I plan to apply Early Decision 1 to The George Washington University for The Class of 2020.
However, I am in a predicament. I do not know whether I want to apply to The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences for Political Science, or The Elliott School of International Affairs.
Can someone share their experience in the major, or their thoughts on it at GW.
Im in the same position lol
I wasn’t a Poli Sci guy but I graduated with a degree in Physics (CCAS) in 2012. In my opinion, GW is an awesome school. There are definitely shortfalls (most are admin related like financial aid, admissions, housing, etc) but if you look at the academics, location, atmosphere, and everything else the university has to offer, I think the perks greatly outweigh the negatives. A little while ago a wrote a rather extensive reply to someone about the overall “feel” of GW that you might find helpful: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17764251/#Comment_17764251.
If you have any other questions feel free to shoot me a message!
I went to the Elliott School. On campus at least it was considered the more prestigious school on campus. I did International Affairs. I loved my GWU experience. If you are a political junkie there is no better place on earth!! Most of my classmates in the Elliott School were very much into politics and political science so I don’t think you would lose out on anything by going that route. Best of luck!
Hi! I’m going to be a freshman in the Elliott school this fall and while I don’t know much about student life, etc (yet) I’ve completed registration and know that Elliott has more freshman requirements than CCAS. if you’re on the fence I would consider applying to Elliott as your first choice (on the common app last year when I applied ED2 you could list 2 colleges you would consider acceptance to. The idea is if you aren’t admitted to your first choice collegethey’ll consider you for your second). It would be easier to transfer out of Elliott than into it because of the high number of required courses for freshman (these courses may count for humanities classes towards a polisci major but to be sure you would need to check the website!) best of luck!
definitely the elliott school. it is more prestigious than columbian, ranked in the top 10 for the country (just behind yale and the u of chicago, ranked ahead of the likes of dartmouth, cornell, brown, and duke).
dont let courses hold you back, because there are basically no restrictions for taking courses in the other department (i.e. an elliott student can take almost all poli sci courses).
the requirements are better than columbian in the sense that most of them are actually relevant to the stuff you’re interested in. the columbian requirements are called GPAC, and GPAC requires you to take one more semester of science and an art class that you wouldn’t otherwise have to take in elliott, for example (you can take these things if you actually want to in elliott, the difference is you’re not OBLIGATED to).
i also imagine you probably get better advising in elliott, since elliott advising only has to service IR majors, whereas columbian basically has to cater to 90% of the majors at the university. to top it off, elliott has its own new-ish building on campus (though other majors have classes in it as well).
basically, the only logical reason i can think of for applying poli sci over the elliott school is if you KNOW FOR SURE you want to focus specifically on AMERICAN/DOMESTIC politics or like philosophical type politics, the poli sci department is better suited for that (i’d probably say elliott is better even for comparative poli sci). the reason i say you should know for sure is because it is easier to transfer out of elliott to columbian than it is to transfer into elliott as an outsider, so the safest logical thing to do is go with elliott and transfer out if you wish
the source for the elliott school ranking is foreign policy magazine by the way, the big mainstream international affairs publication.