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League Tables/John Hopkins University/International Relations

At Georgetown you will have some Jesuit priests as lecturers, and they are all around campus. You cannot buy condoms on campus or get any contraception from the health center.

My biggest problem was that people who may be vaguely Catholic go to Georgetown and become more Catholic due to social pressure. Also there are a good number of people who go there to meet other well-off Catholics so they can date/marry them. So as a non-Catholic, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. I was also told by someone, "if you don't have ashes on your head on Ash Wednesday, you will probably feel left out."

Reply 61

EconLou

12

shady lane

At Georgetown you will have some Jesuit priests as lecturers, and they are all around campus. You cannot buy condoms on campus or get any contraception from the health center.

My biggest problem was that people who may be vaguely Catholic go to Georgetown and become more Catholic due to social pressure. Also there are a good number of people who go there to meet other well-off Catholics so they can date/marry them. So as a non-Catholic, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. I was also told by someone, "if you don't have ashes on your head on Ash Wednesday, you will probably feel left out."

Ah, i never realised that the catholic traditions still held in a place like Georgetown. It seems very different from the UK where although universities may have CofE backgrounds, they are essentially nonsectarian.

Reply 62

DrAtomic

1

shady lane

At Georgetown you will have some Jesuit priests as lecturers, and they are all around campus. You cannot buy condoms on campus or get any contraception from the health center.

My biggest problem was that people who may be vaguely Catholic go to Georgetown and become more Catholic due to social pressure. Also there are a good number of people who go there to meet other well-off Catholics so they can date/marry them. So as a non-Catholic, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. I was also told by someone, "if you don't have ashes on your head on Ash Wednesday, you will probably feel left out."

I don't completely agree. My sister attends Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and, outside of the theology requirement, the religious affiliation of the school does not come into play in the students' day to day living. The school offers religious services for students of all religions, and the theology requirement can be satisfied by taking courses in any religion.

There's a Jesuit dormitory on campus, but students don't need to live there. The school invites speakers to give lectures on subjects that are looked down upon by the church just as readily as those that are not.

Obviously I don't have first-hand experience with the university because I don't attend school there, but I do know from my sister and her friends that they don't feel any pressure from the Jesuit affiliation the school retains, nor do they feel looked down upon for not being Christian. Everyone has his or her own experience at any university though, so perhaps this is just my sister's opinion.

Reply 63

shady lane

16

You didn't disagree with anything that I said...at all.

Reply 64

Chengora

To the original post, Johns Hopkins is a great place, particularly SAIS. One thing you should keep in mind is that JHU's main campus is in Baltimore, but the SAIS campus is in Washington, DC. Given that in Baltimore, gangs have made DVDs of their crimes and handed them out around the community, this is a definitely a bonus.

But the biggest differences between the various U.S. IR programs hasn't really been mentioned yet. Really, you have a number of top contenders:

1. SAIS (Johns Hopkins)
2. SIPA (Columbia)
3. Fletcher (Tufts)
4. SFS (Georgetown)

And a couple "second tiers" (still good, but not quite the same weight):

1. Elliot (George Washington)
2. Yale
3. University of Chicago
4. Monterrey, etc.

Notice, also that public policy programs like the Kennedy School (Harvard) aren't up here either. They are generally different beasts altogether.

Of the top four, they vary widely in their focus:

SAIS - heavily economics-oriented, lots of people come out working for the World Bank.

SIPA - partly because it's in New York, it's less tapped into U.S.-based politics and quite naturally focused on the UN and other international institutions.

Fletcher - The legal aspect of their degree is optional, but most people I know who went there do have some form of international law concentration.

SFS - more or less equals State Department.

And by the way, the rankings for U.S. IR programs are crap. There are few enough that it's difficult to apply metrics, and those are largely meaningless anyway. Also, you should know that international students have a much easier time getting into these programs than do American ones. In addition, people in these programs tend to be older than those who do similar programs in the UK. There's a far higher premium on work experience in your application.

Good luck!

Reply 65

EconLou

12

Somewhere like Brigham Young seems to take the 'college experience' to the extreme. Mormons are certainly interesting.

Reply 66

arkbar

12

With regards to the crime rate thing, both Washington and Baltimore rank rather highly on this table, oh well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Reply 67

Chengora

Very true, but at least with SAIS, you're on Embassy Row - probably the safest neighborhood in DC.

Reply 68

DrAtomic

1

shady lane

You didn't disagree with anything that I said...at all.

Sure I did. You implied that the Jesuit affiliation has a great impact on the students' life. I said in my post that it doesn't really have any affect. Students at Georgetown don't feel pressured to be Catholic and they don't feel left out if they aren't Catholic. So yes, I do disagree with you.

League Tables/John Hopkins University/International Relations

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