<p>I want to go to a school in DC and right now I am trying to decide which is better between AU and GWU. I want to major in mass communications, and minor in international studies, because my ultimate goal is to be in some job where I travel internationally and do work in communications or journalism of some sort.</p>
<p>My question is which school would be better for that type of job? I know they both supposedly have great communications and media departments, but which would be better overall, as far as getting a job, and just the academics and so forth?</p>
<p>Academics, internships, and job prospects in the areas you are interesting are basically equal between the two schools.</p>
<p>The biggest difference is in the “vibe” of the two schools…real campus vs. no campus. Students at both schools have easy and equal access to all DC has to offer because of the great public transportation. But the campus experience at each of the schools is entirely different.</p>
<p>FOR MY SON (meaning it does not equally apply to all students), he liked the idea of having a Quad and a traditional campus/campus experience while also having an urban college experience. His thought was that you only get a chance at a traditional campus experience(frisbee on the quad/study on the quad, etc) once in your life, and that once he gets to grad school those things wouldn’t be important to him any more.</p>
<p>Visit both schools and see where you “fit” better. You can’t go wrong with either school.</p>
<p>I get the feeling that American is a friendlier, more tolerant and less stuck up place than GWU. I also get the impression that a high percentage of GWU students are rather spoiled and arrogant, while American students are more down to earth. I also get the impression that GWU’s administration has more of a corporate mentality and is more interested in building an empire, with huge research budgets and large fancy buildings. </p>
<p>One thing that struck me was that GWU recently tried to get HALF of their engineering professors to leave so they could replace them with people who would bring in more research dollars.</p>
<p>1) American has the highest percentage of students on the greatest amount of need based financial aid out of the 3 big DC schools (GW, Georgetown and AU). So this does mean that AU has a higher percentage of students from less affluent families than the other two schools. While it is my personal opinion that students at AU are less stuck up and less concerned with money, it is important to remember that there are students at all three schools that pay the full $50,000+/year tuition and so you’re going to get snobs at all three.</p>
<p>2) GWU’s administration is structured with a corporate mentality, but AU’s is structured like a bureaucracy, and it is one of the student’s main complaints about the school. Some of this has been remedied by AU’s creation of ‘AU Central’, which serves as a liaison between students and the various departments.</p>
<p>Personally, go visit all the DC schools. GW,AU, GT are all different. It should be very obvious to you after actually visiting and interviewing which you can see yourself at for the next 4 yrs.</p>
<p>As a parent - I preferred my S to attend AU, however, he chose GW.</p>
<p>When my son was applying to colleges, he applied to AU rather than GW because he wanted a campus. he was given the Presidential scholarship but chose not to attend. We now visited the two schools for my daughter and I was struck by how many of the students smoke cigarettes at AU! I know this is a strange thing to walk away with - but that is all I think about now when I think of AU. No other school had as many students smoking. The problem with GW - from my standpoint - is the meal plan. Most students eat in restaurants and I don’t see how my daughter can do this for four years.</p>
<p>I hope that they were not smoking indoors. Smoking should be banned there as I do not want my daughter exposed to secondhand smoke indoors or out.</p>
<p>Funny, but I’m extremely sensitive to cigarette smoke, and D has asthma, but neither of us have ever noticed that the smokers at AU (who would all be outside, of course) are more numerous than at any other school. (I think Emerson and Bard were the schools where I was really struck by the amount of smoking–it kind of went with the self-conscious hipness at both.) An unfortunate number of kids do pick up smoking at school–S, despite being raised in a house where no one smoked and inundated with anti-smoking messages throughout public school, became a smoker at college and took a few years to break the habit–it made me totally crazy to see him light up!</p>
<p>My son has asthma but hasn’t had a problem with smokers at AU. AU is right across the street from NBC- and the Communications Dept is a definate strength for AU. And SIS (school of International Studies) is also a very, very strong dept.</p>
<p>If you have visited, you probably noticed that AU has much more of a campus feel than GW - except for the Mount Vernon campus at GW, you can’t tell that GW is a college campus. The GW dorms were nice however. Two years ago it made the press as the most expensive college in the US at that time- but they were guaranteeing to hold tuition costs the same for all 4 years for a student.</p>