<p>I am considering American in DC and am looking for some feedback. Has anybody been to the campaus? What was your opinion? I know the Poli Sci department is very good, but how is it compared to Georgetown and GW? Any feedback on the school would be helpful, bad feedback is also helpful.</p>
<p>American’s IR program is just as good as GWU (if not better) and almost as good as Georgetown. The campus is pretty nice - it’s a reasonable size (about 15-20 minutes to walk from one end to the other) and definitely has a distinct campus feel, i.e. it’s not in the middle of D.C. The buildings are aesthetically pleasing for the most part, and the quad has lots of green/trees/etc. They also run a shuttle bus to a square near campus where there are restaurants, shops, and a subway station. The IR program has a very big presence on campus, as it’s the most popular major at American by far. Also, being in DC, there are lots of jobs and internships available during the school year, which are much easier to get than summer ones since all the other IR majors are still at school.</p>
<p>I’ll have to disagree with your first sentence. Three candidates from each school that took the IR program of their school go to a job recruiter. I can almost guarantee he’ll pick the Georgetown student over the other two and the GWU student over the American.</p>
<p>Ranking of Top 10 International Relations Schools for Policy Careers:</p>
<ol>
<li>Johns Hopkins University</li>
<li>Georgetown University</li>
<li>Harvard University</li>
<li>Tufts University</li>
<li>Columbia University</li>
<li>Princeton University</li>
<li>George Washington University</li>
<li>American University</li>
<li>Syracuse University</li>
<li>University of California, San Diego</li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, GWU is above American, but it is ONE SPOT above American. A job recruiter is going to look at internship/job experience above all else. Perhaps if recruiters blindly picked employees based on their degrees alone, they would choose a G-town or GWU student over an American student. But that simply is not how it works. All 3 schools offer great networking opportunities, and it is how you take advantage of those opportunities that will make a difference. Sure, Georgetown is superior to GWU and American in terms of IR, but that does not guarantee a student anything.</p>
<p>Try American’s own board here on CC for more input.</p>
<p>Amazing School! My son is a Political Science major; Sophmore Year</p>
<p>The attitude of most people is: if you can get into Georgetown, you take it, because the name and networking opens up extra opportunities. However, Georgetown regularly turns away hundreds of students with near perfect scores, so most people don’t have that option.</p>
<p>American is an excellent alternative from everything I’ve read. My son is applying. It is a very pleasant campus in a safe part of DC. (Most of the crime in DC is concentrated in the eastern half.) </p>
<p>American’s reputation is improving as it is able to enroll an increasingly selective student body. The conventional wisdom is: don’t go there for sciences, but for IR, public policy, etc. it is a great place.</p>
<p>P.S. - American is planning on building signficant new amounts of student housing on the parking lots south of the campus. </p>
<p>If you decide not to attend American, you still have the option of attending their “Washington Semester” for one semester. That program links up students from other colleges with internships in DC and provides housing at their Tenleytown campus right next to a Metro station.</p>
<p>I will do my best to avoid spin and give you as objective an answer as I can. I went to law school at American (which I liked a lot) but became familiar with its undergraduate programs through osmosis. I’ve also been a active alumnus of the law school so I am reasonably familiar with changes that have taken place over the years at the university.</p>
<p>In my opinion, American has a few areas in which it is very strong–international studies, government, and public affairs among them. Its political science department is somewhat bifurcated. International Relations (which is a poly sci subfield) is located in the School of International Service (SIS). SIS is among the top ten programs in the country and it is very comparable to GW’s Elliott School. The best programs in DC (and in the country, and arguably in the world) are Johns Hopkins’ Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS). But AU’s program is very good and certainly AU is significantly less selective admissions wise than either Johns Hopkins or Georgetown. Ditto for GW.</p>
<p>Other political science subfields (e.g., American politics, political theory, etc.) are located in the AU’s School of Public Affairs. In these fields, AU is probably close to Georgetown which, in recent years, has lost a number of luminaries on the faculty which also caused some graduate students to transfer. Georgetown’s reputation is undoubtedly still stronger, but reputation is very much a lagging indicator. In terms of political science (as opposed to international studies), GW now has the strongest department in DC. GW has quite a few up and coming stars on its faculty and has invested a lot of money in the department. </p>
<p>Because of their DC location, all three universities attract a lot of students interested in politics and international studies. All three attract good faculty in those areas for the same reason. Academically (as opposed to professionally), none of them are going to compare to the elite universities (Harvard is not going to lose sleep over AU) but all three are reasonably good choices for political junkies.</p>
<p>Outside of the few areas where it excells, AU also has a number of good but not excellent departments. These would include communications (including journalism), the Kogod School of Business, and the art and music departments (none of the other DC schools have anything comparable to AU’s Katzen Art Center). While not an undergraduate school, I’ll add that the law school at AU (Washington College of Law) is quite good (not elite as is Georgetown’s but pretty comparable to GW). Otherwise, the remainder of AU’s departments and programs range from pretty mediocre (humanities and other social sciences) to quite weak (natural sciences). Don’t go to AU if you want to become a physicist!</p>
<p>If you want to study one of the areas in which AU excells–AU can be a good choice. DC is a great place to go to college, and AU has a nice, green, compact campus which GW doesn’t (at least not in Foggy Bottom). Overall, Georgetown is clearly the more selective and prestigious school although, somewhat surprisingly, outside of SFS and its law school, it has very few top rated departments or programs. Its campus is also nice, and just as compact as AU’s. GW is also overall a better university than AU because it is better balanced–its humanities and sciences are clearly stronger although, like Georgetown, few are really excellent. It is, however, significantly larger than AU and except for a vacant lot where they planted grass and put a few benches and a gate, there really is no campus. In that respect, GW is more like NYU or BU. </p>
<p>I hope this helped. The best advice is to visit all three (they are, after all, pretty close to one another) and see which one fits you best. When it comes to selecting a college, only your fit matters.</p>
<p>AU’s buildings are marble and look like monuments or DC govt buildings. An interesting look, a change from the red brick or gothic schools of the east coast. It was obvious on our visit that the internship program is a big deal. I think many classes don’t meet on Wednesdays so students can go to their internships.</p>