<p>The financial aid I am receiving from all three institutions is stellar. I'm majoring in political science. I also got into Duke and a few other schools, but I have narrowed down to these three, and I would really love some advice/input.</p>
<p>G’town College or G’town SFS?</p>
<p>It’s hard to give advice without more info: what type of classroom experience / social experience are you looking for? what type of physical environment? what do you anticipate your majors and post-grad plans might be? etc. …</p>
<p>The three schools are very different. I feel like the people are pretty similar at Yale and Williams, but of course Yale is a mid-sized university in a less-than-wonderful mid-sized city, while Williams is a small liberal arts college in a beautiful, rural New England town. Which environment you want should be determinative in choosing between those two, for most peoeple. Georgetown attracts a very different type of student, I found, partially because it is a Catholic university, partially because it is in a really rich neighborhood, partially because of its proximity to DC and the interest many students have of someday working on government. For me, I liked the people I met at Yale (preferred Yale by far to the Princeton paradigm, for example) and found them similar to Williams people, but was far less enamored of the Georgetown culture / social scene, but again, that is a very personal thing.</p>
<p>Georgetown has a subtle but pervasive presence of the Catholic Church, a negative or a positive depending on who you are.
Everyone I’ve known whose gone to Yale loved it, but each had difficulty being allowed into his/ her chosen major. One must petition for it. A LAC like Williams operates on a different model.</p>
<p>^mythmom, That one has to petition to enter any major is new to me, it certainly was not true when I was at Yale or my nieces several years ago. The only petition was for Directed Studies (a Freshman course of study) and the now defunct (alas) Scholar of the House. I’ll ask some friends whose children attend now, but that is news to me–and sounds very non Yale (where the ethos always was “if you really want to do it, even though we’re not so sure it is a good idea, ok…”).</p>
<p>That said the real difference is that while Yale College is the center of the University in many many ways, it is a research university with professional and graduate schools. Its faculty get promoted on the basis of research prowess alone (sure there is lip service to teach, as there is at Harvard, but at the end of the day unless you do something as bizarre as to spend the entire term just reading Finnegan’s Wake aloud in your Organic Chemistry lectures, the tenure committee will not give a toss…), whereas teaching is strongly valued–if not of equal value-- in promotion and retention at Williams.</p>
<p>One model-- research university or elite LAC-- is not better than the other, but they are quite different. Each student will find the culture which matches his or her needs.</p>
<p>HOWEVER—Having done some graduate work at Georgetown (and living as an RA to pay for it) I can say that my experience is that GT students “try” a little hard to be preppy in a way that at its core is ersatz…and the students in their hearts know that they are affecting a culture which isn’t really theirs. I also with the rarest of exceptions never encountered real intellectualism (except for a member of the faculty who has since decamped GT for Oxford bc he just couldn’t take the “over weening pre-professionalism” he found in his students). Everyone seemed to be on the make and was a “pre-something or other” if not officially then in personal desire: pre-congressional aide, pre-diplomat, pre-law, pre-med, pre-wall street. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of Yalies and Ephs have such aspirations but they are at least tempered with an interest in the life of the mind-- such I never found to be the case at GT.</p>
<p>Wow, I can’t think of two more different schools than Georgetown and Yale. Do you want an urban environment where most campus entertainment happens off campus in the city? Then Georgetown is great. The students are overwhelmingly (IMO) prep but you can find non-preps that spend a lot of time doing social action in the city. The president of Georgetown was my RA on the “social action floor.” Undergraduate learning is broad, but not the focus of most professors. I liked the catholic influence (I’m an agnostic) at Georgetown. The jesuits are great and where my best teachers. </p>
<p>Williams is a very different environment. D think it’s kind of prep but, as a Georgetown alumni, I don’t see it. The kids dress sporty or outdoorsy (many sporting Patagonia on the labels). D comments that she and her friends “never” wear make-up. It’s isolated and all entertainment is on campus. The undergraduate education that she gets far surpasses anything that H or I got at Georgetown. The professors are focused on undergraduate education and look to undergraduates as intellectual muses and researchers. At Georgetown, undergraduate education was pro forma. At Williams the professors try to develop engaging and challenging curriculum for undergraduates. Their often trying out new ideas to keep from being stale. D would like more city so is planning on studying abroad in a city. </p>
<p>I really don’t know anything about Yale. D didn’t even want to visit. But, depending upon what environment and education you are looking for, the choice between Georgetown and Williams should be easy.</p>
<p>Edited to say that etondad is very accurate in his characterization of a Georgetown student.</p>
<p>etondad: I am so sorry if I gave the wrong impression about Yale. I admire and adore the campus and some of its great thinkers.</p>
<p>I don’t have a child there, nor did I attend. My information comes from young friends of my daughters who wanted the neuroscience track and were told it was oversubscribed and wandered into philosophy (two of them) and I’m not sure what the third did. They were very disappointed. I asked my D to clarify tonight (I was away), and her impression was that she was told that there were open majors (most of them) and ones that weren’t.</p>
<p>I am very sorry to have given the wrong impression. And in fact, my D may have misunderstood.</p>
<p>The students in question are doing very well. One is employed in a consulting firm and living a luxe life, one is in a great law school and the other in a great med school.</p>
<p>^ mythmom–I’m not implying that things haven’t changed, just that if they had, it would be a radical shift–in fact the the “old days (haha)” if those students wanted neuroscience but were told it was oversubscribed continued to push and push for it, Yale would say–“ok”.<br>
But you had to really want it and be willing to push for it despite being told no originally.
It happened to me when I wanted into a very oversubscribed seminar that was limited to junior and senior political scence/international affairs majors and I was a brand spanking new freshman–The teacher, the late James Chase, told everyone who didn’t qualify that they couldn’t be in the seminar bc of the numbers-- I stayed anyway. Chase knew I wasn’t on “the list” but never kicked me out. In fact by the third meeting he came up to me and said “well, I guess I better get your name and student ID number if you’re going to be in the seminar…” My experience was typical among fellow Yalies I knew… </p>
<p>It would be a shame if that sense that the rules were in reality guidelines and that a student could, if she or he really wanted something, could find a way to override the rules had ceased. But who knows-- those were the days of Kingman Brewster not Dick Levin…</p>
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<p>There’s no way a student would have to petition into a major. That’s just throwing sand in the face of a liberal arts education. I know, however, that for the highly popular Ethics, Politics and Economics major (EP&E), Sophomores have to apply to get in, and it is fairly competitive.</p>
<p>Georgetown over Yale? In this solar system? You must mean a basketball contest? You live once, take Yale and never look back! I was wait-listed at Yale and 15 years later I still think about it.</p>
<p>Apply petition hairsplitting. That’s what I meant and it happened with the neuroscience major too and none of my young friends got into either, to their great sadness. I can’t see how the word apply rather than petition changes “the sand” of the practice.</p>
<p>Yale over GT. please.</p>
<p>^ Totally agree. Asking Yale vs. GT for Poli Sci (NOTE: I said Political Science. If the major was, say, biology, the choice would have been much more interesting, as GT is stellar in biology.) is like asking whether you should brush your teeth in the bedroom or the bathroom (weird analogy, but I couldn’t think of anything else lol).</p>
<p>Please. Yale churns out numerous senators, lawyers, and top political analysts. NO college can beat it in the social sciences (save, perhaps, Harvard) and if you want a truly rewarding political career and superb opportunities for Law School, then Yale is a no-brainer. </p>
<p>Might I add that Yale Law School is #1 in the nation? So, indeed, Yale’s opportunities for humanities and social sciences majors are endless!</p>
<p>Good luck, though, whatever you choose! :)</p>
<p>Haha, that’s EXACTLY what I was going to say, SugaLover :D</p>
<p>Though, I kind of disagree with the Biology statement … Yale’s STEM department is pretty good, actually. It IS comparable (not better, I said comparable) to GT.</p>
<p>Anyhow, yes, choose Yale for Poli Sci. No big, tough, financial decision here, so go for the academically better choice in your field.</p>
<p>That one would have to even think hard (unless fin aid is at issue) should make the Yale or the Williams admissions committee wonder about the intellectual soundness of the applicant–are you even kidding for a hundredth of a second about wondering re: Williams or Yale over Georgetown??? </p>
<p>I kinda hope you chose Georgetown–let someone who appreciates Williams or Yale go there…</p>
<p>Georgetown offers internships, the DC scene and an ability to hit the ground running from the internships, and it is Jesuit education. Neither of my kids would have chosen it, but I don’t think it’s such a toss away. It does offer some desirable opportunities that some students would value.</p>
<p>During my years as a grad student at GT and a RA in the undergraduate dorms–i can say that I observed very very little that would constitute a Jesuit education any longer. Proximity to power is the one advantage it has. Yale/Williams and a whole host of other schools can provide the internships, but they are not located in DC.</p>
<p>I was just attempting to be fair minded and to combat my knee-jerk Williams boosterism.</p>
<p>My D could not believe that her brother chose Williams over U of Chicago and Brown and refused to even apply to Columbia, her pick for him. Everyone sees things in a slightly different way. </p>
<p>Perhaps I was reaching. But I can imagine reasons someone would choose GTown over these other two and not be wrong for themselves.</p>
<p>^ I get your point. If someone thinks GT fits them more than Williams and Yale, then I can see why they’d choose GT. It DOES depend on personal fit at a school too – It’s not just academics.</p>