<p>I have been looking at some of the forums for DC schools and some of posters characterize AU as a “school for rich kids, who couldn’t get in anywhere else”. I believe that this is a untrue since I know many intelligent people whose first choice was AU. I have done alot of research on American and regard it very highly; The only problem is that when it comes to jobs and internships, it doesn’t matter what i think, it matters what the employer thinks. Do any of you know how AU is regarded in DC? And I’m also interested in majoring in Poli Sci or International relations. How are the internship opportunities for poli sci and SIS undergrads?</p>
<p>AU is regarded really well in DC. Many people think AU is regarded less because of George Washington U and Georgetown but i assure you it’s not. </p>
<p>I went to a seminar several weeks ago and the faculty and AU staff said that AU is known to have very hard working students and companies know that. </p>
<p>Since about 90% of AU students do internships around DC, many companies know AU. In addition, there was an instance when someone from AU got an internship and people from GW or georgetown didn’t get it because AU students are known to work hard on their internships and the companies know that. Also, about 50% of the internships the students take during college turn into jobs after you graduate!</p>
<p>I’m going to go out on a limb and theorize that there are more <em>middle class</em> students at AU than there are at Georgetown or GW. That’s because all three of them cost in the neighborhood of $55,000/year. But, as far as I can tell, AU offers more merit aid than either Georgetown or GW. So, that may very well attract middle class kids whose families can’t begin to pay $55K out of pocket like wealthier families can, but who also can’t qualify for as much need-based aid as the less-well-off families can. At least that was the case with our family–we ruled Georgetown right out because we knew our daughter didn’t have a chance of getting enough merit aid OR need-based aid to make it affordable.</p>
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A lovely thought, but I’m sure it’s a myth.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for the entire student body, but two of D’s close friends at AU are barely keeping their heads above water with financial aid, merit awards, part-time jobs and frugal living–definitely not “rich kids”. I can also say that when it comes to conspicuous consumption, it was the kids we saw at GW, not AU, who most noticeably sported designer labels. Every private college has a contingent of full pay students from affluent families–that’s how they pay the bills–but I don’t think AU has more than average.</p>
<p>There is no doubt or debate when it comes to the hierarchy of prestige of DC colleges:
- Georgetown
- George Washington
- American
- Howard
- Catholic</p>
<p>Anyone who says that AU students are more highly recruited for internships than students from Georgetown (or GW for that matter) is absolutely crazy. In every discipline except perhaps “communications,” employers, NGOs, government agencies, institutes, banks, financial institutions, law firms, National Institutes of Health, etc. will all preferentially choose Georgetown over GW over AU–just like applicants to college!!! AU does try to “buy” students through scholarship, but anyone who chooses AU over Georgetown is foolish and short-sighted (although a full ride to AU is probably better than going to GW full pay).</p>
<p>^longgraduated: Do you think your daughter would have been admitted to Georgetown or GW??? BTW, Georgetown does not provide merit-aid–all financial aid is need-based. Georgetown doesn’t need to “buy” students.</p>
<p>My daughter was admitted to AU and GW. She did not apply to Georgetown. She was given merit aid to both schools and GW gave her a need based grant on top of that. She chose AU.</p>
<p>Anecdotes are not evidence, but…</p>
<p>My d. applied for a very prestigious (and very highly paid) internship in DC. They had three slots, and more than 200 applicants. Many of the applicants were from Georgetown, Wharton (Penn), Princeton, NYU, GW, and some from Yale, etc. She applied after two years at AU; most of the other applicants had three. She was the first one selected. Upon completion of the internship, she was offered a high-paying full-time job after she graduated. Before she graduated, they hired her to work 20-35 hours a week (at a very high rate of pay), and paid her for study time at the office as well. When she officially “starts” her job, they will be using her to help train the newbies.</p>
<p>(Oh, and they hired none from GW or Georgetown.)</p>
<p>^Medman, I think my daughter probably would have gotten into GW if she applied, and may have been waitlisted at Georgetown (just based on a friend of hers with similar stats and accomplishments who was waitlisted). She got into BU (which costs about the same as AU) with no merit aid, and AU with an offer of $20k in merit aid.</p>
<p>I don’t know why anyone feels the need to rank DC schools in a hierarchy. It’s not as if students first decide they are absolutely determined to live in DC and then figure out the best school there that will accept them. My D applied to AU not because of its location but because of a particular program offered there that wasn’t offered at Georgetown or GW. The other schools she considered were far from DC. I do understand that in the fields of IR and Poli Sci there is competition among the three, but not every student is interested in those fields. Moreover, most GW and AU students aren’t remotely competitive for Georgetown, and those who are accepted at Georgetown aren’t exactly agonizing among the three. Students who want a campus won’t like GW; students who want a completely urban experience won’t care for AU. I think some of those who are determined to rank the schools are insecure GW students who like to say to themselves–“well, I didn’t into Georgetown, but at least I’m not going to AU!” It’s all too silly. They are three very different institutions that happen to be located in the same city. If one is right for you, chances are the other two aren’t. And if you’re a talented, hard working and resourceful student with a strong academic record, you’ll get those internships and jobs regardless of which DC school you attend.</p>
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<p>It’s possible that many of the students in SIS and SPA did exactly that. Those two schools represent (I just calculated it) about 46% of the full-time undergrads. Or at least, they did in 2010-2011. So I can see how people do get caught up in asking that question.</p>
<p>I can assure you that the only people who engage in the rather silly exercise of ranking DC universities on the basis of prestige are students at DC universities. In the rest of the world (the other 99.999 %), AU and GW are viewed as essentially fungible (except for the sciences, where GW is somewhat better) and Georgetown is viewed as slightly better but not at the level of the very top universities (despite its very high selectivity). Among the DC schools, choose the school where you feel the most comfortable. The prestige thing, plus $2, will buy you a cup of coffee.</p>
<p>Georgetown fans don’t like to hear this, but the best school in the region is Johns Hopkins. By a lot. So there :)</p>
<p>@MommaJ</p>
<p>Well said, agree wholly with your post.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, AU students have no more trouble than anybody else getting internships, and AU graduates seem to do as well as anybody else getting jobs or getting into graduate school after graduation.</p>
<p>I will say, I don’t think AU’s name will travel outside the DC metro area as well as Georgetown’s or even GW’s will. If you’re trying to parlay your undergraduate education into a job in Sacramento or Austin or Albany, AU may not be your best bet. But if you want to stay around Washington, I don’t think going to AU is a real handicap compared with going to GW or even Georgetown, provided that you do well and make connections while you’re at AU.</p>
<p>I will also say that a lot of AU’s success in placing students in internships and recent graduates in jobs or grad school may come because AU works really hard at these things. I think AU recognizes that its typical undergraduate enters with less polish than Georgetown’s typical undergraduate, or maybe even GW’s, so AU works hard on polishing them. So what? What matters is whether you get a good internship or a suitable job, right? </p>
<p>So if you think you want to go to college in Washington (and, with no disrespect to MommaJ, I suspect there are a lot of students who do), and work in government after graduation, American can certainly help you make that happen.</p>
<p>Is AU a school for rich kids? I know there are a lot of students who must really stretch a dollar to attend AU on the aid that AU offers them, and many more who go elsewhere because their families just can’t afford as much as AU wants them to pay. In that respect, there may be a grain of truth in the assertion that AU is a school for “rich kids.” But I’d agree with MommaJ about designer labels. When my daughter was college-shopping, her unit of measure for this metric was Ugg boots; she saw a lot more Ugg boots at GW than at AU.</p>
<p>^Hopkins is definitely a better overall university than Georgetown, but who would actually ever really want to go to Hopkins for undergrad??? Look at their yield, and you’ll see that most people agree!!!</p>
<p>As far as the D.C. heirarchy
1.Georgetown
(Big Gap)
2. GW
3. AU</p>
<p>^ lol. Oh lord…</p>
<p>Hopkin’s yield is what it is because many of it’s admittees are also admitted to Harvard,Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT. Hopkins wins some of those cross admit battles, but it loses most of them. But Hopkins wins most cross admits with Georgetown.</p>
<p>^You are absolutely wrong. Georgetown wins cross-admits over Hopkins in an approximately 65/35 ratio (it actually was much higher in the past, approaching 75/25, but Hopkins has done a better job recently due to improvements in undergraduate life made by the former Hopkins president, Dr. Brody) . You are correct–Hopkins yield is low because of losing cross-admits to many other fine schools, including Georgetown. I am privy to this information due to my prior involvement with the Georgetown admissions office, as an alumni interviewer at Georgetown, and my current role on the Hopkins medical school admissions committee. It is information shared by the Consortium on Financing Higher Education member schools, with which I have also been involved.</p>
<p>Georgetown blows JHU out of the water in cross admits.</p>