<p>tristan, thank you so much for your post. I’ve always tried to stay open minded when it comes to college and oddly enough I’ve ended up with the college list that I have now which is not necessarily what people think of when they think IR.</p>
<p>I’m sure there’s always more room to research even more so I’ll be sure to do that. However, I do realize that I really like the schools on my list so I’m gonna stick with them and hope that something works out. :)</p>
<p>I definitely second Princeton, Hopkins and Georgetown.</p>
<p>At Princeton you’ve got the Woodrow Wilson school which in my opinion is one of the strongest institutions in its field.</p>
<p>At Hopkins you have the international studies program as well as the option to apply into a 5 year masters program where you study 3 years at hopkins’ homewood (main undergrad) campus and then 2 years at the grad school SAIS (school of advanced international studies) in washington, d.c…</p>
<p>At Georgetown you’ve got the school of foreign studies which, in addition to its D.C. location is very well-reputed in the international relations field.</p>
<p>I really think you would be missing out if you didn’t check out those three schools/programs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re welcome! But remember Wharton is only one element of the breadth Penn can offer you. Check out Penn Law (undergrads can take courses), and depending on your particular IR interests you can find courses of interest in the schools of Education, Social Work, Design (they do lots of good work on urban planning which as any IR person knows is a big deal in this century of mass urbanization), even Communications and Nursing…</p>
<p>My DD was originally thinking Intl relations and had the following schools on her list (in no particular order but includes reach match safeties) : U Penn, Yale, Georgetown, American, GW, Macalester, U Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Tufts and U of Washington.</p>
<p>Rejected everywhere</p>
<p>Sorry to hear that, IRFreak. Penn would have been lucky to have you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The parks and cafes of Paris in the spring time.</p>
<p>Thank you so much ilovebagels. What you said is kind of funny cuz my Penn interviewer said the exact same thing… but I actually wrote one of my essays on my belief that everything happens for a reason. It’s time to put that in practice :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe the reason in your case is that you ignored warblers’ advice (post #4) and loaded up on extremely selective schools. Yours is not the first such outcome I’ve seen in the past couple days. </p>
<p>Does “everywhere” include UNC? That was your safety, right? But you don’t have in-state status and UNC is notoriously hard for OOS applicants.</p>
<p>I would have recommended a few schools like Macalester College or American University that have good IR programs, are less selective than the likes of Yale and Stanford, and offer merit scholarships. Maybe you could take a gap year and build a new strategy that includes a few of these schools. Or, enroll in a rolling admissions school, then transfer. Or …(long shot) … send your scores, grades, etc. to someone high up in the chain (Dean of Admissions) at one of these “match” schools. Ask if they’d at least be willing to put you on their waiting list for Fall 2011. I think you’d need to be able to show sincere enthusiasm if you try this.</p>
<p>tk, thanks for the advice but I am into Chapel Hill. Sorry if I didn’t clarify that. Oddly enough, I do have in-state status there I just had to send in lots of residency info but we were able to figure it out. I also am waiting to see if I got any merit scholarships as I went to scholarship day so we’ll see. I guess you’re right in the fact that I should’ve chosen some less competitive schools I just always thought I would be happy going to chapel hill if nothing worked out…(which I am, as I am falling more and more in love with the school every day).</p>