<p>Hey guys,
So I'm pretty much deciding between two schools - which are impossibly opposite. Here are the stats:</p>
<p>Colby College
Ranked 30ish in liberal arts colleges, but not many people have heard of it. It's definitely not Swarthmore, or Williams or anything like that.
Gave me really good financial aid - they changed all their loans to grants this year so I can go for 16k a year.
Good English department
Not many career/internship opporunities since it's in the middle of Maine
International Relations program - ok, but not amazing
Food is ranked one of the best in the nation
Dorms are nice
Very homogenously white, but all the students are very friendly
12 hours away from home</p>
<h2>Lots of beer drinking which bothers me</h2>
<p>American University
Ranking quite low...like 50 or 60?
Gave me a scholarship, I can attend for 20k a year
Very close to home
Amazing International Relations program - ranked one of the top 10 in the nation
Almost nonexistent English department (and its not called English there, its called Literature)
Food is not great at all
More diverse, but it also seems like while many students here are bright, some students also don't seem to care
Students are quite friendly
A lot of smokers, which bothers me
Amazing career services/right in the middle of DC</p>
<h2>Nice dorms</h2>
<p>I think that's about it. Let me know if you need any more info. I'm planning on majoring in International Relations and English and then going on to law school. Thanks for your two cents! (I am absolutely torn between these schools....)</p>
<p>About location … I’m currently transferring from a college in Austin, one of the best college towns, to a school in the middle of nowhere, so I’ve experienced both sides. </p>
<p>Honestly, though, location doesn’t have to be a big deal. Living in a big city as a college student isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, there are great clubs if you’re into that, but if you’re under 21 do you really want to pay expensive cover charges? The restaurants are better but they’re also more expensive. I’ve spent most of my time in Austin doing things that could be done most anywhere.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d choose Colby, but I’m partial to liberal arts colleges myself.</p>
<p>One piece of advice: ignore subject rankings. Instead ask yourself if each college offers the courses and opportunities that you are interested in.</p>
<p>Do you want to do internships while school is in session? If not, Colby’s location is not that bad. You can go where ever you want to go during J-term and summer break to do internships! I think Colby even has some grants to support students who are pursuing unpaid internships during breaks.</p>
<p>thanks for all the help you guys! the thing is - I’m still getting mixed opinions…please more people reply so I can have more opinions to consider. And yes, I am double majoring in English and International Relations. Thanks again!!! (4 more days >.<)</p>
<p>also - I don’t know if this makes a difference, but I have two younger brothers - and one of them is four years old, who I’m really close to and I don’t want to go that far away for college. In your experience, has it made a difference? Is it difficult to go far away? AU is extremely close to home - maybe even too close…but is it worth it go that far or stay that close? I’m so torn!</p>
<p>I think you might be happier at American but Colby is a much better school. Did you consider George Washington or Georgetown or U Maryland College Park or JHU? If you go to American for a year and don’t like it, maybe you can transfer.</p>
<p>-Based on my completely random impressions, Colby is a cut above American in terms of prestige, probably quite a bit more than a cut above.
I have been to both campuses and this would be a tough choice because I am a city person. Having said that, Colby has a much nicer campus, IMO.
One of my former boss’ sons visited Colby and was a bit turned off by some perceived bigotry (but this was among guys on a sports team). This boss was a lesbian mother and her son was put off. On the other hand, I’ve met several Colby grads who seem really nice and tolerant.
If you are planning on going to grad school then for sure I think Colby can open great doors for you that I think would be harder to open from American.
International relations theory is a subset of political science, and as a whole international relations tends to be a multidisciplinary subject. Colby I gotta believe is good at poli sci and I know it’s good at economics which is one of the discliplines you should take some classes in.
American will have more internship opportunities for an undergraduate, but frankly American as a whole seems to be down the food chain of prestige in Washington. I don’t know if that would be a good enough reason to stay there, though this should be investigated and it is a great point that one of the other poster’s brought up.
Staying home to be close to your little brother would be nice, but recognize that you would be able to see him a fair amount by coming home for summers and other breaks. During the year at either place, you’d have a lot of other stuff going on.
Ultimately, I’d go with your gut as meco said. If you’re going to be unhappy at Colby, it won’t make up for its higher quality and in fact that would work the other way.
I guess I have one lingering thought: why did you apply to Colby in the first place? Look at that. Have you visited? If there was a time that you were really gung ho about Colby and now it’s mainly homesickness that seems to be causing doubt, I think it might be time to face that you will be homesick and that you need to move on in life. If, on the other hand, you applied only because others told you to and you never were really into it, I’d say that’s a reason to follow your gut.</p>
<p>Me: given the options, I’d go to Colby. I like the option of a year or semester exchange in DC.</p>
<p>Colby is better <em>and</em> cheaper. By better, I mean the training you will receive in critical thinking and analysis by being around brighter students in small classrooms will benefit you the rest of your life.</p>
<p>I looked up American University and here are differences I think are important:</p>
<p>AU 5,800 students v. Colby 1800
AU 16% Black/Asian/Hispanic vs. 11% Colby
Midpoint SAT AU 1265 v. 1355 Colby</p>
<p>You mentioned this in passing about your perception of AU (may or may not be accurate), but I think it’s important – </p>
<p>1) “some students don’t (seem to) care”, and </p>
<p>2) “a lot of smokers at AU”. This is just nuts! Now it is different of course if you’re discussing adults who started smoking before the surgeon general announced that cigarette smoke can cause cancer. However, for anybody born after 1965 – You may as well choose to go to a campus with cutters and people slowly ingesting arsenic! I know, that sound judgemental… and it is. I have sat in judgement, weighed the evidence, and my verdict is that smoking is just plain STUPID! It is a marker for a person who either 1) doesn’t give a f#*k, 2) is lashing out at the world, 3) has an unhealthily need to fit it, 4) is purposely trying to lash out at his/her parents or 5) (the only benign one) the person grew up overseas in a culture or family where smoking is the norm. </p>
<p>you guys are absolutely amazing. Thanks so much for your input.
To Bedhead - I’ve never been really gunho about either Colby or American. I applied because I thought they would be good schools and maybe options for if I didn’t get into my top choices. I didn’t get into my top choice and the other school I would really like to go to (william and Mary) is waay too expensive for me. I have visited both Colby and American and I liked the campus feel of both of them. I feel like I’m comparing apples to oranges - they’re just so different! </p>
<p>I guess the general consensus here is that I should go to Colby? I think you guys are right - I might be happier at American (because of the city and how close I am to home), but Colby would give me a better education. </p>
<p>Oh - and to collegehelp, I’ve only considered College Park, but my mom doesn’t want me to go there because she feels that its too big and they don’t have the international relations major.</p>
<p>Again thanks for all the help and keep posting! :)</p>
<p>I think YOU will give yourself a good education. The resources with which to do so are at both campuses. Probably the only compelling reason to choose American over Colby would be location, but in this case - DC vs. rural ME - location can have a lot of practical aspects. Me? I’d go to Colby, but I’m a LAC fan who isn’t gung-ho on urban environments. I’d also plan to ski a lot.</p>
<p>If that is more attractive to you, then you could go to AU and just ignore the smokers and people who don’t seem to care and surround yourself with people focused on moving forward in their lives.</p>
<p>I think you’d get a far, far better education in international relations at American. You’d have internships - some with international aid or gov’t agencies beginning in your first year. Your curriculum would be articulated around the future needs of IR professionals, not just courses, but what you need if you want a future career. </p>
<p>I would discard the ranking thing - American is ranked low because it has virtually no science programs, very few programs in the arts, and somewhat limited majors in the humanities. These are NOT why students go there.</p>
<p>For me, yes and no. I worked in DC for a long time and have a lot of friends who were in IR. What I noticed is if you want to get low-level internships on the Hill or in some part of the bureaucracy and you will make your way educationally from there into some related career, going to American might make the kind of sense Mini is talking about. However, the people who do well in IR – which is such a broad field – are typically the ones best educated. So studying at a school that has high quality courses is more important, IMO, than studying IR.</p>
<p>The big question: what do you think you want to do? Foreign Service? Go to Colby. Work an administrative job at State? Go to American. Work on the Hill? American because you’ll be able to work there during school. Journalism? I would argue Colby.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t listen to what rankings except as they reflect possible substantive quality differences. You should reflect on what you want in your heart. No one can answer these questions for you.</p>
<p>For me, again, I would choose Colby because IMO coming out of Colby you’ll have been educated at a first-rate level. Others have suggested that your education is about you, not necessarily the school. Yes and no, IMO. We are inspired and helped by the quality of the better students around us.</p>
<p>Preparation for a career in IR. First: a career in IR encompasses such a broad swath of opportunities. I think you go to Colby, get really well educated, perhaps take a year abroad in a country of interest where you learn a different language or spend a year on exchange at American, and then set yourself up for grad school in a dimension of IR that is interesting to you.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, here are the rankings of IR undergraduate programs published in the March/April 2007 issue of Foreign Policy magazine:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard University 48%</li>
<li>Princeton University 46%</li>
<li>Stanford University 30%</li>
<li>Georgetown University 28%</li>
<li>Columbia University 28%</li>
<li>Yale University 23%</li>
<li>University of Chicago 21%</li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley 12%</li>
<li>Dartmouth College 11%</li>
<li>George Washington University 10%</li>
<li>American University 10%</li>
<li>University of Michigan 9%</li>
<li>Tufts University 8%</li>
<li>Swarthmore College 8%</li>
<li>University of California-San Diego 8%</li>
<li>Cornell University 6%</li>
<li>Brown University 6%</li>
<li>Williams College 5%</li>
<li>Duke University 5%</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 5%</li>
</ol>
<p>You’ll quickly notice that American ranks well ahead of Williams and Swarthmore (the LACs represented), far ahead of Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Brown, ahead of Tufts, and tied with GW. </p>