James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") contributes some thoughts to a discussion on elitist institutions.
Money quote(s):
"(W)hile the Ivies and their elite cousins confer many advantages on their graduates, they also wall them off from normal people and create an entitled, out-of-touch elite. As a product of decidedly non-elite institutions working to put my daughters on an elite path, much of it rings true."
"The closest thing in my personal experience to the “you are special” indoctrination is the year and a half I spent at West Point. While admission was largely meritocratic and more economically diverse that our brethren at the Ivies, the notion that we were an elite vanguard was inculcated in us from the earliest days. (Rather odd in hindsight, since they also spend the first year doing their best to make cadets feel inadequate.) Not only were we a cut above our civilian college brethren but the Army and the country were depending on us to guard its virtue. While academy graduates were a small part of the officer corps, we would be like a drop of ink in a barrel of water, changing the character of the whole Army.
Even though I nearly drowned in that environment and wound up finishing at a podunk regional school for financial reasons, it took me a couple of years to fully shake off the notion that, simply having been selected to go to West Point, that I was special. So, I can certainly see how someone who spends years in that sort of environment–and years in select schools competing to get there–would have an enormous sense of entitlement."
Sadly, in my many years in and around State Dept., I've seen many examples of the entitlement syndrome. Back before I joined the Foreign Service, I was even known to theorize that the "A" in "A-100" (the traditional but unofficial* designation of the Foreign Service Officer Orientation course, which as an actual course number completely different from that) stood for "arrogance." As in it was the capability being taught in that course.
That's not actually the case, but we do get quite a few "special snowflakes" joining the service and they can have some adjusting to do as they proceed abroad to some very non-elite assignments as junior officers.
Selection into the Foreign Service is almost completely meritocratic. Plenty of us come from non-elite backgrounds. And the only reason I say "almost" is because of the Qualifications Evaluation Panel phase which is now part of the FSO accession/selection process. It was implemented some years after I was hired and I find it just a little bit opaque, something of a "black box" in the process.
Personally, I've had the privilege of being part of several "elite" groups in my professional life over the years, culminating most recently in my career as an FSO and in some of my assignments therein.
(Oh, and attending an "elite" educational institution was not one of them until fairly late in life)
What those experiences taught me was that, as smart as I think I am or believe myself to be, there are folks even smarter than that and it's never a good idea to think you're either the smartest guy in the room or that you already know everything there is to know about something or that you can't learn something from people who might not be as smart as you are.
"(W)ell-connected graduates of elite schools often get on the fast track right from the outset. There are people working at the White House, Congressional staff, and the Joint Chiefs with less subject matter expertise and real world experience than I had fifteen years ago. There’s simply a huge degree of path determinacy at work."
In D.C., in certain "social circles," one encounters the youngest versions of these folks, the "Hill rats." As in "Capitol Hill." More than one FSO has come away from encounters with these, and some of their more senior brethren, convinced that many bear a serious chip on their shoulders about the Foreign Service, a grudge dating back to when they were unable to either pass the FS examinations or otherwise make it through the selection and appointment process. None of us could prove it, but the impression has come across to many different FSOs around the world at various times.
(I should mention, just to be clear, that I've also had tremendously positive professional encounterss with various Hill and Executive Branch staffers. They tended to be the ones experienced enough to know what the Foreign Service does and what FSOs can do for them assisting the completion of their own responsibilities.)
"Moreover, the degree is always a trump card. I’m well past the point where anyone cares where my undergraduate degree is from. Unless I’m applying for an academic job, it’s at the bottom of my resume. But people who went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, and the like are still getting credit for it decades later."
He concludes:
"It’s very easy for those in the professional class to live in a bubble of their own creation and, especially, to put one around our kids. And, frankly, the incentives to do so are powerful. There has to be a balance between making providing opportunities for your kids and walling them off from reality."
25 comments:
As more points are given for Arabic and other hard languages, we are seeing a return to the elitist foreign service of the days gone bye...You have to be able to afford expensive immersion programs in order to get an offer now. How many can afford feeding their children while learning Arabic in Morocco? It's less meritocratic and more about what language you can afford to learn. And it best be worth some big points.
I know an FSO who learned his Japanese at a community college and then a 4-year state college on student loans, then thru the Jet Programme.
Then took on Korean and the Foreign Service tests.
Immersion is great if you can afford it. Some save the money to do it, while working full-time jobs, paying mortgages, raising children and paying off student loans.
I know others who had everything given to them, too. But not very many people have that sort of background.
Interesting point, I harbor FS ambitions and am an undergrad at the University of Albany, SUNY. While I was accepted to Syracuse and American, and might have obtained the necessary loans for four years of 47k, I choose the public school since I want to go to any graduate school that accepts me for int'l affairs.
Funny that Arabic is mentioned. I am currently studying Arabic in Ghana since Cairo was too expensive. I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do an Arabic immersion course due to cost. State's own Summer Language Scholarship seems to accept a large number of applicants who have studied the language abroad before.
"More than one FSO has come away from encounters with these, and some of their more senior brethren, convinced that many bear a serious chip on their shoulders about the Foreign Service, a grudge dating back to when they were unable to either pass the FS examinations or otherwise make it through the selection and appointment process. None of us could prove it, but the impression has come across to many different FSOs around the world at various times."
I've taken the FSO test - twice. Didn't pass. The second time I asked for my score. As near as I could tell, it translated to, "Does not play well with others."
I didn't like that. You can't have all dips come from the same cookie-cutter. One of our most successful diplomats hired locals to cooperate with the USN to take out Barbary pirate dens. Not all problems are solved with palaver.
@Anon#1: Interesting point. But the language point plus-ups don't get added to one's score until the end of the selection process; all they do is improve one's standing on the hiring register. You can get the same "bump" by qualifying for veteran's preference.
Back "in olden times" (i.e., long before I was hired), foreign languages were a prerequisite. They were mandatory. That limited the pool of qualified applicants to, among others, the sorts of moneyed folks who had French nannies and the like, or so I would surmise. So the current set-up is deliberately more egalitarian.
@Lomax: There were a number of JETS alumni in my intake; it's a great program.
Again, the foreign language bump isn't mandadory, although it improves ones chances of being hired off the register. So does being a veteran.
Frankly, the old pale/male/yale cohort (i.e., old money northeastern WASP elites) don't seem to go in for public service so much these days.
They tend to make different careers choices than that nowadays; e.g., Paris Hilton.
@Zack: Good for you! Arabic is a tough one and I commend you for all the hard work you're doing to gain proficiency. We need folks who're willing to do that, especiall since there's just no way my caveman brain is going to be able to handle much more Arabic than "yes," "no," "please," "thank you," "hello", and "get on the ground and put your hands on your head."
@Anon#2: Usually they don't evaluate candidates on the "playing well with others" rubric until the oral assessment, where it becomes critical in the group role playing food fight.
Don't give up if you're serious about the FS as a career. There's a stick-to-it-iveness factor built into the process, whether that's intentional or not.
So, Consul's answer is to enlist and complete a successful tour of duty if you cannot afford an immersion program? This makes sense...
I.E. you better be rich enough to afford a language bonus immersion program. And god help you if you have children to feed, right?
Interesting post, as I was just contemplating the number of enemies State creates for itself with their unnecessarily opaque selection process. Yes, I've failed the oral twice and been asked to read the tea leaves as to why. After a few years of turning it over, I think the simplest answer as to why I'm not among your colleagues is that the process deserves a good deal of the derision it engenders and, to the extent that the department sticks by it, so does State. It does me no end of good to see FSOs bristling at being called elitist. Of course they are and the exam is the proof, yet few of them are willing to wear the tag.
@Anon#3:
"Consul's answer is to enlist and complete a successful tour of duty if you cannot afford an immersion program? This makes sense..."
Let me try to say this again.
Language (and veteran's preference) points only figure into the hiring process for those who've already been successful getting through the "written" exam, the QEP, and the oral assessment. They don't, in a quantitative sense, factor into either the "written" or oral phases. They _may_, _perhaps_, (who knows?) be a factor in the QEP.
I mention veteran's preference as a counterweight to the argument that the hiring process is biased towards those with the financial resources to aid in learning a language through foreign travel, immersion training, &tc. Which is a valid enough argument, but it not the whole picture.
Military service, which is _not_ weighted towards the well-monied or connected, gives just a big a "bump" up the Register as language proficiency. And veterans, as a group, tend to come from middle- to working-class backgrounds.
Now, my hat's off to anyone who's so dedicated to becoming an FSO that they would learn some exotic, critically-short, foreign language OR earn veteran's status SOLELY as a means of becoming more qualified for the FS selection process.
Cheers!
@Anon: If you're really interested in becoming an FSO, then don't stop trying. After all, presumably in the intervening years since your last attempt you've either gained in experience, knowledge, or maturity, which can only make you a stronger candidate.
As someone who's never been assigned to the Board of Examiners but who went through the FSWE thrice and the FSOA twice before "making it," I can really only offer anecdotal advice. Such as the bottom line for BEX examiners being the question in the back of each of their minds is "would I want to be working at an isolated hardship post with this person?"
I love how Consul is trying to defend this position! As someone who is vetted and on the register, I see what is going on, and it's disturbing.
In order to be picked these days, you have to have been blessed with being born in another country where you learned a SCNL, you had to have had the forethought in your undergraduate education to learn one, or you have to be rich enough to afford an immersion program now. All of the above options indicate a position of PRIVILEGE.
If I had a dollar for every message on the Yahoo group boards about people donning a caftan, spending time learning Arabic while sunning themselves in Cairo, I could afford my own immersion program.
It IS buying your way up the hiring register! I don't know why people can't grasp this. It's EXACTLY what it is.
Pretty soon, the only people who will be getting called off the register are veterans who speak Arabic and went to Harvard. It's just the way it will be. State might as well just do everyone a favor and go back to the cronyism of before. (Or if they were smart, only let people test in languages they put down when they signed up for the FSOT, equalizing the process).
FYI - not everyone who is eligible to be an FSO is eligible to serve in the military. It's privileged (or BIGOTED) in a different way.
It's true, Privilege exists in the FS, it is just an ugly topic that people choose to ignore.
"State might as well just do everyone a favor and go back to the cronyism of before."
Roger that. It certainly felt that way the last time I took the oral. (I've taken the written four times, the oral twice, speak basic Arabic, and am fluent in two other "world languages"--I'm still not to standard, which I could accept, except that State insists on not saying WHY I'm not to standard. From where I sit, this can only be to allow for cronyism. All the while State is hiring contract personnel to beat the band (almost 6000 security contractors in Iraq!) while complaining about its budget. I'm really on the fence about whether to go through this stupid process once again. That said, I do thank CAA for his blog and particularly this illuminating post.
Don't forget the Peace Corps. I've known many very successful FSOs over the years who had been PCVs. They sometimes went on to work as PC staff or taught overseas privately.
Also you can game the system a little by selecting a cone where the HR needs are the greatest - e.g. not political. Often now management.
@Anon#5:
Where to begin?
"I love how Consul is trying to defend this position! As someone who is vetted and on the register, I see what is going on, and it's disturbing."
Congratulations on making it through all three hoops, plus vetting! That's no mean achievement.
"In order to be picked these days, you have to have been blessed with being born in another country where you learned a SCNL, you had to have had the forethought in your undergraduate education to learn one, or you have to be rich enough to afford an immersion program now. All of the above options indicate a position of PRIVILEGE."
I'm curious: into which of these categories does my commenter fall?
It does seem to me that someone attending college who is interested in a foreign service career will have the foresight to study a foreign language. It seems to me to be merely prudent. More about this later.
TO BE CONTINUED -
@Anon#5:
CONTINUED:
"If I had a dollar for every message on the Yahoo group boards about people donning a caftan, spending time learning Arabic while sunning themselves in Cairo, I could afford my own immersion program."
Sure must be nice. Not being from an overly privileged background myself, I can sympathise with my commenter's annoyance here.
"It IS buying your way up the hiring register! I don't know why people can't grasp this. It's EXACTLY what it is.
Apparently it needs to be said that the Foreign Service is not a jobs program designed to present a workforce which is unprepared to perform its functions.
Foreign language skills are essential to the performance of our core State Dept. missions. The sliding scale of points which raise standing on the Register reflect the Department's actual needs regarding short and critically-short languages. That's reality.
"Pretty soon, the only people who will be getting called off the register are veterans who speak Arabic and went to Harvard. It's just the way it will be. State might as well just do everyone a favor and go back to the cronyism of before. (Or if they were smart, only let people test in languages they put down when they signed up for the FSOT, equalizing the process).
Could the commenter please offer a cite which answers the question of how many (or few) veterans actually attend Harvard at any given time?
"FYI - not everyone who is eligible to be an FSO is eligible to serve in the military. It's privileged (or BIGOTED) in a different way.
Military service is simultaneously both a right, a duty, and a privilege of citizenship and legal residency. The benefits of such service are EARNED.
Hiring for ALL government employment is required by statute to give veteran's preference.
Adding points to one's Register standing is how the Foreign Service ensures that its hires are qualified (having made it through testing and vetting) so that veteran's preference doesn't result in an unqualified workforce.
"It's true, Privilege exists in the FS, it is just an ugly topic that people choose to ignore."
The likelihood of any individual FSO candidate getting a passing score on the FSOT dramatically increases according to how much formal education, professional work experience, and general world knowledge the candidate possesses.
The end result is that about 99 percent of starting FSOs have an undergraduate degree. Many/most have either worked, studied, or lived abroad during their pre-FS lives. Many/most have, at some point, studied a foreign language, even if they are not currently all that proficient. Better than half (this is anecdotal) have studied beyond the undergraduate level and anywhere from 30-60 percent have advanced degrees.
The argument can be made that this selection process is elitist and rewards privilege. Since we live in an imperfect world, even in the United States, I'll concede there's some logic in the argument.
However, since FSOs are commissioned officers on the business of the United States abroad, I don't concede the logic of hiring less qualified candidates, particularly in pursuit of some foggy notion of "fairness."
If you didn't know, when you were studying for your undergraduate degree, that you were going to pursue a Foreign Service appointment, whose fault is that exactly?
If you were so incurious about the outside world, when you were in high school or college that you never took advantage of available foreign language classes, again I have to ask whose fault is that?
Additionally, I have to wonder why the Department would find that incuriousity a quality to be rewarded?
@Anon#6:
"Roger that. It certainly felt that way the last time I took the oral. (I've taken the written four times, the oral twice, speak basic Arabic, and am fluent in two other "world languages"--I'm still not to standard, which I could accept, except that State insists on not saying WHY I'm not to standard."
Which event is tripping you up? The oral assessment or language proficiency?
"From where I sit, this can only be to allow for cronyism. All the while State is hiring contract personnel to beat the band (almost 6000 security contractors in Iraq!) while complaining about its budget. I'm really on the fence about whether to go through this stupid process once again. That said, I do thank CAA for his blog and particularly this illuminating post."
You're welcome. This post has certainly touched a nerve with some readers.
As for hiring and budget, perhaps the requirement (DoD is turning responsibility for the Iraq mission over to DOS) is driving some of the budget problems you're hearing about. Just a though. DOS doesn't go out and hiring thousands of security personnel purely on a whim. In virtually any other country, if that much security was needed they would close the embassy and evacuate U.S. staff. National mission priorities are driving this train.
As for being on the fence, let me at least express some envy that you have the opportunity to decide whether or not to try again. There were years where the old FS Written Exam was not even offered because hiring was so minimual. That delayed my even beginning a FS candidacy until the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI) under Sec. Powell.
"As for being on the fence, let me at least express some envy that you have the opportunity to decide whether or not to try again. There were years where the old FS Written Exam was not even offered because hiring was so minimual."
I'll guess that your entire career has taken place over the time I've been trying to get into the service. I took the exams in 1991, 1994, 1998, and 2011. Indeed, I abandoned my ambitions during the period you described. And was heartened by the DRI, whose time seems certainly to have expired under internal budgetary handwringing.
I last sat for the exam in the company of a FS contractor who has spent the last nine years either in Afghanistan or Iraq. In your opinion, to what extent does DoS rely on contractors to fill in billets in Iraq? This, and the DRI, inspired me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a65ftKFdnY8) and I was explicit in my interview about wanting to go to Iraq.
Two things bother me about the process--which is much improved since the nineties: 1) minimal to no feedback is given on the oral. This is a bit like firing someone without telling them why. In no other exam situation that I know of, does this situation apply. In my opinion, in light of even NDA-compliant sharing via the internet and the sheer number of candidates gaming the exam "preserving the integrity of the exam" is a silly explanation which only says to me that DoS, as a bureaucracy has no qualms about abandoning basic fairness. This is why I'm on the fence. 2) complaints about enough qualified candidates ring hollow when the process is so utterly stacked against you and there is no reward for tenacity (I'm either not tenacious enough or too stupid or both). I've passed the QEP and the written (twice) with rather good scores on the written, I might add. Is there some good reason why I should be obliged to do so again? The third complaint, raised by the person already on the register about wealthy people being able to do an immersion course after passing the oral evaluation is completely valid. While not wealthy myself, it was my intention do so (in Tunisia!) had I passed.
Anyway, back to your original point. The above should go some ways toward explaining why some of your colleagues have a chip on their shoulder with respect to FSOs. There is this moment of clarity when you realize your service might be better appreciated by another agency.
This thread is wonderfully valuable in filling in the blanks. Thanks again for carrying water for the examining board.
This is OP again! Thanks for your response, CAA2, and for continuing the diologue. At the risk of trying to "wrap up" this debate and reaching concensus, I think most are on the same page: It appears as though State has created incentives for those with wealth to climb the hiring register.
I did not go to college, at 17, to become an FSO. I did not learn about it until later in life after I started my current career. I studied languages, but none of the critical needs. I don't think it is fair that someone who made a decision to study a "non-critical language" at 17 should be punished for that...or in the alternative, should have to enlist (which is not possible for all types of people) or have enough wealth to spend on an immersion program.
State, when it was promoting the FSOT during the DRI mentioned above, noted that one need not have a college degree or have learned a language in order to qualify. You can imagine how misleading this actually is. In other words, as someone who made it all the way through and is deemed qualified, I am disappointed that I am not in one of the three categories listed in my earlier post (where CAA asks which category I fall under...well, it's none! Or else I'd be along side him!). Those are the real, unlisted requirements these days.
I agree with CAA - We should be hiring the most qualified candidates. As it stands now, that may also mean the wealthiest ones.
As far as Harvard alumni armed service members who speak Arabic...I'm sure there might be some from Yale, too. We'll see when candidates start spending more money to immerse themselves in language, elite educations, and possibly also enlisting. There is a candidate who is currently pursuing a second bachelors and then a J.D. to try and up his FSOT score. Is this really what the process was meant to do?
"DOS doesn't go out and hiring thousands of security personnel purely on a whim. In virtually any other country, if that much security was needed they would close the embassy and evacuate U.S. staff. National mission priorities are driving this train."
Yep. If that much security is necessary, it is also a perfect reason to reconsider the advisability of this mission. From a bureaucratic standpoint it just looks like a DoS power grab, a way to justify a larger budget.
I took the test several times in the 90s. I always made it to the Oral Exam, which I though was ridiculously hard. I never passed it. I understood my results because I had far less experience and knowledge of the world than I do now. I took the written again in Feb of this year and passed, did my PNQ and they did not invite me to take the Oral Exam again. Frankly, I am astonished. I have a BA, MS, am pursuing a second BS,can speak one language fluently and two languages passingly and have traveled the world. Who on earth are they looking for?
@Anon (May 18, 2011 12:24 PM )
"If that much security is necessary, it is also a perfect reason to reconsider the advisability of this mission. From a bureaucratic standpoint it just looks like a DoS power grab, a way to justify a larger budget."
I posed that same question back in 2003-4. IIRC, it was when my CDO sent around the first cable which identified the jobs that were open for bidding in the not-yet-built Baghdad embassy mission. My words were essentially: "Anywhere else with a security environment like this, they'd be evacuating."
The bigger security, &tc., budget for Iraq is because DoD, and all the support and security they've provided to our mission(s) in Iraq, are going away. So if there's going to be things like security, transportation, logistics, &tc., then State must provide them for itself or do without.
The national mission trumps security considerations which would otherwise call for closing up shop. So the work is going to get done and State folks are going to do it. And if that's the case, without DoD backing us up, we have to be able to do it for ourselves.
I've seen enough piddly empire building in my decades around the federal government that I'm not shy about calling people on it if I think that's what it is. I keep a weather eye out for what I call the "full-employment-for-ambassadors" tendancy to re-open missions which were closed for a reason (such as Tehran). The mission, and the environment, are driving the requirements and the costs, not a power play.
(Or it doesn't get done, and we fill body bags, if they find enough parts, and people start resigning rather than be assigned there
@Anon (May 18, 2011 5:21 PM)
"I took the written again in Feb of this year and passed, did my PNQ and they did not invite me to take the Oral Exam again. Frankly, I am astonished. I have a BA, MS, am pursuing a second BS,can speak one language fluently and two languages passingly and have traveled the world. Who on earth are they looking for?"
Good question. In general, I understand what the process is looking for, but the QEP part of the current hiring process is, as I've stated elsewhere, is something of a "black box" to me, whose workings and purposes are opaque. Which I do not see to be a good thing.
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