Opinion ID: 543580
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Foreign Service

Text: 3 The Foreign Service (Service) is the United States professional diplomatic corps. Upon acceptance into the Service, an officer is assigned to one of four areas of functional specialty called cones. The four cones are political, economic, administrative and consular. 4 The Service operates on an up or out formula that obliges those not promoted after serving a specified period at a specified level to leave the Service. Foreign Service Officers serve at ranks from class 8 (the lowest) to class 1 (the highest). See 22 U.S.C. Sec. 3963. Officers begin to compete for promotions from class 6 to class 5; promotions from class 8 to class 7 and from class 7 to class 6 are noncompetitive. 5 Promotion decisions are made by Selection Boards and are based exclusively on a review of the contents of an FSO's personnel file. Those files are made up of each individual's performance evaluations (which include evaluations of potential) while in the Foreign Service, records of training completed while in the Foreign Service, records of awards, letters of commendation, recommendations for disciplinary actions and Inspector Efficiency Reports relating to the officer.