Please help. My son has been offered acceptance to Yale, Georgetown, and Amherst College. He will be studying international relations and wants to go on to graduate school where he will ideally end up focusing on a career in national security. He likes the Francophone region of Africa and would like to double major in French as well. Obviously we feel blessed for this dilemma, but generally feel at a gridlock about what to do.
Georgetown is a powerhouse for IR and the internship and networking opportunities in DC is unmatched. Yet, we feel worried about the competitiveness of that, and if it would even be possible to take advantage of the city with such a rigorous academic schedule. We’ve also heard that maintint a high GPA is extremely difficult and that’s something we ideally want to maintain.
Yale is Yale. The name alone is magnificent and he likes the idea of a smaller and more intiment setting. Grade inflation is also a plus and the networking from the name would be a bonus. Not much to say about this.
Then there’s Amherst College. I’m not going to lie when I say that we really didn’t know about this school when he first told us. However, the more we hear the more we all like it. He loves the idea of a small intimate learning environment where Professors instead of TA’s (I think this is true at Yale too?) teach the classes. He wants to take advantage of research and internship opportunities and we’ve had many people tell us that from their first semester they were able to get involved in research. As with any LAC, education is the primary focus, and since there’s no graduate school at Amherst there’s even more emphasis on their undergraduates. Professors have talked on the phone with him for an hour, emailed, and even other students as well. I feel like he could really thrive here and not just be another number. Plus, their alumni network also seems to be amazing and extremely intimate as well.
We just feel worried that he might be passing up one of this “once in a lifetime” schools if he did go to Amherst. If money is not an issue in the equation what would you recommend for a great stepping stone to succeed in IR? I appreciate brutal honest and I don’t want him to give up a chance at one of these incredible opportunities for an idea of an intimate setting that could also be found at Yale or Georgetown. In your opinion, what should he do?
Amherst is a “once in a lifetime” school, too. One of the top few LACs in the country, great name recognition among anyone who needs to know (employers, grad schools, etc.), even if most of the general population is less familiar with LACs. Phenomenal faculty, classroom experience, and resources. A fantastic alumni network – and, more than that, you’ll find that graduates of LACs act as an extended alum network, even for alums of different schools, because they appreciate and respect the liberal arts tradition and feel an affinity with others who chose it.
What should he do? He should go to the school where he feels the strongest connection. If that’s Amherst, he won’t be missing out on anything. In fact, he might have more to gain.
Amherst places intermediate in selectivity among your son’s choices. In this WalletHub analysis, Yale receives a “student selectivity rank” of #7, Amherst of #20 and Georgetown of #31, when compared nationally:
In deciding from among these schools, I believe it would be best to consider aspects beyond perceived exclusivity of opportunity. And, even if you were to consider this aspect, Amherst still impresses.
I see no reference in OP re location/setting, housing/food, athletic facilities and other important quality of life/sustainability variables that should also be considered. I would weigh those at least at 40 pct as those can really derail a well planned track. DC, New Haven and Amherst could not be more different from each other in terms of locations and the same could probably be said for all of the other relevant variables in this department. Going on prestige or career track alone is a very high risk endeavor.
All three of these places are going to be competitive in different ways. Setting Amherst aside, Georgetown has multiples of more students and faculty focused on national security than Yale and gets the benefit of lots of national security practitioner professors teaching small classes about highly specialized subjects in national security, yet you have hundreds of SFS students in each graduating class competing for the same profs’ attention and internship opportunities. Yale and the Jackson School are a very small fraction of SFS, but Yale folks seem to end up at disproportionately high places when adjusted for class size compared to Georgetown folks, in the long-term; my educated guess based on very anecdotal evidence is that this happens because Yale national security undergrads get higher responsibility jobs in national security more quickly and historically come in from more plugged-in backgrounds and have more masters-of-the-universe extracurriculars/off-the-charts drives leading into college than Georgetown undergrads. Yale’s selectivity on the way in is simply insane. Yet, Georgetown has so many undergrads going into national security that the extent/size of their network is unmatched in national security.
If I wanted to go into national security and knew what I know today from observing and talking to friends in that career, I would probably pick Yale for undergrad and focus on playing a niche strategy based on personal competitive advantages in getting involved and connecting closely with the profs in IR and the Jackson school, work some after undergrad at as high profile as possible an opportunity and then do the very practical MSFS program at Georgetown. That way one would get both networks and strongly differentiate yourself with the Yale undergrad degree; MSFS hrs students also are likely to get much more personalized attention from profs. than undergrads at Georgetown, all other things equal.
You will need at least a masters to get higher profile jobs, so make sure you are factoring that into the money is no issue assumption, and no job in the public sector pays well or enough to justify a debt load at any level of education, unless you relatively immediate goal is to get on the business side of it all.
Amherst is considered prestigious where I come from, along with Williams, Wesleyan, Tufts, Middlebury, Bowdoin and the other “little Ivies.” I have heard the alumni network is very strong. Focus on undergrads. Part of a 5 college consortium with colleges nearby: UMass, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Hampshire. Great area.
I would have assumed Yale used a lot of TA’s (TF’s). Maybe check on that. The Yale residential houses are a plus. I don’t know much about Georgetown other than the obvious possible advantages of being in DC (which he could obtain in summer internships if he attends another school).
Has he visited? Attended classes? It is late in the month but with a decision like this, beyond looking at cost (if relevant), size, location, curriculum, career outcome, etc. it can really come down to “vibe.”
Personally I would encourage basing the decision on the present, not future career, since that may change.
If he tosses a coin and it lands on one of these, how does he feel? That is my sophisticated decision-making tool Good news is he cannot go wrong.
He could also intern part time in DC during the academic year if a student in DC. That wouldn’t be possible from Yale or Amherst.
What does your son want? He needs to make this decision…these are all fine choices and presumably there were reasons he applied to all three schools. Revisit those reasons and have him think about what resonates now that he has been accepted. Really, I’m not sure there is a wrong choice here…but your son needs to decide.
This sounds less like “gridlock” and more like the parent has one idea of what constitutes a prestigious college and the student may have a bit more current information. I went to a “little ivy” and attend annual Homecoming events where it’s either Amherst or Williams in the opposing locker room. Believe me, I know how to diss Amherst. But, at the end of the day, choosing Yale because it is supposedly more prestigious is just going to look stupid twenty years down the line. Yalies would be the first to tell you (if, they’re truly being honest) that it was an interlocking series of little Amhersts that their university was trying to emulate when it first started contemplating their famed residential system. In fact, every Ivy League university but two, began life as a small, liberal arts college and Amherst was the fourth largest institution of higher learning in the United States in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. So, it’s been well known among elite circles for a long, long time.
Either the student is posing as a parent or two people are sharing an account. Both violate ToS. If the parent wants to post, they need their own account. Indeed, since the student in question appears to be a different student than who was previously posting, he also would need his own account to post. The user on this account is a current college student. Closing.
Good news is he cannot go wrong.