<p>So I'm a senior graduating soon,
devoted to do IR but got brutally rejected by my dream school, Georgetown.
The rejection letter is literally THE harshest thing in the world.
"It will not be possible to offer you a place in the first-year class."
I can never forget that line, it literally scarred me for life.</p>
<p>So, I SIRed to a school that places no emphasis on humanities whatsoever.
And yes, I'm going to transfer for sure.
I know it's still a long way to go, but I just want to find out now.</p>
<p>It might sound ridiculous to you all, but the rejection letter was so upsetting that I have no will to attend Georgetown anymore.
I couldn't really google anything useful so I came to CC.
Besides Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, what are some of the best IR programs in the nation?
Do all ivys generally have good IR programs? How about UChi, Northwestern?
Btw, I know GWU has a very good IR program too, but I was rejected there as well.</p>
<p>How about the UCs? Davis, LA and Berkeley?</p>
<p>I would really appreciate some honest detailed opinions, rather just rankings.
But yeah, rankings are welcome as well.</p>
<p>Besides that, I want to start doing more extracurricular activities, I dont believe that they are useless for transfer applicants.
I’m trilingual, what are some IR-related activities I can do? Can somebody give me some ideas? I don’t want to just go to some companies and do interns I actually want to learn something IR-related.
Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>What is your concept of what is “international relations”? It’s not a club where tickets are only issued at Georgetown or Kennedy School of Govt or the London School of Economics. It’s a concentration and a loose career field – for which you can prepare at a variety of institutions.</p>
<p>And please drop the “scarred for life” and “brutally rejected” bit. I’m sorry but it’s pretty darn trite sounding. You’re about to enter into an American university. 99% of this world would give a limb to be in your shoes or to have one of their kids in your shoes. The more you say that, the less people will take you seriously.</p>
<p>I understand scoring well on the foreign service exam helps a little with the State Department and I know people who have done that at schools people never heard of. Another thing to consider is what do you mean by international relations? Think about all of the NGOs where you focus on health, agriculture, economic development, and so on at the international level. There are plenty of people working in those areas who didn’t major in international relations. I also suspect that a lot of the competition is coming out with master degrees which means you need to look at the requirements for those programs. And a lot of those programs require some work experience before you enter. And btw, if you think you’ve been scarred for life because you’ve been rejected from some schools, what are you going to do if your rejected for a security clearance? It’s time for some perspective.</p>
<p>@Zonlicht: Don’t know how old you are, be I know at least 10 people who are not “Ivy, top 10 private” grads now nearing retirement who had extremely successful foreign service careers–including one ambassador. The state department used to be an old boy network, but really hasn’t been for quite a while.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins, Tufts, UChicago and George Washington all have excellent IR programs… Although obviously they can’t top SFS or HKS. I personally would stay away from the West Coast for IR (unless I was going to Stanford). </p>
<p>I think it depends on what career goals you have for yourself. ‘traditional’ IR jobs at the State Department or in top NGOs require more prestige in your r</p>
<p>Since it appears that you weren’t even waitlisted at Georgetown, you might consider the fact that it appears that you didn’t even come that close to earning admission to Georgetown. This is all the more true because you say you were also rejected at GW. So I am not sure where your comment that you were “brutally” rejected at Georgetown came from. Or your comment that “you have no will to attend Georgetown anymore” You were rejected, plain and simple, just like thousands of other kids. </p>
<p>You will be rejected hundreds of times in your life. Job interviews. Girls. Get used to it.
We all have been rejected. My advice is to get up off the floor, dust yourself off, and fight on.</p>
<p>Also, it is a little late now to ask what other schools have good IR depts. You should have thought about this a year ago, and applied to 10 of them. For example, American University comes to mind as an obvious choice, since you were applying to schools in DC. </p>
<p>That being said, take a look at University of St Andrews in Scotland. They are supposedly good for IR, and it may be easier to earn admission as an American, because Americans pay full freight. (Not sure if you can transfer there). Also, at many schools, IR is simply part of the political science major. So I am not sure why you didn’t apply to schools and seek to major in political. Instead of going to a non-humanities school, as you state in your post. Consider UC San Diego for political science. It is supposedly top notch in that field, and you might have at least a decent chance of getting in, as opposed, to let’s say, a Berkeley. If you can take political science classes at your new college, I would do that.</p>
<p>As for taking the foreign service exam as a way to break into the field, I once did that, as a lark, and I can tell you that it is incredibly hard.</p>