Hi everyone! My name is Clemencia El Antouri, and I am a 2024 recipient of the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship. The U.S. Department of State funds this fellowship and seeks to attract outstanding, diverse, and young talent for Foreign Service careers in the Department of State. Benefits of this fellowship include full tuition coverage of graduate school, a summer internship at the Department of State in Washington DC, and a second summer internship at a US embassy or consulate overseas. Upon completion, fellows enter the Foreign Service as Foreign Service Officers with a minimum service requirement of five years. The Pickering and Rangel fellowships are essentially identical, with the only difference being the domestic internship; Rangel fellows have their domestic internship at Capitol Hill. However, the Payne Fellowship is slightly different since it is for entrance into the USAID Foreign Service instead of the Department of State’s. Applicants can apply as either an undergraduate senior or a graduate.

Last year, the application deadline for the fellowship was in September; therefore, I started preparing my application in the summer. I highly recommend utilizing the Honors Department for help constructing essays and guidance! They were extremely helpful to me when I had trouble describing my story and desire to enter the Foreign Service. The application asks for a personal statement, financial statement (show why you need money for graduate school), travel history, foreign languages, work experience, extracurricular experience, and transcripts. With that being said, I’d recommend that interested applicants take advantage of their time at SPIA to gain study abroad experience, a second and third language, relevant work experience through internships, and research experience. All of these components considerably strengthen one’s application.

If your application is selected to move on, you will be deemed a finalist. Each fellowship selects 90 finalists (out of about 1500 applications). Ultimately, 45 fellowships are awarded. Finalists undergo a timed written exam and interviews with former ambassadors and senior diplomats. These are meant to resemble the FSOT and FSOA. Once I completed the exam and interview, I was notified that I was a Pickering Fellow the same week. If you are not chosen, don’t worry! You can always reapply the next cycle or pursue the traditional path to the Foreign Service by taking the FSOT.