international relations major - yale, upenn, princeton?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>hey im a junior and thinking about which ivies to apply to for the fields i'm interested in.
i do a lot with this organization girls learn international and i am interested in cultural diplomacy, so i'm thinking international relations as a major.</p>

<p>which is better for ir - Yale, upenn, or princeton?</p>

<p>i really liked yale when i visited but now i'm thinking, is it too focused on humanities as a strong major?
also, princeton does have the woodrow wilson school although i didnt like it as much as yale, but the yale campus may have had the biggest factor in my like for it :/
and my counselor and i have identified upenn as a likely, but i dont really know, is it strong in IR?
and i forgot to mention harvard..haha i'm kinda sure they are good in IR</p>

<p>my stats (would it be likely for me to get in to any of these colleges?)
pakistani american female, lives in pa, private school
SATs: 770 M, 800 CR, 790 W
sat ii's: 690 chemistry, 730 history
mostly a's, some a-'s
girls learn international is mostly my extra curricular: starting the club at my school, communicating with partner school, fundraising, leadership, speaking at conferences, tv appearances and newspaper interviews for my work with it
journalism projects on girls and social media</p>

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<p>Yale doesn’t have an IR major, at least as a single major. You can concentrate on IR within poli sci, or you can take International Studies as a second major.</p>

3

<p>I would say don’t get too caught up in the idea that one Ivy has a better certain program than another. What’s going to make a much larger difference to you is your day-to-day life on the campus and with your peers.</p>

<p>Your IR major may change, but you only get to choose one campus and student body to be a part of.</p>

4

<p>georgetown is actually better for IR b/c of the d.c. opportunity and stuff.</p>

5

<p>I’d look at Georgetown. Your stats are competitive but not impressive for HYP.</p>

6

<p>Yale also starts the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs next year which will take over the international studies major and change it into a major more focused on international relations/ global affairs.</p>

7

<p>Look into Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Policy</p>

8

<p>I would seriously look into Georgetown. Not because I don’t think you’re competitive. But Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service is one of the best around for international relations. The campus feels sheltered and isn’t overwhelming in size, which I like. However, you’re a very short distance away from the center of Washington DC, and you’re in a gorgeous town by the Potomac River. It’s a fantastic location and perfect for your interests.</p>

9

<p>I have the same question!! I am a fellow class of 2011er and I am interested in International Relations and am trying to decide which ivy is best for that…though after visiting Princeton and Yale I personally prefer yale’s campus too. I like their residential system waaay better.</p>

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<p>I agree with ^, though Princeton is still great</p>

11

<p>Decide after you get into a top school ;P</p>

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<p>@Jersey13
Getting a 2360 on the SATs is not impressive for HYP? That’s higher than what most people attending those universities scored (I got accepted to Yale and scored significantly lower than that).</p>

<p>One of the deciding factors for me to attend Yale was the international programs. Not only do they have an international studies major (the only one in the Ivy League) but also they have great resources. There’s the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies ([The</a> Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale](<a href=“The MacMillan Center |”>The MacMillan Center |)) which has a ton of different academic programs, research opportunities, etc. Yale also has a wonderful Center for International Experiences ([Opportunities</a> | Center for International Experience | Yale College](<a href=“Yale College”>Yale College)). They have strong programs in Beijing, London, and basically anywhere you want to go. What is really cool is all the options you have: you can go for a semester, a year, 5 weeks in the summer, spring break and do intensive language study, volunteer work, research, take classes or a mixture. I feel like Yale tries especially hard to give students every possible opportunity to study abroad.</p>

<p>What impressed me the most about the international experiences at Yale was the huge amount of funding available. It’s not even just financial aid. The university also gives out a lot of grants and scholarships. Basically if you want to do something abroad, you’ll be able to find the money. I’ve talked to a bunch of current students and they all told me that they were able to get all the funding they needed just by writing a proposal of what they wanted to do. They literally were written a check and told to spend all of it.</p>

<p>You can study whatever you want at Yale and definitely won’t be forced to take a million humanities classes. The curriculum is not as liberal as Brown, but definitely not as strict as most other colleges. The only requirements outside of your major are to take classes in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Quantitative Reasoning (aka math) as well as foreign language and writing. There are no core classes, you just pick whatever class carries one of those labels.</p>

<p>I didn’t apply to Princeton, but I did to Georgetown and Penn. Both are great schools for international relations. Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service is wonderful and lets you study every aspect of IR. Penn also has a great IR program and great study abroad (they even have a program in Cuba, which Yale doesn’t!) Penn is much more integrated into the city than Georgetown. At Georgetown you have to cross the Potomac into Virginia to take the metro to get into downtown DC, whereas at Penn you are already in a busy part of the city and can walk 1 block to get to the subway. </p>

<p>You should definitely look at George Washington and UChicago. GWU is at the heart of DC and has the Elliott School of International Affairs ([The</a> Elliott School of International Affairs - The George Washington University](<a href=“http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/]The”>Elliott School of International Affairs | The George Washington University)) which is really great. UChicago has an International Studies major and great programs in economics (one of the best in the nation) and foreign languages.</p>

<p>You can PM me if you have any questions!</p>

13

<p>Hello everyone. I’m a junior Int’l student with a 4.0 GPA, GRE and TOEFL are not been taken yet (really suck in math, thus my quantative section of GRE expected to be the least, TOEFL is gonna be better) but have International expeprience of being alumni of FLEX (US Department of State Program for top students) HSI-2009 Hansen Summer Institute on Int’l Leadership, Dplomacy and Conflict Resolution at SDSU alumni, had attended several conferences and seminars around the world, namely, in Portugal, Germany, Russia, the USA with IR and Diplomacy concentration. Interned for local MFA and US Embassy, ADB. Volunteered a lot, will (hopefully have good recomendations). Thinking of applying for US Grad school on IR or Diplomacy. Considering Johns Hopkins, Tufts, George Mason and some others.
Because of my GRE Quantative sections low score (which I have not yet taken but surely aware of its results) I’m a bit scared that I would get a shot at grad schools. What are my chances? Shoot me straight! Thanx!</p>

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<p>Sort of off topic, but you probably want to try to bring up those SAT II’s. Especially the chemistry one.</p>

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<p>thank you for all your help everybody!
@jgraider - i have tried to bring the sat ii’s up
my current scores:
us history - 730
chem - 690 (bad, i know)
spanish - 770
math 2 - 730</p>

<p>honestly, do you think thats ok? i know 730 is high but could be higher but im not planning on retaking…i was hoping the 2360 would make up for it :slight_smile:
and i took 3 ap’s this year (my school doesnt offer that many) in apush, latin vergil, and english lit and got all 5’s so hopefully that will help as well.</p>

<p>thank you to all the people that recommended georgetown. i have a question about it and would love some feedback though -
i am not 100% sure i want to do IR, i just know that it is the major i am most interested in right now. therefore i do not want to apply to teh school of foreign services at georgetown because i want the option to change majors. so my question is: can you major in IR at the regular georgetown college of arts and sciences?</p>

<p>@nanquanmikey: wow thanks for all your detailed help!! could you please give me some more details on yale and the jackson institute? from what i gleaned from the website, the interdisciplinary IR major focuses a lot on economics and even has a requirement in science, which i am not interested in. i’m more interested in the culutral diplomacy and political aspects of IR. so could you please comment on what the IR experience at yale is really like?</p>

<p>so far i am applying to yale princeton penn and georgetown for sure. i am trying to decide with possibles and safeties right now. thanks for your suggestion about gwu, but learning that it is the most expensive school in the country for little reason is pushing me away from it. U chicago is great but too far away from philadelphia, where i live.
i am thinking of tufts, william & mary, and maybe lehigh as safeties…i would prefer places with good merit scholarship opportunities (i dont qualify for financial aid). any suggestions?</p>

<p>THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH <3</p>

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<p>i should mention i’m also interested in prelaw</p>

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<p>I think your stats are fine (even the 690). Personally, if your passion is international relations, yet you’ve still managed to get a decent score in the sciences, you should be fine, even considered well-rounded in fact. </p>

<p>I went through an almost identical dilemma that you’re going through a year ago. I knew for sure I wanted to do Political Science, concentrating on an international or comparative approach to it (I want to be a diplomat). I applied to a bunch of schools I really liked, and figured once I get my acceptances I’d figure out which one had the best Poli Sci/IR program and I’d go from there. I ultimately had to make a choice between Princeton, Georgetown, and Yale. I chose Yale because despite the fact that SFS is awesome at Georgetown, I didn’t like the campus, and I felt the majors were too constrictive. There wasn’t much room to change interests within SFS. Princeton was a tougher decision, it had originally been my first choice school, but I decided against it because they didn’t offer me the opportunity to double major that Yale did. (Plus orange and black really look awful together). And the “princeton bubble” really wasn’t my thing. </p>

<p>In the end, Nanquanmikey described it perfectly. Plus the distributional requirements that you need to fulfill for Yale can pretty much all be found within the department you’re interested in.</p>

<p>For example I’m thinking of considering majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and the Quantitative Reasoning credit I have to get I can get by taking intro statistics class for political science majors. Bottom line: I’ll get a QR credit by taking a class aimed at poli sci, not math people, and it’s a class I have to take for my major anyways. And that’s just one example. </p>

<p>The science class you mention that you want to avoid, while yes, you do need two science credits at math, won’t necessarily mean you have to take a “real” science class. You could get that credit by taking an astronomy class, or an intro class, that might not necessarily be filled with science-y people, rather people who’s strengths might be in other areas, but still like stargazing every once in a while.</p>

<p>Best of luck to you!</p>

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<p>I toured GT this summer and asked that same question (I was at the time choosing between IR and their Biology of Global Health prgrm), and they said you can transfer colleges if the major you want is in another college, but they advise against it because there are so many prereqs required in each major. This is especially tricky bc when you first apply to GT you HAVE to pick a school to apply to, and I don’t thing GT’s College of Arts and Sciences has IR. That’s in its School of Foreign Service (SFS). However, I DID hear from some current students that it’s easier to go from a supposedly “more selective” college on campus (like SFS) to a “less selective” one (College of Arts and Sciences), rather than vice versa. The main pain is that for SFS there are a LOT of freshman seminars to take, and if you choose to try to transfer there you’ll have a lot of catching up to do.</p>

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<p>As an aside, here’s an interesting interview with Charles Hill, legendary diplomat and now Yale international relations prof, on his new book “Grand Strategy”. Gives you a taste of what you might find at Yale:</p>

<p>[Grand</a> Strategy with Charles Hill : Chapter 1 of 5 - Uncommon Knowledge on National Review Online](<a href=“http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=M2JmNzBiZDQxMTMwMDI1YjIwODM3ZmU0MmEzYjFmMjI=]Grand”>http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=M2JmNzBiZDQxMTMwMDI1YjIwODM3ZmU0MmEzYjFmMjI=)</p>

<p>This is the first of 5 segments. I recommend listening to the whole 20 min sequence.</p>

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<p>thanks mancune, very cool !
so i have asked around a lot and it does seem that i would not be able to study IR at georgetown without going to SFS and i dont want to do that. sighh. </p>

<p>so what safety/possible schools (for a 2360 SAT) are out there that are strong in IR, flexible curriculums, and no more than 3 hours away (preferably) from philadelphia ?
i know of tufts but that is far for me. im thinking of lehigh and maybe william and mary, though that too is far</p>