<p>Phead128 sure brought this off-topic.</p>
<p>“Geez, mini how many times have you posted that list? I’ve seen it so many times on a lot of threads, and time and time again it has been discredited.”</p>
<p>I don’t think it has been discredited even once. It is by far the best list out there, in any subject. It is the ONLY one that asks professional academics who work* in the field* which of the school offer the best opportunity to study in that field. USNWR doesn’t do that - in any subject. Gourman doesn’t do that. Ruggs doesn’t do that. It is the only list where a majority of professional academics in the field responded. Furthermore, it is the only list where professors in graduate level programs, who serve on admissions committees AND who actually teach the students who graduate from each of the programs, get to express their opinions based on what they have learned through their actual experience.</p>
<p>In short, time and again, the attempt to discredit the Foreign Policy rankings have failed.</p>
<p>I don’t know about “discredited”, but I’d agree it has not been falsified. That’s the problem. It can’t be falsified (or verified), because the question and surrounding language provide no hint as to the criteria for specifying “the best”, or how anyone’s answers would be testable. It’s completely unscientific.</p>
<p>That in itself does not necessarily make it useless. It’s a survey of expert opinion. However, the question as framed does not effectively differentiate educated opinions about colleges in general from expert opinions about IR programs in particular. So what does this survey really add? </p>
<p>It’s as if somebody asked, “What are the 5 best grocery stores for someone whose shopping list includes coffee?” Well, the fact is, virtually all good grocery stores sell coffee. There is not all that much to differentiate among major grocery stores on the basis of coffee. So, the other features that differentiate grocery stores will tend to overwhelm the “coffee” selection problem in many responses. For the Washington DC area, I might say Wegman’s, Whole Foods, Dean & Delucca, and Trader Joe’s (~= Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford). Now that exhausts my list of super-duper gourmet groceries, but you asked for 5. So I throw in Costco (~= “Georgetown”) because, oh yeah, they have a pretty good coffee selection. Your question, as framed, really makes coffee an afterthought. But because this is “Coffee Magazine” publishing the results, casual readers assume this is seriously about which stores have the best coffee, not about subscribers’ favorite grocers.</p>
<p>Mini—if you compare the Foreign Policy rankings of undergraduate programs with the rankings for PhD programs, you’ll notice that they are almost identical. Yet, the rankings for master’s programs are quite different. Why do you think that is? I suggest that it indicates that academics (i.e., professors) are sufficiently familiar with graduate programs at competing institutions to draw significant distinctions between doctorate and masters programs–but not sufficiently familiar with undergraduate programs so they defaulted back to the rankings for doctorate programs. If they were just judging the quality of undergraduate programs as some have suggested, I would expect to see a lot more top rated LAC’s on the list. </p>
<p>It is not a all surprising to me that faculty are far more familiar with the quality of graduate programs than undergraduate programs.</p>
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<p>Agreed, but with a minor quibble that this should specifically say for UNDERGRAD. For grad, Columbia would be on top for IR (largely by default–Penn’s IR program is undergrad only…which is quite nice as 100% of the resources are devoted to undergrads)</p>
<p>Penn IR also has the advantage of accessing courses in Penn’s other undergraduate and graduate schools. The two most immediately apparent benefits of this are being able to enrich your IR education with courses in the Law School (international law comes to mind) and the Wharton School (courses in international finance, multinational management, and BPUB [Business & Public Policy] in particular).</p>
<p>By comparison, Columbia doesn’t allow access to their business or law schools, and Brown doesn’t even have them.</p>
<p>That said, they’re all phenomenal places for undergrads and grads to do just about anything :)</p>
<p>bonanza makes some interesting observations. Sounds like mini is defending the second question, and phead is challenging the 3rd set of responses. My post #43 was referring only to the third question (the one about undergraduate schools).</p>
<p>While on the topic of International relations/politics, does anyone know the difference within the fields?</p>
<p>Basically International Affairs is a pretty broad scope. The fields seem to blur. For example, whats’ the difference between:</p>
<ul>
<li>Economics and Development?</li>
<li>Diplomacy/Strategic studies and Security/Military stuff?</li>
<li>Communication and Journalism/media?</li>
</ul>
<p>The ones that seem clear cut are something like Health, or the Environment. </p>
<p>Also seems the fields within IR don’t all prepare one for the same thing, which I guess is natural.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on this?</p>