Ranking International Relation Programs

<p>good LACs for IR?</p>

<p>IR is Macalester's specialty. But i chose Northwestern over it for prestige...ur undergrad is so vague anyway</p>

<p>I don't know of any good LAC's for IR. I'm about to go off to Kenyon this fall and they acutally have an International Relations major and have put people into SAIS and SIPA for graduate school recently so perhaps it isn't all that bad?</p>

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>I´m trying to decide between the following:</p>

<p>M.A. in International Policy Studies at Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey
M.A. in International Affairs at George Washington, D.C.
Master of Public Administration and Nonprofit Management at NYU, New York
M.A. in Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, Boston
Master of International Affairs at Columbia, New York (I´m only on the waiting list though, so this may not even be an option)
M.A. in International Affairs at the New School, New York
M.A. in International Relations at Johns Hopkins, first year in Bologna, Italy, second year in D.C.</p>

<p>Although the programs vary, each has appealing elements that suit my interests. Location is another factor (with Bologna, Italy being near the top of the list). However, aside from these personal considerations, I would be interested in getting other perspectives. At this point, I mostly considering the last two and am really torn. </p>

<p>My academic and professional experience has been in the San Francisco Bay Area and with NGOs. I realize JHU´s SAIS is top-ranked, but I worry that it will be ultra-conservative. Not that I´m looking for an ultra-progressive institution, but I would like to attend somewhere with some level of debate. I DO NOT want to end up at the World Bank, and in reading some of the past posts about JHU´s relationship with them, I am a bit worried that all of it´s connections will be of this nature. My future career interests are in the non-profit/NGO sector. That´s why I am thinking the New School may have more connections. These are all my naive and uninformed opinions, however, so if anyone has any personal knowledge to share, it would be appreciated!</p>

<p>I've never heard that SAIS is "ultra-conservative." In fact, most of the people I've met who are SAIS students or grads are anything BUT conservative.</p>

<p>What region/area/specialty are you interested in?</p>

<p>So, I turned down JHU for Penn for IR undergrad, simply for the "overall experience" of Penn. Just curious from a purely academic standpoint, how "bad" was that move - as in the difference between the two programs. (I failed to get into Huntsman, btw)</p>

<p>Not bad at all.</p>

<p>Yeh, I have family that went to SAIS and they all turned out to be democrats. I mean I may not approve, but it doesn't lead one to speculate that sAIS is ultra-conservative.</p>

<p>JHU is probably even better then GT from IR but if your happy at Upenn then whose to say it was a terrible decision :)</p>

<p>Middlebury was named the hottest college for International Studies by Newsweek.</p>

<p>Why did the Peterson-Tierney survey rank LSE so low? And where are Oxford and Cambridge? Is this bias from respondents? I was under the impression that LSE had one of the top five or ten IR programs in the world.</p>

<p>SAIS's approach to IR is very conservative in terms of methodology. The New School would be interesting, but it is about as progressive (and radical!) an IR course as you can get. You'll get a lot of interesting debate but I imagine that you will just get the radical POV without the mainstream.</p>

<p>i understand there is a significant difference between international studies, ir, peace studies from looking at princeton review's desciptions. However, what is the difference in prospective careers for these majors?
Also, what career opportunities are there for these majors with only an undergrad degree?
In what circumstances would it be more beneficial to have a concentrated area study, such as Asian or African studies?
In addition, I have heard Vassar's international studies program is good-this opinion seems credible to me because they offer many area studies as majors as well. Is this true?</p>

<p>It all depends on what you make of the programmes. I know of people who majored in polysci and got jobs at think tanks in d.c. and the two people I know who went to prestigious graduate schools to study i.r. (gtwon sfs, sais) did not major in international relations, btu rather english/polysci for both of them. i myself plan to major in polysci/econ, even though my school offers an interdisciplinary major for international studies. then again at my school polysci is one of the better, and therefore much broader in scope and prestigious. So, you don't necessarily have to major in international relations to get a job in the field if my main point. it doesn't hurt, but then again minoring in a language or so would be a great asset.</p>

<p>thanks
any ideas where to look?
I've heard JHU and GW are good, and Georgetown too</p>

<p>i am not really sure how good LSE's IR program is. i guess its either that the ranking is americancentric and biased or the schools outside of the US just sucks and LSE is the best school outside of the US for IR. according to this ranking though <a href="http://www.politicalstudies.org/pdf/psr/hix.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.politicalstudies.org/pdf/psr/hix.pdf&lt;/a> , the lse is ranked 2nd in the world for publications and 4th in the world for impact of those publications. but it is ranked 15th overall cause the rankings are skewed to benefit small schools since they try to divide the publications by the faculty members. thats how EUI beats Oxford in the overall rankings i guess.....</p>

<p>I turned down Hopkins to study econ and IR at UChicago. Hopefully it pays off and I get into SAIS.</p>

<p>My recommendation?</p>

<p>Substantive work experience.</p>

<p>Yeh, I'd see UChiago and JHU undergrad very similarily. Both tend to put all their resources into graduate programmes. Then again if you're studying econ at Chicago that isn't all that bad. My school sent I think 3 people out there this year. One kid turned it down to go to some school in Connecticut (No, not Yale). </p>

<p>What is your opinion on SAIS? Is it better than Gtown SFS? I've always liked Gtown better because I just feel that way. Classes are smaller (90 vs. 150) and so on. I kinda just see SAIS as being good because the JHU name. I mean Gtown SFS is 5yrs older than the Foreign Service, SAIS being founded after WWII. Then again SAIS has a nice programme in China that I'm liking, however as I want to pursue my J.D. at the same time, I'm not certain I can do it really. Anyone know anything about that?</p>

<p>
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What is your opinion on SAIS?

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</p>

<p>SAIS is almost definitely the flagship IR program in the US. Almost every ranking places it firmly at number one.</p>