<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>Especially considering that Duke is ranked above Cornell, Dartmouth, and Brown…(rolls eyes)</p>
<p>
Well, yes. </p>
<p>Look at various rankings for undergraduate institutions. US News is the most popular and maybe should carry some weight, but there are others (Forbes, Kiplinger, Washington Monthly, StateUniversity.com, plus single-feature metrics like payscale.com, the HEDS baccalaureate-to-PhD numbers, or publication/citation volume studies such as HEEACT). They all come out with somewhat different results reflecting the features they choose to assess (selectivity, research production, graduate outcomes, etc.) </p>
<p>In the February 2009 International Relations TRIP Survey, Georgetown’s PhD program in IR (“academic career”) ranked 17th. Its terminal Masters Degree (“policy career”) program ranked #1. Its undergraduate program was tied for 3rd. Harvard was #1, #3, and #1 respectively. ([Institute</a> for the Theory and Practice of International Relations | Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP)](<a href=“http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/trip/publications.php]Institute”>http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/trip/publications.php))</p>
<p>For my money, based only on these rankings, I’d probably prefer a school that ranks highly on both the policy career and the academic sides. Harvard, Columbia, Princeton. So I’m not persuaded that Georgetown is THE school in IR, and would hesitate to say that about any school, in any field.</p>
<p>The Ivy Plus Society has an excellent list of schools that is well-accepted as the top schools in the US and that they offer the best education. [The</a> Ivy Plus Society](<a href=“http://www.ivyplussociety.org/about.html]The”>http://www.ivyplussociety.org/about.html)</p>
<p>COLLEGES/ UNIVERSITIES
1. Air Force Academy
2. Amherst College
3. Berkeley (University of California)
4. Brown University
5. Caltech
6. Columbia University
7. Cornell University
8. Dartmouth College
9. Duke University
10. Georgetown University
11. Harvard University
12. Johns Hopkins University
13. MIT
14. Naval Academy
15. Northwestern University
16. Williams College
17. Princeton University
18. Stanford University
19. University of Chicago
20. University of Pennsylvania
21. University of Virginia
22. West Point
23. Yale University</p>
<p>INTERNATIONAL
Cambridge
IMD
INSEAD
London Business School
London School of Economics</p>
<p>GRADUATE SCHOOLS
<strong>Graduate programs at the universities listed above as well as the following:</strong>
Business School:
Stern NYU
Ross - University of Michigan
Law School:
NYU Law
University of Michigan School of Law</p>
<p>Medical School:
UCLA School of Medicine
UCSF School of Medicine
University of Michigan School of Medicine
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine</p>
<p>[The</a> Ivy Plus Society](<a href=“http://www.ivyplussociety.org/about.html]The”>http://www.ivyplussociety.org/about.html)</p>
<p>I’m very surprised that Rice, Michigan, UCLA, and as much as I hate to say this, Oxford (lol), are not in the list.</p>
<p>@ eatsalot: I find it naive that you imply that you are guaranteed great access and a world-class education at the top 15 schools on USNWR. Rankings are just rankings, and some schools in the top 15 have learned to game these rankings (I’m not going to name names though). I know some of the Ivies ranked in the top 15 that do not provide good access to professors, have many of their classes taught by TAs, etc, whereas I know of schools that provide excellent access to professors (including Rice, Emory, and Brown). Each school is going to have its fair share of excellent and subpar professors, including Harvard, Stanford, etc. For the most part though, all the top 30 schools offer an excellent education. Many individuals have turned down top 15 schools (myself included; I turned down Duke, WUSTL, and Northwestern) because they knew they could receive an equal quality education at a slightly lesser ranked school. Keep in mind that Georgetown is not a top 15 school. Nevertheless, one will receive an excellent education there.</p>
<p>I’m sick and tired of people being obsessed with prestige on this site. Find the school that is the best fit for YOU. As long as it has a decent program in your area of interest and you love the school, you will succeed at school and in life.</p>
<p>Much of the above misunderstands what I meant when I said: “Within foreign policy circles, Georgetown is THE school.” I meant exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. I did not mean that Georgetown is THE school for people interested in international relations. Clearly, other schools are very good at that too.</p>
<p>What Georgetown is, is “THE school” for people in the business of making foreign policy - this is a result of the SFS Masters Degree programs, which are universally regarded as the best (only the Hopkins SAIS degrees come close). Georgetown’s Department of Government (from which one would earn a PhD in IR) is considerably weaker than the SFS, and the undergraduate program at Georgetown is marginally weaker than the MSFS/MA programs. That said, the PhD issue, in particular, is entirely irrelevant; it’s not the same school and it’s not the same thing.</p>
<p>Now what do I mean by that?
<p>To use a good IR word, Georgetown is entirely hegemonic in the foreign affairs business, but that’s a recent development, and Georgetown has risen a long way in the last 30 years, which means that in the future it will be even more dominant. The people who fill the top ranks of US Foreign Policy (Ambassadors, Assistant Secretaries of State and Defense, Generals) were already in their careers 30 years ago. In 30 more years, Georgetown’s hold will be even stronger as that 3 to 1 advantage in foreign service officers plays out.</p>
<p>And if you don’t believe me? Ask anyone in the foreign policy biz. They’ll tell you that GU is number one. Hopkins is second, and nobody else matters. Fletcher, Elliot, Wilson, and Kennedy are all distant “also rans”. If foreign policy educations were the 2008 election, Georgetown would be Obama, SAIS would be McCain. Fletcher is Ralph Nader. Elliot is Bob Barr, and Wilson and Kennedy are the third party candidates I can’t even name.</p>
<p>Georgetown is definitely not ivy. Yes, it’s a great school for politics, law, and foreign studies, but it lacks in everything else (the sciences, engineering, computer science, etc.).</p>
<p>^ but then again, so are the ivies for those subjects, except for H, P and Cornell.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This seems to be the nub of our disagreement. I’m uncomfortable with the claim to utter domination on the policy side if the school is much weaker on the academic side. Where do foreign policy concepts come from? Who is articulating the theory? None of the 10 most influential thinkers in the field is on the Georgetown faculty. </p>
<p>Of course, many fine schools (such as America’s top liberal arts colleges) make important contributions to higher education without having PhD programs at all. Let’s acknowledge the excellence of the MSFS program. Georgetown apparently does a good job of repackaging the “also rans’” original ideas, presumably adding its own secret sauce (since the practice of policy-making does not derive entirely from academic theory, I’m sure.)</p>
<p>@RML, HPC are not the only Ivies strong in each of those areas. Yale for example is a leading research university in the biological sciences. Brown, Yale, and Penn all have strong CS programs. Penn has very reputable graduate engineering programs. Judging by the NRC-95 assessments, anyway.</p>
<p>RML, not true man. Columbia’s Fu School of Engineering is nationally ranked. Brown and PENN have very strong Chemical/Life Science departments. Georgetown is just a bit one-dimensioned.</p>
<p>One-dimensioned with a business, nursing and foreign service school? Not to mention the general college of arts & sciences…</p>
<p>tk21769-I think your problem is not with the claim of utter domination, but the reality of it.</p>
<p>Sometime you ought to take a look at the scholarly production of the research institutes connected with SFS, such as, for instance, the Center for the study of Jewish Civilization, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, among others. The Ambassador of Israel to the United States, Michael Oren, and a leading scholar in the field came from SFS last year.</p>
<p>"This seems to be the nub of our disagreement. I’m uncomfortable with the claim to utter domination on the policy side if the school is much weaker on the academic side. Where do foreign policy concepts come from? Who is articulating the theory? None of the 10 most influential thinkers in the field is on the Georgetown faculty. </p>
<p>Of course, many fine schools (such as America’s top liberal arts colleges) make important contributions to higher education without having PhD programs at all. Let’s acknowledge the excellence of the MSFS program. Georgetown apparently does a good job of repackaging the “also rans’” original ideas, presumably adding its own secret sauce (since the practice of policy-making does not derive entirely from academic theory, I’m sure.) "</p>
<p>You seem to have a strange idea of about the conjunction of theory and policy. The concepts of America’s foreign policy are not driven by the leading IR scholars, many of whom are in fact rather underinformed about day to day events. I take it that you’re not particularly well-versed in IR theory, but if you are, just think, for a second, what American foreign policy would look like if it were driven by any of the top 10 most influential people today.</p>
<p>If John Mearsheimer were in charge, it seems likely that we would invade Canada today. Why not right? It means more power which means more security in the realm. That said, not even John Mearsheimer really believes wholeheartedly in offensive realism. What if Ken Waltz ran American policy? Well, clearly, in Waltz’s view, nuclear proliferation is a good thing not a bad thing. What’s all this about stopping Iran? No, we should celebrate their nuclear ambitions as an ultimately stabilizing factor for the Middle East. What if Alexander Wendt ran policy? Well, constructivist theory (at least in Wendt’s account) is hopelessly indeterminate and makes it difficult to form any kind of policy prediction whatsoever, so he might just have to throw up his hands in despair.</p>
<p>My guess, though to be fair I don’t know you, is that you’re confusing economics and political science. Mainstream economic theory tends to have a very strong influence on US economic policy, and many people who are influential on the policy side are also influential on the academic side. Ben Bernanke was the chairman of the Economics Department at Princeton before he went to the Fed. Nobel prize winners like Krugman are extremely influential when it comes to public opinion. Within IR, it’s just not like that. There are, very rarely, scholars who go into government work, but they’re generally not “key” scholars (e.g., Madeleine Albright, Tony Lake, Condi Rice is perhaps something of an exception). Policymakers don’t really care what Keohane or Fearon or Mearsheimer have to say, there’s a bery substantial divide between theory and policy.</p>
<p>It is possible, then (and in fact it has happened with Georgetown) to dominate the policy side of things without dominating the theory side. This is not to say that Georgetown is puny on theory, it’s not (though it is weaker than Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, or Columbia), but Georgetown’s top scholars tend to be policy-oriented rather than theory-oriented people. Thus, Georgetown’s “big names” on the scholarship side are people like Bruce Hoffman (who is almost certainly the foremost and certainly one of the top 3 scholars of terrorism today), Robert Lieber (certainly one of the 5 top scholars of American foreign policy and grand strategy), Donald Daniel (a top 10 expert on military policy), Jennifer Sims (a top five expert on intelligence), Joseph Cirincione (who ranks after only Scott Sagan on nuclear issues), etc. All of these people are ones who focus on the policy-relevant side of scholarship and whose books are read by both other professor types and people in the government.</p>
<p>In contrast, your “top 10” scholars in the field are all engaged in the enterprise of building “grand theory”. Grand theory is an important scholarly exercise, but it has minimal (if any relevance) to the actual conduct of US foreign policy except insofar as it seeps out into more policy-relevant scholarship. Why is grand theory so influential, then? Simple, because only grand theory has potential applications to all of the different subfields of IR. If you study terrorism, then your work is only relevant to terrorism and no one working on EU integration will need to read it. If, however, you put together the next great theory of neoliberalism, then everyone will read it in the scholarly community. No one in Washington will, though.</p>
<p>So, then, yes, you are right that the professors at Harvard are more discussed at academic conferences and their books are reviewed in more journals, but this doesn’t translate into policy-relevance. Georgetown professors are the ones who get called in to testify before Congress, many of them have served at the level of Deputy Assistant or Assistant Secretary in the government. The people they educate at SFS go out and make the policy. Georgetown is the dominant school in the policy world, and HYPS don’t come close, only other schools that focus on policy even play in the same league: SAIS and Elliot (Kennedy and Wilson get in the door but not much further).</p>
<p>
Maybe so. However, I’m not suggesting that John Mearsheimer or Kenneth Waltz should be in charge of anything. This is not because I accept your characatures of their ideas. They are scholars, not policy makers. These are different roles, different contributions. I think we actually agree on that.</p>
<p>
I doubt it could achieve that without being in DC (note how most of their other fields aren’t that good when the DC location doesn’t help?). That’s not really indicative of its merit; the admininstration and govt need someone closeby that can meet face-to-face on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if the Harvard/Chicago/Stanford get better minds; they aren’t as accessible. The Fed generally don’t have the best people anyway.</p>
<p>Sam, not sure what your point is. Isn’t that like saying UCSD-Scri[[s, UCSB, U Miami, UDub, MIT-Woods Hole, etc. wouldn’t dominate the oceanic sciences if they weren’t located near the ocean. Location matters.</p>
<p>The point is “policy relevance” may be more about whether the scholars live around DC than how good they really are. It may be just a matter of convenience, connections, and relationships. When the politicians and policymakers need advice, it may be more likely that they just call people they are familiar with or the “locals”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the leading experts on oceanic sciences are gonna be concentrated in schools near the ocean. The location matters for their research and they rely on the location. The best minds/researchers in foreign policy don’t need DC. There’s a difference.</p>
<p>Sam, I don’t see the difference. Policy is made staring a person in the eyes (and billfold).</p>
<p>"The point is “policy relevance” may be more about whether the scholars live around DC than how good they really are. It may be just a matter of convenience, connections, and relationships. When the politicians and policymakers need advice, it may be more likely that they just call people they are familiar with or the “locals”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the leading experts on oceanic sciences are gonna be concentrated in schools near the ocean. The location matters for their research and they rely on the location. The best minds/researchers in foreign policy don’t need DC. There’s a difference. "</p>
<p>Yes, the DC location is essential to Georgetown’s success, but a lot of schools are located in the DC area: GWU, American, Howard, Catholic, University of Maryland, George Mason, Gallaudet, Marymount, and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. There are also dozens of think tanks in DC that exist for the sole purpose of supplying policymakers with advice. In other words, there is something special about Georgetown - DC is an ingredient but it’s only part of the mix.</p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that in other policy areas, DC area schools are not dominant. For many kinds of policy, Kennedy, Wilson, and Maxwell are the dominant ones. Why are they the best in those fields? Because they’ve assembled the best groups of scholars working on policy-relevant issues and designed the best curricula.</p>
<p>Why then is Georgetown dominant in foreign affairs? Because it has assembled the best group of scholars working on policy-relevant issues and designed the best curriculum. Did DC help it assemble that group, certainly, but the SFS, largely thanks to the vision of Peter Krogh, stepped up and did it.</p>
<p>swish14
</p>
<p>Yes, it is. But that athletic conference has become synonymous with the most prestigious, competitive and wealthiest universities in the country, something that has nothing to do with sports.</p>
<p>Georgetown is a good school, but Georgetown (just like Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory and Virginia) is no ivy.</p>