<p>Hey this is my first post...</p>
<p>I recently got accepted to gw (arts/sciences) and umich (LSA) and I was wondering which one would be better to attend to study poly sci. I realize that mich has an excellent poly sci program, yet the connections i would make in DC would be valuable towards getting a job later. Any advice?</p>
<p>It really depends on what you want from college experience. There could be no better place to be part of the political world and to have opportunties for a million internships. On the other hand, Michigan is very strong academically and higher ranked than GW. Michiagan is 40000 students and GW is under 10,000. A big difference, I think. It is a life style decision, I think.</p>
<p>Kinkosmom really hit the mark: "It is a lifestyle decision..." Yes, education is important, but if you don't feel comfortable in the environment, your grades/work ethic/etc might suffer. Being happy at a school is very important. I'm fortunate to love GW and the experiences I'm getting here.</p>
<p>Dear GW Current Student:</p>
<p>I am glad you are on this site as one really wants insights from insiders; the rest of us do not really know the gw experience if we have not attended. So, I would like to pick your brain re the experience. </p>
<p>One of my concerns about g.w. is the faculty; while the adjuncts from the real world of politics, business, etc. do have some wonderful stuff to offer, I feel tenured faculty has a different kind of deeper commitment to the institution and the students as well as to scholarship in the field. College is about scholarship in the professors' field, it is an intellectual endeavor that should be focused on serious research, etc. I have the feeling that many faculty are not scholars. Is this true? What is the percentage of tenured scholars to part-time adjuncts--whether those adjuncts are simply recent PhDs or famous politicians.</p>
<p>Again, I believe that GW's lack of higher ranking has to do with not having as many serious well-published scholars as does a school like Michiagan. After pontificating my point of view, I guess I really would like your opinion on how you find the faculty with respect to the issues I raise above. Clearly, the career aspects of g.w. are fab; but what about the academic???Thanks again for providing the insider's perspective.</p>
<p>dont overlook the fact that gw is extremely expensive.</p>
<p>I think it's pretty much a 50-50 split between adjuncts and full-time. If you question dedication to the students and to the material, I find that both sets display amazing commitment to the students. I may speak of professors having quality "real world" credentials and that applies to both. My friend is on the joint committee of faculty and students and the whole professor "labeling" (Professor vs. Associate Professer vs. Adjunct Professor vs. Visitng Lecturer vs. Professional Lecturer) can get pretty confusing and messy. The departmental administration keeps a very good job ensuring that classes and professors are disseminating what the students need to know and fostering a sense of curiousity and interest. Unforutnately, I don't follow and track which professors have been published or received accolades in academia, so I can't give you specific examples of our great tenured faculty's academic achievements. </p>
<p>To address post #5, GW is expensive. To be a bit cynical, GW may be adding "the GW experience" into the total costs. Universities are corportations, too. There are ways around cost.</p>
<p>I come from a rural area of the country. My parents are first generation immigrants. Collectively as a household, we earn a little more than the total cost of GW today. I attend GW on quite a bit of need-based financial aid. My family believes we made the best investment by going to GW and I know that using and exploiting the resources available to me at GW and DC will definitely enrich my life and my career.</p>
<p>You may say: "Because it's expensive, we only attract rich snobby students." After my previous post, don't believe that statement. Our student body is diverse in everyway: racially, geographically, economically. Those are the reasons why we have a great student body.</p>
<p>This post is not to pick on you, huskem55, it's to address everybody's concerns of GW's costs.</p>
<p>whoa gwcurrentstudent- i made no insinuation about the type of students attending the school, i was simply stating that gw was very expensive, and that may be a factor for the OP in picking a school!</p>
<p>I meant no disrespect to you personally. I just wanted to address everybody's concerns who may have finances as a large part of their decision. It's always a good point to bring up.</p>
<p>Thanks for your lengthy and helpful reply, current student, and thanks for sharing your own situation. It helps dispel the myth that all students are rich and frome east coast cities. I agree that a cast system based on tenured versus adjunct is not always good as I have known a lot fo wonderful adjuncts and poor tenured profs. However, I am concerned that as adjuncts are often very poorly paid (unless they are eminent I would presume), that the university has made a choice to spend our dollars on other things besides faculty. Adjuncts are often paid so poorly that it is considered exploitive (they do it because they love teaching their subject and are willing to do it for practically nothing). Nonetheless, I do have some negative feelings about gw not spending their enormous number of tuition dollars on their faculty. Instead they buy up real estate in d.c. As adjuncts making a pittance, they may not always being the highest in their fields--which in itself, as you point out, means very little. Still, I guess I have a problem with the politics of choosing to hire low paid adjuncts over higher paid professors as it is a choice of values that seems less than desireable. Still, if you have had great experiences with adjuncts, it might not matter for the students' experience whether or not g.w. might be exploiting their labor. Thanks again for your insights.</p>
<p>Michigan has a highly regarded poli sci program and is consistently rated in the top 5 (grad program). The professors are excellent and once one gets into the upper level courses will you fully be able to take advantage of the high caliber of education.</p>
<p>GWU does have many more adjuncts who have careers outside of the campus. That is the drawback of having connected experts teach and run to their other obligations. If internships are that important, GWU obviously has an advantage. Michigan has their own internship programs worldwide, includng DC.</p>
<p>Michigan, supposedly has a smaller feel to it for a school with 24000 students. They have a superb rate of law school placement which is a fair amount better than GWU.</p>
<p>Michigan is an elite Big 10 school chock full of school pride, sports and a huge alumni network.
It is amazing to me the demand for acceptance in U Mich for out of staters. The tuition is roughly 27K for OOS which is ridiculously high for a public education.</p>
<p>Both are fine schools which will provide a strong education. Michigan is just more prestigious. The fit would be the most important criteria for me.<br>
Had I not been accepted to Emory, I would be choosing between Michigan and GWU which would not have been a simple decision since there are so many factors that come into play.</p>
<p>gwu or university of pittsburg???</p>
<p>hopeful, what made your decision to attend emory so easy? i have to decide between Emory, NYU, and GW with a half tuition scholarship. With that kindof aid (which i highly doubt i will receive at Emory), I am leaning towards GW as my choice. I plan on majoring in political science/international relations. Before I make my final decision, however, I want to consider all my options thoroughly. Any advice?</p>
<p>Im in the same pickle, either umich or gw. Ughh I hate it.</p>
<p>Krocket,</p>
<p>I visited all three and am quite familiar with NYU being a local. For me the academic experience and the caliber of students at Emory made the decision easy. Add to this, small classes, incredible resources ($4 billion) endowment and excllent law school placement. The facilities are incredible at Emory and it has the best of both worlds when looking for a personal college experience of a LAC and the resources of a mid sized research university
GWU was intriguing but does not have the academic reputation as Emory. This past decade, Emory has recruited some of the top poli sci profs from the best programs (Michigan, Harvard, Yale, etc...) and yes, they actually teach small classes. At GWU there are more adjunct profs with other interests and a great deal of turn over since they are not committed tenured profs.</p>
<p>The main reason I would have considered GWU was for the internship opportunities and DC but I will be able to take advantage of plenty of programs at Emory including DC. I want to intern and work at the Carter Center which is a prestigious program at Emory. Jimmy Carter has an office in the library on campus.</p>
<p>The NYU campus and environment was not for me at all. If I wanted a large school, I would prefer it to be a more standard college experience. I would love to attend grad school there but not undergrad.</p>
<p>All three are fine schools, I just shared my opinions and views on the fit of the 3 schools you are contemplating. Pick the best fit for you.</p>
<p>GW has some great tenured professors. I would hate to have a reputation of "just adjuncts." I've always posted that no matter where you go, as long as you're a dedicated student and work hard, you'll get to where you want to be. I've posted a lot of GW's greatest strengths, but if you want to hear it again, I'll post it again! </p>
<p>But I 100% agree with hopeful, you have to pick whichever is the best fit for you.</p>
<p>Well, again, it boils down to what you want to study. I know Pitt has some amazing science programs and I'm quite familiar with GW's IR/poli sci programs. Could you give me some insight into what you want to study and what's important in a school for you?</p>
<p>My d. is also deciding between pitt and gw. So, I have the same question.</p>
<p>Current student, you do always support that gw has some good profs and yet this does seem to me to be a weakness (as I posted at length earlier). I would love to hear specifics about these great profs.</p>
<p>Right off, although Pitt is not as exciting a city and so seems less desireable, my sense is that there are more committed scholars and teachers there.</p>
<p>Teaching is a 24/7 job and I cannot see how someone could be committed to student-centered research and teaching if they are running off to the State Department to solve big problems and teaching during their lunch hour.I also know that a lot of part time recent PhDs work there and I do not think it right that GW exploit cheap labor and deprive their students of more full time teachers--even as many part times are very wonderful and committed.</p>
<p>Current student, I would love to hear you tell me of lots of example
of how great the profs are. This would definitely make us feel better about g.w. Also, current students, is there a way of getting into the teacher rating site that your students use to see how the teachers are rated?? Let me know.Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom.</p>
<p>kinkosmom-Why did you let your child apply to GW if you harbor such negative feelings about the "exploitation of cheap labor"? I'm starting to get the feeling you're not really a prospective GW parent. It almost seems like you have some sort of agenda. Why don't you research the professors at GW by going on their website and looking under "Current Research" or google the news and you will find plenty of examples of research going on at GW. I put myself on a google news bulletin for the last year and several times a week I receive bulletins mentioning research and other exciting activities going on at GW. Asking one current student opinions isn't the best way to get the facts, although GWCurrentStudent has been very kind to offer whatever personal experiences he may have had.</p>
<p>My friend also wanted to address your concerns. Here's what he wrote:</p>
<p>"I understand your concerns about experienced profs running off and solving world problems, not leaving enough time for students. But while I'm sure this can and does happen in some instances, by in large my profs at GW have been really responsive and interested in your goals, so long as you go to office hours to talk about them. I took a class with the dean of our international affairs school last year. I've never had such detailed feedback from a professor regarding my writing-- a full separate page with critique paragraphs linked to paragraphs in my essays by a letter key. It was also a six-person seminar class that wasn't difficult to get into (of course, it didn't fullfil more than a very broad requirment for my international politics concentration). To cite another example, at the same time last year I took a great class with one of our China experts. This guy has a non-resident senior fellowship at Brookings and also advises the NSC on China on occasion. But he kept office hours very regularly and if you showed an interest and some acuity for the subject he was more than willing to take you on-- I got a research assistanship at Oxford University through his good graces. There was one class he missed the entire term-- because he had gone to Singapore for a conference and to interview their Prime Minister. He also puts out books at a dizzying pace, but in spite of all this his lectures were excellent and his feedback on papers were... well, sometimes harsh... but always showed a lot of thought had gone into them."</p>
<p>Some more examples:</p>
<p>The professor, who currently teaches the Elliott School intro class for freshmen, was a director at the National Security Council under Reagan and planned G7 summits (if you know something about G7 summits, these guys are called "sherpas"). But he is also a well-respected theorist whose primary contribution to the field has been to link Identity theory and Realist theory of IR, when he published these ideas in his book "At Home Abroad" it received a lot of praise from all the big academic IR names.</p>
<p>He is also deeply committed to the academic development of his students. I know he has written many recommendations for my friend when he was applying for an internships. If you stop by his office hours, he greets you warmly and takes keen interest in your own interests. He frequently hires students to work with the US-Japan Legislative Exchange Progam - an organization he started.</p>
<p>Foreign Policy conducted a poll to disover who is doing the "most intersting work in IR today." One GW professor (the only woman mentioned) was voted by 2300 of her peers onto this list. She is the leading academic in terms of developing the Constructivist theory in IR. Just another one of our tenured professors.</p>
<p>Personally, I'm the type of person who wants to go out there and get those awesome and amazing internships and co-ops. That's why I've been highlighting the benefits of our location and the connection of our professors and alums. But if you're questioning GW's academic "prestige" and the quality of our professors, I hope you take into consideration the examples above.</p>