I have been admitted to all three schools and am planning on being a international studies/ relations major. I have visited and loved Holy Cross and Wellesley and have always wanted to go to school around Boston.
I have never been to Macalester, but the more I read about their international studies major the more I am intrigued. I know they have a large number of international students which is a feature I like. I am from the Midwest and have always wanted to leave the Midwest for college.
The first time I visited Wellesley I loved it. It was tied for number one with Holy Cross, and I liked it even more when I heard they have three different International Relations majors. However, the more I read about Wellesley’s grade deflation and the competitiveness of the students I grew to like it less. I also heard International Relations at Wellesley was like a double major with the number of classes required. I am also not sure about the all girls aspect.
Holy Cross has always been my number one both my parents went there, and I absolutely loved it when I visited. International Studies is not an “official” major at HC. It’s a major students build, but has become so popular that you can find course requirements for it. HC excels at the aspects of IR: history, political science, and economics.
Sorry for the long post. I am going to try visiting all is finances allow and I am also considering aspects like study abroad opportunities. Cost is not a factor in deciding between these three since they are all close in price.
Because the area is so interdisciplinary, strong IR programs are going to have lots of requirements.
The basic idea is that you want to have depth of knowledge in a particular area (much like a traditional major) as well breadth of knowledge across the set of related areas (like a second major). For that reason, some schools actually set up interdisciplinary majors as “second” majors that compliment a “traditional” major.
I would be skeptical of a “role your own” IR major without lots of requirements. If you like Holy Cross better, then you could use Wellesley’s program as a template and try to reproduce it at Holy Cross…
You could also use the programs at Tufts and Georgetown as benchmarks to compare your alternatives to or to use as templates design your own program.
I would think that IR would require strong language/culture departments as well. The economic disciplines required for IR are different than the economic disciplines required for business/accounting, so you need to look into that to.
From what I have heard, Holy Cross is known as a heavy workload school, but I have not heard a direct comparison with Wellesley.
The Boston area is a great place to go to school.
Good luck.
If you really love Boston, you can always move to Boston after you finish your degree.
Holy Cross isn’t really in Boston, but it’s close enough to visit. It’s pretty telling that you have no cons for Holy Cross - you love it, you’re a double-legacy (and so obviously familiar with it), and they have an international relations option. (IR is an interdisciplinary field, so most IR majors are actually constructed from courses in history, political science, and economics - often with a dash of sociology and anthropology for good measure).
I haven’t heard about grade deflation at Wellesley, but I wouldn’t worry about that too much; Wellesley is a very well-reputed college, and if they do deflate grades, most grad schools would be aware of that and adjust accordingly. A women’s college is a special kind of environment that you have to want, but it’s not like a convent. You’ll be nearby Boston and all of the other colleges in Boston, which means that you can always have socialization opportunities with other students your age - of all genders. There don’t appear to be three different IR majors at Wellesley. There’s one IR major with three different “tracks”, or concentrations: economics, political science, and history. The major is otherwise the same, but you can choose to concentrate in history and take most of your IR elective courses in history instead of the other two. However, that’s generally a feature of majors with a lot of electives - you could do that at Holy Cross, too, with your constructed major. The major does have more requirements than your average - most of the other social science majors at Wellesley seem to require 9-10 credits whereas IR requires 14 (5 core, plus 9 in your discipline of choice). It’s more like having a major + a minor than a double major - like majoring in economics and minoring in IR if you choose economics as your concentration, for example.
I think students at any top college are going to be competitive to a certain extent.
Macalester does have a lot of international students (12%), but so does Wellesley (11%). I think it’s a gamble to choose a college primarily based upon the major, because many freshman change their majors. Macalester is a great school otherwise, so it’s not like it would be a bad choice! But if you know you want to get out of the Midwest and you have the opportunity, I would take it.
Honestly it sounds like you really love Holy Cross. You have your whole life to move closer to Boston, and Worcester isn’t that far from Boston anyway. And if you can design your own international studies major, you can tailor it to be like any of the three concentrations from Wellesley since Holy Cross also has departments of political science, economics, and history. I have a close friend who went to HC for undergrad and she still hangs out HC friends with and goes to alumni events all the time; they seem to be a pretty close-knit group of alumni.