Hello everyone!
I’m an Italian student and I’m trying to decide between Johns Hopkins SAIS and Georgetown SFS. At SAIS I applied to an MA in IR and at SFS I applied to an MA in Security Studies. My aim would be to work as a diplomat, but I wouldn’t mind working for my Government as well (either for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or for the Defense). I guess that both of the MAs chosen would work for this kind of careers, but I really don’t know what to choose!! Which university would you recomend me? Which one, in your opinion, is the most prestigious?
Thank you!!
Greetings from Italy
Note: Permission was given in this case to post the same thread in both this forum and the JHU forum. - FC
Both schools are very prestigious, but their most prestigious subject areas differ. For science/pre-med, JHU is stronger, but for gov/econ/IR (SFS in particular), Georgetown is pretty much at Harvard’s level. I’d go to Georgetown, considering what you want to study. Another plus of Georgetown - DC > Baltimore by a lot, especially for IR-related internships.
SAIS is in DC, rather than Baltimore. That’s certainly to its advantage from an IR perspective, but it comes at the loss of easy access to the (vast) resources of the rest of Johns Hopkins. No such issue with Georgetown SSP.
As a graduate of SSP, I’m obviously biased, but I’ll try to give you the most objective take. SAIS has much more of an economics focus, combined with what might be considered ‘classical’ study of IR and diplomacy. SSP is focused on security - no surprise there - so it is not directly analogous to an MA in IR. That would be the realm of the MSFS program.
I wouldn’t get too worked up over prestige - it’s all in the eye of the beholder, and the vast majority of folks would view them as sufficiently close in quality that it wouldn’t make a real difference either way. The advice I always give is to look at the actual coursework, particularly the requirements, and assess which you would prefer. It’s your time and money, you should spend it studying what you’re really interested in and don’t mind spending countless hours on.
I would definitely say that SAIS has more international students (similar to MSFS) than SSP does, which could be a positive, negative, or neutral, depending on your personal preferences and perspective. Certainly Georgetown itself is well-established in Italy - it has a campus at Villa Le Balze and held its annual global meeting of alumni in Rome just a few days ago.
Feel free to DM me if you have more specific questions about SSP.