<p>In terms of reputation, name recognition, and prestige where would you say Gtown ranks among the top schools like ivy league schools and schools close to that like MIT Stanford Duke etc?</p>
<p>I think its pretty much in the same league :)</p>
<p>I bet you saw a damned fool post something about Georgetown not being comparable to the Ivy League schools?</p>
<p>That’s nonsense.</p>
<p>It’s exceedingly prestigious because it’s the oldest Roman Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States.</p>
<p>It may not be a powerhouse of scientific research and output, but its Jesuit affiliation and long list of esteemed alumni make it a very respectable school in any reasonable person’s eyes.</p>
<p>My sister is an alumni interviewer for Gtown and she gets many prospective students that think it actually is an Ivy League (they don’t get a very good letter, though…) so that that for what you will.
I don’t think it compares academically, at least the CAS doesn’t.</p>
<p>I would say all the non-Ivy top 30 schools will offer a similar, if not, better education as the Ivies would.</p>
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<p>I actually disagree here. The reason that the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, UChi etc are sought after is BECAUSE of the level of education. And more importantly, the ACCESS to that education. I’m not going to name specific schools, but even good schools within the 15-30 leave students with mediocre access to their professors/material relative to aforementioned privates.</p>
<p>Gtown, to my best knowledge though, is pretty good about this. It’s a great school.</p>
<p>Just as there is Penn and Wharton, there is Georgetown and it’s SFS (School of Foreign Service). SFS is on a par with the Ivies in prestige, just as Wharton is on a par with HYPS.</p>
<p>I think there is a difference between SFS and Gtown at large, but Gtown, at least in the social sciences sorts of fields, is in the same league. And the most prestigious employers still recruit there, after all!</p>
<p>Georgetown is a little unusual in its academic structure. It is organized into a seemingly ad hoc assortment of schools and programs that do not cover a typical gamut of disciplines or professions. It has an undergraduate CAS, School of Foreign Service, Business, Nursing, Languages and Linguistics (which I think is no longer a “school”). It offers very specialized MS programs in some scientific sub-fields, but gaps where you’d expect a department to be. For example, they offer a graduate degree in “Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases” but not in Astronomy or Geology (either at the graduate or undergraduate level). There are graduate programs in “Arab Studies” and “Russian and East European Studies” but no Asian Studies, and no Anthropology or Sociology. </p>
<p>This organization may have something to do with how the Jesuits see their role in the world (and the DC location) but it puts the school in a slightly odd competitive position. It is neither a major research university nor a liberal arts college. It has undergraduate business and nursing but no engineering, music or architecture. It has a solid Linguistics department but teaches very few foreign languages. </p>
<p>This is a roundabout way of saying that Georgetown is not Stanford, Duke, or Cornell. It is what it is. In its areas of strength (particularly the SFS) it is highly respected. I do not think you will find much Ivy-envy there (which can infect the atmosphere at some schools.) Students are happy to be at Georgetown, content that they are getting a solid education at a school that is the right fit for them.</p>
<p>Six current Heads of State among the 192 nations of the world, six United States Senators among the 100, three current Governors among the 50, one of the five seats on the Federal Reserve Board, one of nine Supreme Court Justices, the current Secretary of Defense and current National Security Advsior, the current President of MIT and a recent US President are among the alumni of Georgetown today. Frankly, I don’t care how the school is organized academically, and whether it is deficient in some people’s eyes for not having an Asian studies,architecutre or anthropology program. Whatever Georgetown is doing in its classrooms has a profound effect on the lives of all of us in the world today. As profound an effect as any other university you may care to name.</p>
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<p>I’m not saying it is “deficient” (any more than CalTech is deficient for not having a School of Foreign Service). The OP asked for a comparison to certain other schools. I’m saying what s/he’s asking for is, in some respects, an apples-to-oranges comparison.</p>
<p>In terms of reputation/prestige, Georgetown ranks substantially below Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, but I’d say it’s in the same range as Cornell, Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Chicago, though perhaps a bit below some of these.</p>
<p>Name recognition for GU is very good in the US, partly as a result of basketball and the Catholic identity, but I think you have to remember that most major universities have 90%+ name recognition generally (and, perhaps, the highest name recognition goes to big state schools with powerhouse football programs). Internationally, Georgetown doesn’t have the name recognition of HYPS. When I studied abroad in the UK, everyone knew what Harvard was, but your average “man on the street” had never heard of Georgetown. My professors, though, could all place it. Really, though, there are only a handful of schools with truly global brands: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, MIT in roughly that order (I’d hesitate to even put Stanford and Princeton in this group). Now, in certain circles (e.g., foreign policy), everyone worldwide has heard of Georgetown, but that’s a small subset.</p>
<p>Of course, none of that says anything about the quality of the education you will receive, and the specific prestige breaks down some by discipline. Within foreign policy circles, Georgetown is THE school. It’s also #1 in some other areas like bioethics, but in other fields, say physics, it doesn’t due as well in terms of reputation (or academically).</p>
<p>Personally, I turned down much more prestigious schools in order to go Georgetown (Princeton, Yale, and Cambridge) and I don’t regret it at all. Don’t make your decision where to go to school on the basis of reputation. Go to the school where you’ll learn and “flourish”.</p>
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<p>Only true to a certain extent in the NE/EC.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s a little above BC, a little below Cornell and UC, somewhere in the range of Duke, Vanderbilt, UCal, Northwestern, Washington U. Very good school, definitely not seen as Ivy-level, except probably by people who go there, probably a good springboard for DC jobs because of internships, etc. A solid choice, but definitely not Ivy.</p>
<p>Ivy is just an athletic conference. There are many schools where you can have a tremendous college experience and be prepared for life. Rice, Georgetown, Duke, Stanford, William & Mary, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Emory, Virginia, Cal just to name a few. LACs like Williams, Amherst ,Pomona, Davidson, etc… are also wonderful places.</p>
<p>Dont let labels get in your way of seeing value.</p>
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<p>Its School of Foreign Service is respected. Is it THE school? What about Harvard Kennedy School or Hopkins SAIS? Tufts and Columbia also have highly regarded IR programs. You may even notice claims on this board that tiny Bowdoin College has the best Government department in the world. So GU is not completely without peer in its most esteemed program. Any one of these schools might bring out the best in you (though only one offers a DC location.)</p>
<p>Georgetown certainly lays claim to myriad movers and shakers among its alumni. This reminds me of my own alma mater’s claim to the most Nobel Prize winners in the known universe. The University of Chicago does indeed count many Nobels among alumni and past or present faculty. But it inflates the number by claiming numerous Nobel Laureates “affiliated” with the school. </p>
<p>Similarly, Georgetown claims 6 of the world’s Heads of State as alumni. Does this mean they all spent 4 or more formative, life-changing years learning how to run a country there? Not necessarily. Most of them, it seems, picked up a mid-career credential or attended some seminars (convenient to do when posted in Washington). Lebanon’s Saad Hariri is the only current Chief of State I can identify who graduated from a 4 year undergraduate program at Georgetown (Business). He must have learned a lot there. On the other hand, a cynic might attribute some measure of his success to inheriting USD 4.1 billion and his political position from his father, the assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.</p>
<p>Universities play up these associations because they know applicants and their parents value “reputation, name recognition, and prestige”. The fact is, you are not going to become a success by standing in anyone else’s reflected glory. Consider the quality of a school’s programs and its atmosphere. Then decide if it is a place where YOU (as potatoes said) will learn and flourish. Wherever you wind up, try to cultivate that most useful skill (in business or anything else), your BS detector. If Columbia is an option, their Core discussion classes ought to be excellent for that. Georgetown may have something similar.</p>
<p>Sorry, Tk21769, Georgetown is the School when it comes to IR. Foreign Policy’s survey has rated its graduate programs first the last several years the survey has been in place. This recognition goes beyond “being respected.” When you have a network of eight current, future, and recent past Heads of State as alumni and several more on the Faculty as well, the instititution is a player on the international scene. It is a major center of policy formulation and on a level and with a breadth that goes beyond “respected.” What I think really troubles you is that all these movers and shakers are affiliated with a sectarian institution.</p>
<p>I am sure that if a Head of State attended a mid career program at the University of Chicago or Harvard, it would be, in your view, a “formative experience.” In my view, Ellen Sirleaf’s time at Harvard was formative even though it is a non-sectarian institution.</p>
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<p>How are Duke and UC not seen as “Ivy level,” whatever that even means?. It amazes me sometimes how some kids assume that “Ivy” is still the standard it was years ago.</p>
<p>/rant</p>
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What evidence at all do you have for that? I have no great animosity toward sectarian institutions in general or the Catholic Church in particular. However, I’m basically a liberal education purist. So I’m not sure I like the concept of an undergraduate “School of Foreign Service” at all. There’s room for disagreement about that of course. </p>
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Maybe, maybe not. I spent a term at a school as prestigious as they come, but I don’t go around calling myself an alumnus of the place. I hardly ever mention the experience. It was not formative. Other educational experiences I’ve had since college were more so.</p>
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That’s impressive. However, a ranking is only as good as the criteria it uses and the survey approach. These programs are complex enough (due to the complexity of the subject matter) that every one of them will have strengths and weaknesses. So a lot always depends on personal interests and how they align with program strengths.</p>
<p>Thanks for the education. I now understand. All the rankings that, for instance, place Yale number one in Law or Columbia number one in Journalism or MIT number one for an Economics PhD are only as good as the criteria and the survey approach.</p>