GW's Business or BU's SMG?

hayden
Sat, 23 Apr 2005 22:53:13 +0000

I’ll give you the info from my son, who is a sophomore there: first, he absolutely loves the school. I asked him last year which of his profs was the best, and he named 3 of them! As for stuff to do: Kennedy Center, Spy Museum (my son’s favorite), strolling over to the white house to see the lighting of the national tree was fun, the various parades and demonstrations they have all the time (which the kids seem to treat like some big party, regardless of the cause). He’s always raving about the food. when you say “do you have to go to Georgetown”, I’m not sure what you mean. The town of Georgetown with all its shops and restaurants is only a five minute walk from his dorm. It’s a lot closer than you might think. And there is a metro right next to the GW hospital, so most of the kids can get to any part of DC in just a couple of minutes. Closer than trying to take the bus in Boston ! G’town is further away if you drive, which may give you the wrong idea. But when you walk, Georgetown is basically around the corner. There are also a bunch of nice restaurants hidden inside a lot of the buildings - you just don’t see them from outside. Bertucci’s is an example of a restaurant / pizza place that’s tucked in a little brick building on campus that you don’t see until you go in. For other stuff to do there are all the campus groups - most schools of this size have the full compliment of all that. My son goes to the Japanese film thing, and a kendo club. Of course there’s politics all over the place. There are book signings, etc. So far he has Terry Pratchett’s signed book, he met Jon Stewart, etc. He met Kerry and Colin Powell. The new dorm has a large food court, with starbucks, etc. so the kids really congregate there a lot. My son had the same decision you do - honors at GW and honors at BU. At the end of the day, he wasn’t comfortable with a 4-lane highway down the middle of campus, or the winter weather, and chose GW. I understand why it’s important to have things going on, but at any school with over 10,000 kids living on campus, most of whom do not leave campus on weekends, you have to believe there are things going on.

But BU has a lot going for it also. It is really what you’re comfortable with. And either way, it’ll be the right decision.