I will be applying the upcoming fall and did some research on certain colleges, but want to see if I missed anything. I plan on applying through Questbridge to a number of schools with good IR programs. I mainly focus on warmer climates in America, so I’m looking into CMC over Pomona, as CMC’s major seems to revolve around government/diplomacy topics, rather than Pomona’s climate and social issues focused major. I was also looking into Georgetown, which is really my dream school, but I feel like Questbridge application process might make it too cumbersome to worry about doing a separate Georgetown application. As such, I wanted to explore better options.
Here are my main wishes for a school:
- Great IR program (or PolySci, for that matter), as long as the given school has a high rate of students sent to top IR grad schools.
- Moderate to conservative student body - I want a peaceful, relatively protest-free dynamic, where there is little culture of political correctness and no excessive social justice movement.
- Warm climate (preferable, but far from necessary)
- Would like to apply through QuestBridge’s Match process (can do ED for up to 12 schools, here is the list: https://www.questbridge.org/college-partners)
- Opportunities to double-major with Econ for better job prospects (with exceptions like Georgetown’s International Economics major, since it is marketable as is and leads to good grad schools)
- Internship opportunities
I would probably do some non-profit work for experience, but ultimately, I would like to ultimately pursue international politics/diplomacy/ambassadorships, or work for global economic market (IMF, etc). Please help me list some great programs with such reputations (since college prestige matters a lot in this market), and maybe hit some of my main wishes along the way.
Thank you