There’s this thing that foreign service officer candidates (such as myself) do while they are waiting for each step of this process to complete, and that is to read FSO blogs (such as this one) and Yahoo forums, and obsess over other people’s timelines in order to compare it to their own.
So to further enable this unhealthy habit:
Passed FSOT – June 2014
Passed QEP – September 2014
Passed OA – December 1, 2014
Passed the French telephone test – January 2015
Medical clearance granted – February 24, 2015
Spouse’s medical clearance granted – March 4, 2015
Background check interviews conducted between investigators and a dozen friends, family, former employers, my current employer and myself – March-May 2015
Security file was moved from investigations to adjudications – June 2015
Security clearance granted – November 30, 2015 (364 days after passing OA)
File sent to suitability – December 1, 2015
Passed suitability/added to the register – December 4, 2015
Received invitation to A-100 – January 21, 2016
A-100 class – April 4, 2016
22 solid months. And this was the third time I took the FSOT; the first two times, I didn’t make it to the oral assessment. I took the first FSOT in June 2012, so it was almost 4 years between my first FSOT and starting A-100.
Address: TBD 