<p>Bernie12: Also, just to clarify, it is possible to survive in Atlanta without a car, right? That’s a huge thing for me.</p>
<p>yes, how do you think I’ve been surviving for all 3 (about to be 4) years? If you aren’t spoiled, it is extremely easy. CNN is in midtown (it isn’t too far), but you can just take the Emory Hospital midtown shuttle or the Georgia Tech shuttle to get there. Fox 5 Atlanta is quite a popular/well-known local news affiliate (they and 11 alive news are really effective at investigative reporting. They almost function like national news networks in the way they provide very in depth coverage of local issues. They even dared to challenge the governor recently, investigating his alleged fraud/misuse of campaign funds) and is almost always on campus because their mansion (yes, their studio is a mansion) is “around the corner” from campus (as in up Clifton and too the left on Briarcliff, or up N. Decatur and to the right. In both directions, up the hill and make a turn basically). Representatives from Fox come to consult us a lot (CNN does so as well) and I know last semester they (Fox 5) participated in some sustainability event in Fevans and invited interested students to come to the studio on some designated day. </p>
<p>Anyway, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the host/home of CNN (hate to say this, because I used to hate CNN, but now they seem to be one of the only national news networks of the 3 that actually do in depth coverage of news and relevant issues of the day. The other two are almost pure punditry w/some news every now-and-then. W/that said, CNN can still use some improvements, but it has gone back toward the right direction at least) and Turner Broadcasting (almost all the Turner affiliated buildings are by Georgia Tech. In fact, they are literally right outside of one of Tech’s main entrances off of the I-75 overpass) and its associates would be kind of a media powerhouse. W/all this said, the DC/Baltimore area will have interesting things going on in this arena as well.</p>
<p>Thank you! I absolutely don’t want to drive. I hate to start ranting, but my parents bug me all the time about it. They won’t let me do certain things because I can’t drive. I couldn’t go to Summer@Brown this summer because I don’t have my license. It’s so frustrating. I live 20 miles from a town of 2,000 people, so cars are necessary, (unless you live in town) but I’ll stick with the bus. :)</p>
<p>I have eaten on both campus’s and the food is about the same. The campus, I feel, is nicer at Hopkins, by a long shot. The main campus at Hopkins is really pretty in comparison. The weather in Atlanta is much nicer though.</p>
<p>Your choices are pretty funny though…IMHO
Georgetown’s SFS EA Good call for IR, but I felt it was a very conservative campus.
Brown, the exact opposite of Georgetown in terms of a liberal campus, I felt.
USC, Mount Holyoke, Barnard, Claremont McKenna, UChicago, …Mount Holyoke? How di that make the list? Good school, but middle of no-where, and not a strong IR program if I recall. Might be wrong.
Bryn Mawr…Again, odd mix. For IR, if you are going to go that direction, check out Swarthmore or Haverford, both of which have better programs, IMHO, and still fill the ‘small, liberal arts’ motif. Haverford has an impressive “Peace Studies”.
JHU.</p>
<p>I understand your desire to keep it to 10 schools, but I might throw out the idea that you should double that! You will spend an extra $1000 on applications, but you might be turning your back on some schools that will provide a lot of $$$ incentive to attend. If Emory was #11 (like JHU, not known for strong financial aid), and Tufts #12 (again, not big on Fin aid), you can round out the list with American and George Washington (#13, 14), both of whom are known for giving a lot of Merit aid to students. If your grades/scores put you in JHU territory, there is a good chance you will score 60-75% tuition at one or both of those. Then throw the dice and add Washington and Lee to the mix, they offer 80 applicants complete FULL Rides! A very good school, small LAC, with a decent Political Studies. (#15). Then have a look at a few other schools known for good financial aid, Tulane perhaps, and add a few more to the list.</p>
<p>As your acceptances roll in, you can then visit the schools that meet your financial as well as educational needs. Since it seems that you are not ‘in love’ with any one school, or one type of school (size, location) casting a wide net could make a lot of sense. If you are considering the cost of the applications, ask yourself “is it reasonable that I might fall on a $25,000/year scholarship?”, it might be if you have high grades and high scores and have some killer EC’s. So is it worth it to spend $2,000 in order to gain $100,000 in scholarships?<br>
My kid did this and earned scholarships at 6 different colleges that ranged from $100,000-$200,000. Then she was able to whittle it down to the one she chose (JHU) with all the facts at hand. She loved Tufts, but that would have cost us $120,000 more, and for that she loved the fact that she took a chance and applied to JHU.</p>
<p>Just a different perspective. I am sure some would disagree.</p>
<p>Imontoya: Well, I thought that Mount Holyoke had a good IR program. Aren’t they part of a consortium? Bryn Mawr is free to apply to if you apply online, so I might as well. I thought they had a decently strong department. I might be wrong, though. I could take classes at Haverford if I wanted. </p>
<p>I would prefer to go to a more conservative school, but going somewhere that’s liberal won’t bother me too much. </p>
<p>Brown is my first choice and I honestly do love it the most. There’s a good chance that I won’t get in, so I’m trying to find schools that I would be completely happy at. I do want to attend a school that’s in or near a big city.</p>
<p>I almost think that I could get more from schools that only offer need-based aid. I think I could get close to a full-ride at my state school.</p>
<p>Imontoya: I looked at American and GW, but again, I pretty much have to go somewhere that meets 100 percent of my need. </p>
<p>Based on what I’ve told you, are there any other great schools for IR that I’ve missed? I would also like to go somewhere that is on either the East or West Coast.</p>
<p>The “consortia” exists at Mount Holyoke (Hampshire, Umass, Amherst, Smith)
The “consortia” exists at Bryn Mawr (Haverford, Swarthmore)</p>
<p>But in both cases, the amount of students that go to a different campus is fairly small in the overall scheme of things. Neither of those two schools are “in” a big city, I am not even sure you could consider Bryn Mawr as being “Near” a big city, the students going there almost never went into Philly I was told.</p>
<p>I don’t like brick in general, so I wouldn’t consider Hopkins prettier than Emory (and it is hardly “nicer” unless you like classical college campuses so much that you overlook facilities). I simply consider it a very nice campus. I prefer places like Duke, Chicago, Princeton, and Stanford over us and Hopkins for that matter. Also, Emory has a lot more trees and green space than Hopkins (Hopkins does beautiful sprawling lawns and quads w/fountains and stuff in its core while Emory has hills, ravines, woodlands, and bridges. Completely different styles, but both work). For me, that’s a plus. We essentially are bordered by (and kind of own) HUGE (Hopkins has some, but nowhere near as much. It has a reasonably large area kind of “behind” the school, but this doesn’t compare to Lullwater and Wesley Woods. Emory is essentially a school that was carved into a wooded residential area) forest area w/trails/hiking and stuff. Most people who don’t like Emory’s campus generally don’t prefer the architecture or wish it was more traditional (being built like a square/several squares, flatter, more quads, more ornamentation and statues. I’m thinking Hopkins is at least slightly less hilly than Emory. The center of Johns Hopkins is flatt"ish" while the periphery has some hills). Emory’s facilities/amenities (at least those primarily used by undergrads), for whatever reason, are by and large, in better shape than Hopkins. Of course, you’d have to go inside to get this vibe if you are already biased by not caring for the architecture. One example would be Clairmont campus. </p>
<p>They’re completely different campuses. JHU has architecture more like Vanderbilt and other campuses w/colonial and Georgian architecture and I find that different types of people have preferences for Vandy’s campus and different people prefer Emory (many may like the style, many won’t. Many people like the warmth and “charm” of more colonial looking campuses). Basically, many people would disagree w/Hopkins being nicer by a long shot. I would say it’s more into ornamentation though. We have mainly post-modern architecture and new buildings (Hopkins buildings are often a lot older and also, there construction boom seems to be ramping back up, while ours is calming down. I remember year 1 and 2 here being really annoying due to construction), so we don’t have it. Campuses are so different that it pretty much comes down to “different strokes for different folks”. Also, would you safely agree that Emory (as in “main campuses”) was much bigger. That’s the feeling I got. Hopkins seemed much smaller if only because they remove their healthcare facilities from the Homewood campus. In that sense, I can see why you prefered it (some of our healthcare facilities ruin the aurora/view, big time!). Also, our architecture varies a lot more and JHU has almost complete solidarity. </p>
<p>I agree w/your advice on other colleges and narrowing down.</p>
<p>Imontoya: So, maybe they wouldn’t be right for me… Thanks for telling me that ahead of time. :)</p>
<p>bernie12: I really do think Emory’s campus is beautiful. I’ll just have to keep researching their website. I don’t know if you can tell, but I like schools with a lot of history. Who knew searching for colleges would be such a difficult task?</p>
<p>johns hopkins alum are better represented in the field. the sais connection always helps too.
anyway, the IR program at hopkins is top notch…you dont really hear people talk about emory and IR.
i dont know that much about the ME programs sorry.
and location location location is always key…thats why the top two IR schools in the nation are in DC</p>
<p>HowdyPal: Thank you! I’ve decided to apply to both. It can’t hurt. Obviously, JHU is in the prime location, as you mentioned. :)</p>
<p>That’s true, we don’t have IR. We only have IS, which is different Also, seriously, even when people from here, faculty or student, do something awesome, when do you ever hear about it? We are the most low-key elite school ever and can’t “spread the word” about accomplishments/discoveries if it were to save our lives. I’d be surprised if you heard anything interesting (that wasn’t sketch) about us if you went to another elite school (seriously, name an example lol). And you wonder why you don’t hear our names associated w/“X” dept. This place tries really hard to put itself out there and raise its reputation (sarcasm). When we do something, we should gloat about it like every other elite school. </p>
<p>Again, JHU wins there if not only because of the location (which has several implications). I imagine the learning experience is great at both, but JHU should definitely win in terms of “PR” (clout in the field and career prospects) as we likely have less people pursuing it. However, I have to wonder if having a strong public (and global health program/clout (Johns Hopkins is awesome too, and ranks higher) still helps alumni and students here do awesome things via polisci/IS or environmental science. I’ve had friends in such depts. do amazing things, but again, it was biased toward health/sustainability and less on things like public policy (a normal polisci or history major at Emory is likely to excel there) and government (again they were international studies majors, not international relations, which kind of implies a different focus). I thought JHU was good at ME as well (or at least has key connections). But we have some awesome connections and an actual dept. for it that make us a fairly good place for a mix of IS and ME. It depends on what you want to do. I guess if I was interested in say, policy, diplomacy, etc (government), I would definitely go to JHU. If you bring the interest in global health into the equation, then I’d begin to think about Emory as, even though our health related programs are not as prestigious, they still are comparable quality wise (at least, when it comes to public health), and being by CDC is very convenient (overall, Atlanta is just a very interesting place to be in context of public health). Emory seems like it’s more for people inclined to go start up some sort (small or large) of service project/network (again, probably healthcare or education related) or something (something lower key/smaller scale that may not directly employ stuff learned in major). </p>
<p>It’s kind of weird that Hopkins is known for all of the pre-meds/pre-health kids, yet we still have a slant toward healthcare related or oriented interests that even persists throughout more social science/humanities oriented depts. that Hopkins seems not to have at the UG level. I get the feeling that the pre-med craze at JHU is overblown, while at Emory it is indeed as bad as people make it sound (and then it persists after frosh year because there is no legit attempt to weed out. The classes are hard, but they let as little people fail as possible by offering an oddly nurturing environment. Needless to say it doesn’t help our med. school admit rate at all)</p>
<p>Howdypal: Would you say that there is a heavy overlap and interaction between the science oriented students on campus and the SS/H students? Or do they by and large segregate. Just wondering how similar the environment is.</p>
<p>bernie12: Yeah, I guess there is a difference between IS and IR. I wonder how different they are from each other.</p>
<p>However, I like that Emory isn’t as well know as some, but it’s still a top-notch school. :)</p>
<p>^The confusion is in the terminology and frequent misuse of the term IR. The undergraduate program is International Studies, not International Relations, although most students refer to it as IR. I guess IR rolls off the tongue more easily than IS does. </p>
<p>Technically, International Relations is a subfield of political science, as is American Politics, Comparative Politics, Political Theory, etc. It deals with the study of poltical relations between states. I don’t know of any true undergraduate program in IR, whereas most PhD programs in political science have students who concentrate in IR as a subfield. </p>
<p>International Studies (also called Global Studies, International Service Studies, Foreign Service Studies, and a myriad of other names including, incorrectly, IR) is different. Typically, it is an interdisiplinary program combining the study of international relations from political science, international economics from the economics department, foreign languages, and area studies from various other departments. It is meant to provide a background for people interested in a wide variety of careers ranging from foreign service, journalism, international business, government, academia, etc. Most undergraduate programs in International Studies (including Hopkins’) are not professional programs but rather are simply a major in the liberal arts context. It is often a stepping stone to law school, business school and, sometimes, medical school. But some graduates will continue in the field and eventually go on for a professional degree such as an MA from Hopkins’ SAIS. Hopkins also offers a combined degree program in which you end up with both a BA from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and an MA from SAIS. There is also a similar combined degree program with Sciences Po in France.</p>
<p>A few schools including, e.g., Georgetown, AU and GW admit undergraduates to their professional schools of international relations. Whether this is an advantage or not is highly debatable. The professional schools appear to have a wider variety of courses but this is often not as significant as it might seem; you only have so much time to take courses and once you finish with the basics, there is not a lot of time for all those esoteric courses. Moreover, if you want a decent education, you also need to take many courses outside of your major–and this is true regardless of whether the program is “professional” or liberal arts orientated. In my opinion, there is no advantage in having a BA from a professional school in IS as opposed to a BA from a top school like Hopkins when it comes to finding a job or admission to graduate/professional schools. Hopkins students do very well in both. </p>
<p>I graduated from the combined BA/MA program at SAIS (many years ago ). More recently, my son graduated from Hopkins with a BA in IS and he was hired by a DC think tank right out of college for a position that normally required an MA. He was told that their experience with Hopkins graduates was such that they considered the Hopkins BA as equivilent to a MA from other schools. After 4 years with the think tank, he went on for a PhD in International Relations and Middle East studies at another top university. He would tell you that his training at “the Hop” was first rate.</p>
<p>I would hope that some/a few students at Emory had the same experience, but again, I have no way of knowing because the friends I have in IS now do/start things like public health projects or organizations. I think students in political science have success like what you speak of, however, Emory is a heavy pre-professional factory almost across all disciplines. Students in humanities and social sciences are by and large pre-law (Emory does very well in law school placement) and I don’t hear many pursuing PhDs or becoming part of think tanks. Again, I just think there may be a difference in goals of the student body and thus Emory’s potential in other areas outside of pre-prof. success is hardly measurable (for one, legit political activism isn’t huge here, so people aren’t likely to join think tanks). Exception is history and English where a reasonable amount pursue interesting projects or PhDs. Basically, until Emory gets a more academically or goal diverse student body, it will never be a big name in certain areas. It’ll just be a pre-prof. factory. As for the BA, MA equivalent. I’m betting many disciplines at elite universities like Hopkins (or us for that matter) qualify for such comparisons regardless of rank/prestige. It seems that the training in many fields at elite schools are far more rigorous and holistic than at many less selective schools (say, non-top public publics). Seriously, the difference is astonishingly large, though many cynics of elite institutions like to say other wise (I mean, while I think many of us could benefit from higher standards, our standards and expectations still blow most schools out of the water, there is no doubt about that).
Anyway, I have to wonder if the difference is merely how JHU teaches the students, or is it, differing goals of those who attend (honestly those electing a school in DC and majored in a social science probably did so for a reason), and the opportunities and career development offered. I think those things make it better or at least more versatile.</p>
<p><a href=“http://krieger.jhu.edu/internationalstudies/academics/[/url]”>http://krieger.jhu.edu/internationalstudies/academics/</a></p>
<p>Yeah, the IS major seems different. For example, they make you take economics courses where we require 2 more semesters of language study.<br>
<a href=“http://www.polisci.emory.edu/undergraduate/isconcentration.htm[/url]”>http://www.polisci.emory.edu/undergraduate/isconcentration.htm</a></p>
<p>I like the econ. requirement. It’s a good idea. Interesting how the two schools have different definitions of language proficiency (we for example consider it 2-3 years. 1 year is a requirement for everyone in the college as a GER). Also, doesn’t seem like we make the IS majors take history courses (though they do anyway). That wouldn’t make a bad addition as well. Either way, I only see difference in structure, not difference in rigor. I’ll just assume JHU has better/more renowned profs. in the Dept. or something, or maybe more initiatives and centers relevant to students interested in the subject.</p>
<p>Oops, I lied about Emory again. Seems they do just fine w/IS or PS</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.polisci.emory.edu/undergraduate/accomplishedmajors.htm[/url]”>http://www.polisci.emory.edu/undergraduate/accomplishedmajors.htm</a>
Read the spring news letter</p>
<p>I don’t know whether those positions are good enough for some (I mean they might not lead to fame or anything), but they look awesome to me.</p>
<p>bonanza: Thank you for the explanation! I’m planning on going to law school, so I think the IR/IS major will prepare me. 
I really like JHU, so I’m going to apply.</p>
<p>bernie12: Yeah, I kind of like the economics requirement too. It’s something that’s essential if one is going to study other countries. I can understand the history requirement too. You’ve gotta understand the past if you’re to understand the present. </p>
<p>I know that I’ve asked you this before, but what, in your opinion, is the best/most unique thing about Emory? I want to like Emory - I really do, it’s just that I’m having trouble. I don’t want to not apply and then miss out on the things that make it so great.</p>
<p>I will PM you. I won’t bother posting too much about Emory here anymore.</p>
<p>bernie12: Okay, sounds good. :)</p>