<p>Help! My D got into SFS and Amherst. SFS offers first rate IR courses and internship opportunities in DC. Amherst is so famous for emphasis on undergraduate teaching in a much smaller and suburban environment. She visited both and liked both schools. SFS offers more pre-professional training. Amherst offers the options to explores other possibilities. She is interested in Econ and International Relations. Are the two schools considered equal academically? Which offers more opportunities after 4 years? Any advice?</p>
<p>Both Georgetown (and SFS in particular) and Amherst are very well-regarded. There are considerable differences in setting however, so while “after 4 years” may be a wash, depending on how well one has performed, it’s during those 4 years that I think SFS has a major advantage. Opportunities for Econ and especially IR experience in Washington are orders of magnitude more plentiful than those in Amherst. It does also depend on what one’s ultimate goal is, of course.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your input. You got very good points!</p>
<p>If your D is interested in Econ as strongly as she is in IR, in the sense that she’d like to double major in them, then that opportunity isn’t really available in SFS, however SFS does have a major called ‘international economics’ [International</a> Economics - IECO Major - Georgetown University](<a href=“http://bsfs.georgetown.edu/majors/ieco/]International”>http://bsfs.georgetown.edu/majors/ieco/) which she may want to look at before deciding either way.</p>
<p>Besides SFS has a fantastic broad core curriculum which is taken in the fresh + soph years, if your D decides after a year or 2 that SFS isn’t for her then there’s always the possibility of transferring out</p>
<p>speaking as a person currently on the waitlist at SFS, i’d say go for it, international economics doesn’t sound 2 bad, and u can’t get much better than IR in DC :)</p>
<p>As the above poster points out, it sounds like Georgetown’s international econ major would be a great option for your daughter. SFS is a very unique school and highly regarded so I don’t think you could go wrong there.</p>
<p>Amherst is what, the number 1 liberal arts college in America? If she wants to do economics, shes better off at Amherst because Georgetown’s SFS only offers international economics, which would be more theoretical and less applicable if she plans on doing something involving the stock market or policy on the national level. Also, Amherst is very well regarded in the realm of academia and therefore if she plans on getting a PhD or anything, she would be very well prepared by Amherst since their turnover rate to the Ivy League for Grad School is like 12% compared to Georgetown’s 5%.</p>
<p>On the other hand Georgetown does share the same city with:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The World Bank
The US Treasury
The Federal Reserve
The Inter-American Development Bank
Numerous economic consulting firms
Think tanks like the Brookings Institute
Etc.</p>
<p>Georgetown alumni are scattered throughout these organizations and have very close ties to the University. This is one Georgetown’s comparative advantages over LACs like Amherst where most learning is limited to opportunities in the classroom and the library.</p>
<p>You also probably know that Georgetown is a student centered research institution which means that it emphasizes undergraduate teaching in a traditional environment (like a LAC) while at the same time offering many of the opportunities found at a large research university in a major city. Your D would be giving up next to nothing by choosing SFS over Amherst, and stand to gain much more. For this reason Georgetown is a difficult match up for LACs which tend to have comparative advantages over large research oriented universities like Hopkins or big research oriented Ivys</p>