<p>It's not shafted one bit. What top programs does it offer besides political science and international relations? Not being strong in a single science lowers it to where it (imo rightfully) currently lies.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong, it's a great school. But there are TONS of great schools in the US. #23 is nothing to scoff at...unless you're on CC, of course.</p>
<p>well UC Berkeley is like 50 percent asian.</p>
<p>"Would you say that Georgetown is at the level of Hopkins and Wash U?"</p>
<p>Yes, and the fact that it has DC at its doorstep is amazing. </p>
<p>I don't think it has anything to do with its Catholic affiliation, at all. It doesn't feel like a heavily-Catholic school the way Notre Dame does, and it's pretty evident that students of all religious faiths go there.</p>
<p>I think Georgetown is a great place but as far as being on the level of Hopkins or WUSTL in terms of academics, i feel it is slightly lower than that. Atleast here. I am not sure about other places. Well, i would say in terms of reputation where i live, it is Hopkins Georgetown and WUSTL. However, you could call them peers or whatever. They are all great schools. I would not complain if i got into Georgetown and no where else.</p>
<p>Indeed, Georgetown is a very good school if you want to study politics or international relations. A lot of people say that Georgetown should be ranked higher. Yet, I - and many others - think that rank 23 is perfectly fine for Georgetown.
Georgetown's weakest part is the student body. I dont know where VegasSomelier got the "Every person I met with was so very dedicated to pure learning and advancement" from, because its just not true. I attended Georgetown for a year and I have to say that I missed a lot of dedication. People are more concerned about parties and binch drinking, a reason why some good professors have already left. There is an internal study, written in 2005, that deals exactly with this problem. Professors are complaining that students are not prepared and dont do the readings, are not concerned with obtaining an intellectual framework for themselves.
Georgetown always got bad grades for its student body. They know they have to change it, but its hard. The kind of students they need prefer going to Harvard/Yale/Columbia/Stanford... or Oxford/Cambridge/LSE</p>
<p>
[quote]
Indeed, Georgetown is a very good school if you want to study politics or international relations. A lot of people say that Georgetown should be ranked higher. Yet, I - and many others - think that rank 23 is perfectly fine for Georgetown.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What is wrong with being a specialty school ? The LSE for example also specializes in applied social sciences (law, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, international relations, etc.). It offers no other majors outside those areas and, still, is highly regarded in Europe and in the world as a top school. </p>
<p>Differences aside, Georgetown belongs to a similar category. If you are interested in engineering, pre-med or math/science, go somewhere else. However, for a pre-Law student with a possible eye to a political career, Georgetown may be a good choice (think Bill Clinton !). </p>
<p>That is why overall university rankings are of little help IMHO. Specialty rankings, i.e. rankings by major, are far more informative if you have a clear idea of the subject(s) you want to study in college.</p>
<p>bruno123, I didnt say that anything was wrong about being a specialist institution. What I wanted to say is that Georgetown is definitely top if you want to study Politics or International Relations and thus generally should be ranked higher. Yet the weak student body will always ruin Georgetown's rakings. Hope this is clearer.</p>
<p>When five percent of the US Senate, two sitting Governors, the immediate past US President ,the President of the European Commission, a Supreme Court Justice, the Secretary of Defense, the President of MIT and head of the FDA as alumni (did we touch upon science?), Georgetown is beyond needing any US News or other rating for validation. And if the rating is completely out of line, then it is the rater and its method that has the problem.</p>
<p>Georgetowns Alumni are good indeed, but other universities have better records. For example, you find only a few alumnis at top positions in the private economy</p>
<p>Georgetown is a fine school--and being ranked 23 among national universities is certainly not bad. I disagree with those who suggest it is underrated, however. This is because, analyzed department by department, or by specialized school--Georgetown has many good departments but few great ones (i.e., top 15-20). No doubt, Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and Georgetown's law school are top programs. Interestingly, while many have mentioned political science as a strength and most people think of Georgetown as very strong in this area--the truth is that most academics in the field view Georgetown's political science department as mediocre and troubled. In fact, most political scientists I have spoken to rate both GWU's and U Maryland's political science departments as stronger in the Washington DC area. I know some who say that AU and George Mason have stronger political science departments. While many people associate famous big name faculty with Georgetown (such as Madeline Albright and the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick)--those big names are invariably at the Walsh School and not in the political science department.</p>
<p>While more people may be familiar with Georgetown than Hopkins or Wash U--that is mostly because Georgetown has a Division I basketball team, Bill Clinton went there, and it is located in a section of the nation's capital that every tourist visits. It also has a striking if smallish campus and, in part because it is (along with Notre Dame) considered to be the strongest Catholic affiliated university, it gets a lot of applications and has become very selective in admissions. But there is no doubt whatsoever that both Hopkins and Wash U have many more highly ranked departments and schools than does Georgetown.</p>
<p>"great location" and "networking" are NOT part of USNews' rating system.</p>
<p>jipperag-What is better than being a Head of State, a Cabinet Officer of a superporwer or Supreme Court Justice. Even in the private sector recent Georgetown alumns have headed the world's largest financial institution (Citibank) and Alcatel-Lucent. If Jesus Christ was a graduate of Georgetown, jipperag would probably say that Christians are only one billion of the six billion people on the planet.</p>
<p>haha, good shot. But its just a fact: Compared to other institutions, Georgetown alums have succeeded in politics, but not as much in the private business sector. In other words, georgetown has produced many employees, and only some - not that many - leaders.
Dont think I dont like Georgetown, I attended it... Im just saying that 23 is fine.</p>
<p>This thread and some of the responses are so out of whack with reality. Georgetown is an absolutely fabulous place with great students and graduates. Perhaps some of these negative Georgetown comments are accurate in that alternate universe known as academia, but not in the real world.</p>
<p>In the eyes of employers, Georgetown absolutely is a peer to the non-HYP Ivies (and the same can be said for all of the other prominent privates that have been mentioned here). </p>
<p>Consider the following standardized test score comparison for this universe of schools:</p>
<p>25/75 SAT, 25/75 ACT, College</p>
<p>1330-1530 (1430), 28-33 (30.5) Brown
1320-1520 (1420), 28-33 (30.5) Columbia
1290-1500 (1395), 28-32 (30.0) Cornell
1330-1550 (1440), 29-34 (31.5) Dartmouth
1330-1520(1425) , 29-33 (31.0) U Penn</p>
<p>1300-1490 (1395), 28-32 (30.0) Georgetown
1290-1490 (1390), 28-32 (30.0) Johns Hopkins
1300-1510 (1405), 31-34 (32.5) Notre Dame
1300-1480 (1390), 29-33 (31.0) Vanderbilt
1370-1530 (1450), 30-33 (31.5) Wash U</p>
<p>Does anybody really think that employers interpret these numbers as indicating material differences in student quality? Maybe there are structural differences in how frequently graduates of these colleges show up in places like IB or MC, eg, some colleges have longer and more established recruiting histories/pipelines, but the great majority of employers will not make large distinctions among this group of colleges and the graduates that they produce. </p>
<p>As for reputation and places like Georgetown, leftist academia has a long history of antipathy to institutions with a religious connection (and it's not just to Catholics and Jesuits). This hostility is reflected in the PA scores of all of the colleges that have a religious angle, eg,</p>
<p>3.9 Notre Dame
4.0 Georgetown
3.6 Brandeis
3.6 Boston College
2.8 Yeshiva
3.1 Pepperdine
3.0 Fordham
3.1 SMU
2.9 BYU
2.9 St. Louis
2.9 Marquette</p>
<p>And on and on. Take away the prejudice of PA scoring and ALL of these colleges would see a boost to their USWNR ranking.</p>
<p>The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates runs an enterprise that is equal to the bottom 300 of the Fortune 500 combined in revenues. Real power and prestige are invested in the individuals who run an institution like this rather than the Wendys, Rite Aids and Gaps of the world.</p>
<p>Georgetown is a great school but its alumni giving rate is well below other strong Catholic schools like Notre Dame and Holy Cross(HC's rate is 56% among best in country.</p>
<p>FYI, SAT scores are not a good tool to measure the greatness of a university There is a bias against religious universities indeed, but Georgetown has other weaknesses besides that.
If you want, you can say that Georgetown deserves rank 16 (it has the 16th highest selectivity in the US). Maybe that is a more accurate ranking. But I stick to my point that Georgetown does not deserve the top 10.
You can also look at publishings of Georgetown students and grads; the publishing rate is far below any peer institution, especially in economics.</p>
<p>Please explain why I should give a hoot about the publishing rate for Georgetown students and grads. For people operating in the real world, that is about as relevant as the price of eggs in China.</p>
<p>Can someone please give us the relative incarceration rate of Georgetown graduates versus other Catholic institutions and whether Georgetown graduates who are imprisoned have a giving rate equal to or less than other incarcerated Catholic college graduates.</p>
<p>hawkette:
[quote]
As for reputation and places like Georgetown, leftist academia has a long history of antipathy to institutions with a religious connection (and it's not just to Catholics and Jesuits). This hostility is reflected in the PA scores of all of the colleges that have a religious angle, eg,</p>
<p>3.9 Notre Dame
4.0 Georgetown
3.6 Brandeis
3.6 Boston College
2.8 Yeshiva
3.1 Pepperdine
3.0 Fordham
3.1 SMU
2.9 BYU
2.9 St. Louis
2.9 Marquette
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't see how you can say it's a religious bias. There just isn't the heavy-hitter academic tradition at, say, St. Louis U or Marquette or BYU or for that matter even Brandeis. That's not to say that good educations can't be had at any of those schools, but their PA's don't surprise me at all.</p>
<p>And why is SMU in there? Its religious affiliation is a historical name-only type of thing (much in the way that my own school, Northwestern, was founded by Methodists but has no current day Methodist connections).</p>