DEFINITELY plan on going abroad. </p>
<p>A plug for Dickinson, they are much more flexible than many schools in allowing you to go to an off-the-beaten track study abroad program. My D had studied a foriegn language for several years that is only spoken in a country with very few college study abroad programs. Dickinson allowed her to enroll directly in a university in that country (many of the colleges she visited would not allow this, we asked). She also spent a semester in a Dickinson-associated program in Washington DC where she had an internship with the Dept of State. In addition, she had an part time internship in the town Dickinson is in at the Army War College in a Peacekeeping Operations group. So she was able to get some very good experience without actually being at college in DC or abroad.</p>
<p>D also got excellent merit aid from Dickinson, and is graduating near the top of her class. She is well positioned for the job market and for graduate school if she decides to attend.</p>
<p>OP here. Just caught up on these posts after a very busy, hectic couple of days. This is such a wealth of information that will guide our family–and our daughter–for a very long time. Thank you all. I hope this gets archived for others with her career interests! Thank you, College Confidential and all of you who’ve taken the time to respond here.</p>
<p>This may a bit of a stretch, but I think military officers also can become foreign area officers. I don’t think officers start out as FAOs, but transfer into that area after a few years.</p>
<p>There’s a new State Dept recruitment video featuring foreign service officers in several different countries:</p>
<p>We live in South America and have many friends who love their work in the Foreign Service. Where we are, Princeton grad have always been well represented.</p>
<p>Something to file away is this scholarship essay contest from the american foreign service association: [Essay</a> Contest](<a href=“http://www.afsa.org/essay_contest.aspx]Essay”>National High School Essay Contest) You might find the research for the essay to be interesting.</p>
<p>You’ll have no trouble finding the list of the top schools for these things. Looking for a good affordabl (if money is of some issue) school is what the challenge is going to be, which is the crux of college search. Anyone can cherry pick those delicious name schools right off the top. But getting accepted to any of them is a true lottery ticket.</p>
<p>One of our friends’daughter was in this situation. She went to a number of summer programs at Georgetown and was in love with that school. But she was not accepted despite a very high average (fifth in her class at a rigorous school) with difficult courses. SAT/ACT scores were in the midrange of accepantance, and her resume was A1. But it was a no go. She had a great 4 years at American University. Being in the DC area was a big beneift for what she wanted to do.</p>
<p>For the most competitive programs, being qualified just gets you into the race that has many more runners than places.</p>
<p>A close friend’s father was career Foreign Service, deputy ambassador to Turkey while we were in college, and later, Ambassador to Latvia. It is true that for most countries, like the cushy, fun ones (France, England, etc), you really need to be in the President’s inner circle, friends with someone very important etc. Trained, knowledgeable Foreign Service officers are the types sent to countries who need help, or where the going may be tough, or countries that are trying to develop and will value the relationship with a good Ambassador.
The Foreign Service has a great website. Candidates come from all types of colleges and Universities, not just the big names, or from political science/international relations majors. Just about every major can work. Candidates have to pass a pretty tough exam, and it’s more about overall knowledge. They also desire people who have already had extensive experience living overseas. They are very upfront about being willing to take a very undesirable post if you are serious about a career in the Foreign Service. My friend’s father attended the War College for grad work, but I think many go to Law School, etc. Check out the Foreign Service website.</p>