Hi everyone! I’m a high school junior and I’ve been obsessing over colleges (instead of finals-oops) over the past week. I visited schools on the East Coast/Chicago a couple months ago, and I really liked UChicago, but am worried about the social life. I made the mistake of not visiting Northwestern, and now I really like it. I love Chicago, I love the idea of being near Lake Michigan, and I love the quarter system. However, I’m applying to all colleges for International Studies/Relations, and have not heard much about the IR program at Northwestern aside from it being an adjunct major.
Is the International Relations program at Northwestern reputable?
All programs at NU are reputable… http://www.polisci.northwestern.edu/about/news/
BTW - don’t obsess over colleges - and understand that getting into U Chicago, NU and other top schools is never a given - so have plenty of backup schools. Good Luck!
Here is one ranking of IR programs. Note that this is just a poll of people in academia that has been conducted by The College of William and Mary for several years (it is only printed by Foreign Policy Magazine) so it will have its own set of biases.
In general, people in government tend to judge a school by the quality of the masters programs and people in academia tend to judge a school the by quality of its Phd programs - hence the close correlation in this particular poll between Phd and undergrad rankings. I would tend to use the masters rankings if you want to actually go into the field and the undergrad/Phd ranking if you want to go into academia.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/