@Sahmkc Nobody’s imposing an inferiority or superiority complex based on whether a person decides to attend American or George Washington. The bickering in this thread is regarding the relative quality of a particular academic discipline offered by both universities, not necessarily a person’s sense of esteem. And, if you think this bickering is bad and casts George Washington in a negative light you should see the mentality of students toward attending a T14 or M7 school. George Washington is definitely one of the more chill private universities out there. You think GW is derogatory? Lots of Georgetown kids joke and call GW the “Georgetown Waitlist?”
@sahmkc The type of people who need to flaunt where they went to school are either still in school or have not been in the workforce very long. Once you’re employed, nobody cares where you went to school, it’s how you perform today. A notable exception to this is any job on the Hill working in the White House. WH executive branch staffers are heavily recruited from Ivy or former Ivy.
That being said, I am always a proponent of getting the best education, but I don’t live my life by rankings, nor look down on those who graduate from “lesser” schools. I’ve met a lot of Ivy’s in real life who have the book smarts but when it came down to doing the job, they were no greater than those from t50+ schools.
But if we’re talking about perceptions overall without my own personal twist, GWU is typically seen in a stronger light.
@sahmkc @msport Msport is not being arrogant; the rankings make it obvious that George Washington is a better school for political science. It’s not as if an employer is going to say “Oh well this applicant went to GW so he’s better than the one from American.” Where that marginal difference between AU and GWU does matter is when it comes to the quality of faculty, courses taught, structure of the curriculum, graduate school placement and career placement. I think the point trying to be made is that it’s not terribly important where someone goes to school in regards to career success; however, I will say that top consulting firms like MBB do make that distinction. @Msport students that go to UVA, Duke, Georgetown or Wharton for example fill out a special application when applying for Boston Consulting Group- a consulting firm that’s every MBA students wet dream. I would not take sahmkc’s comments seriously since you got into UVA. The University of Virginia is a great university and ranked higher than George Washington. That being said, it ultimately also boils down to just how smart you are. You don’t necessarily need to go to a top-flight school target school to get into a great firm or to be a top performer but it certainly makes it a lot easier. And if we’re really thinking at an uber-competitive level, then George Washington is really a semi-target school when compared to the best of the best schools. I got into both UVA and GWU myself and elected to choose GW because I wanted to attend business school rather than matriculate into CAS at UVA through the guaranteed admission. That being said, is really a fiscally excellent choice for NOVA residents. UVA consistently ranks high and has some of the best graduate programs in the country. That being said, I’ve met students from all the top universities and understand the point sahmkc’s is trying to make. In the grand scheme of things, I’ve seen a lot of people from all the top universities and can tell you that it also depends on what you do with where you go.
I think this discussion has MORE than run it’s course.