The Foreign Service Journal, December 2013

70 DECEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT mentioned elsewhere on the application. Your achievements, grades and activities will all be listed elsewhere, and your main essay will be showing something of your character and personality. Here you can add something extra, but again—only if it’s something new. If you have not yet cited your Foreign Service lifestyle and all the places you’ve lived, now’s your chance. If being overseas meant that certain courses or activi- Do not compose your essay on the application screen itself—there have been too many cautionary tales of essays being garbled or lost. ties weren’t offered to you, such as U.S. history, or American football, you could explain that here—especially if you have taken an online course, done extra reading or started a local American football club in your host country, as a way of dealing with the deficits in your education or experi- ence. If you’ve experienced an evacu- ation, for instance, or have developed an unusual passion overseas that isn’t reflected in the rest of the application, you can use this space to elaborate on it. Give Yourself Extra Time Finally, remember that while applying from overseas may give you an advantage in the application pile, a poor Internet connection in a Third World country may well put you at a disadvantage, given the Common App’s current online glitches. If the Common Application wants to set itself up as the gateway for all U.S. college applicants, it will have to ramp up its customer service and engage in a little “public diplomacy” for the sake of its national image. Meanwhile, the new essay prompts are a definite improvement, and they lend themselves well to the Foreign Service experience. So, take advantage of that, and be sure to give yourself extra time to com- plete and submit your application—just in case. n Continued from p. 62