I was at a presentation at GTown SFS and asked the question about their peers. Without hesitation a Dean responded Princeton, Columbia, and Stanford. He than said it is a big gap to the next group. The only school he mentioned in the next group was GWU.
@Eeyore123 that’s a fascinating comment, especially that GW got a mention. Kind of backs up the Foreign Policy rankings (which I haven’t looked at in a while, but GW and American are always in the top 10 undergrad IR programs).
@monydad I should have been clearer. He was talking about undergraduate programs. SAIS is graduate.
@SJ2727 I think GWU got a mentioned because almost everyone in the room had/would be touring GWU. Everyone interested in IR does the GU, GWU, American circuit in DC when visiting schools.
Personally I would discount the combined masters because Chicago’s master’s program isn’t that strong.
Probably pretty much everyone graduating from either of these two u’s undergrad will be gunning for #s 1-6 master’s program, with maybe LSE thrown in. Is my guess.
@monydad I understand that I may change my mind on International Relations as a major. That’s why I’ve been looking at other majors offered at both schools as well. What I like about the Woodrow Wilson school though is that the major is very board so I have the ability to try out a lot of things. They have this cool policy task force that speaks to me.
Now that I’m thinking about it the majors of interest to me at UChicago require application processes so they’re not guaranteed. However, there is still other things I could look at there instead.
I’ve visited both campuses and I personally loved the community at UChicago more, but I loved the academic opportunities at Princeton more. Even campus wise, I favor UChicago a little more. Money wise to be more specific UChicago is a full ride with the $4K to do what I want in the summer. My books are also paid for at UChicago through a program I got selected for there. Princeton I’m looking at $4K a year (if a scholarship I applied for pills through) without the scholarship though I’m looking at $9K a year without including books and personal expenses. However, while my parents are comfortable paying it’s still something I’m trying to be mindful of. In all, I think I have to just make a pros and cons list and see what I value the most.
@privatebanker
FYI, what I saw was not Reddit. They seemed to be other PhD students giving advice to a prospective PhD; they talked about faculty names, subfields and placement.
Task forces and policy conferences have often traveled overseas at Princeton’s expense to research issues. Task force work is often modeled on the way research is done by government staff. Michael B.G. Froman ’85, a retired ambassador and former U.S. Trade Representative commented that “I can say with great confidence that there is a direct line between what I did at the Woodrow Wilson School and what I did as Trade Representative.” On numerous occasions, Woodrow Wilson School papers have been distributed to members of Congress, representatives at the United Nations and other policy making bodies and these papers and their recommendations have shown up in debates (and sometimes even decisions) made by these bodies. Even former U.S. Presidents have made private presentations to Wilson School undergraduates in these task forces.
Princeton is very often the most generous university providing financial aid. However, the FA is need based. I assume you have received some merit based aid from Chicago. While Princeton will often review need based aid the university does not attempt to match every merit aid program.
If you want to go into politics do not discount the support from Princeton alumni. Maybe because they valued their undergraduate experience Princeton alums are generally considered among the most supportive alumni in the US. Chicago Princeton alums were an important factor in Barack Obama’s political campaigns. Both Michelle Obama ’85 and her brother Craig Robinson ’83 are from Chicago’s South Side. John Rogers ’80 CEO of Ariel Capital Management and Mellody Hobson ’91, President of Ariel Capital Management were helping Michelle’s husband in his first race as an Illinois state senator and his presidential campaigns. Support from influential people is important to start a political career.
You are making thoughtful lists of pros and cons. Hope that you become a Tiger.
According to the Gtown SFS website, SFS has 9 deans. That is a lot for a single school within a university. It would be interesting to know which one.
In another post you said the dean used the term “overall”. We don’t know what he/she means by that. Does that mean Undergrad, Masters, Phd , or combined? Does that include the McCourt school of Policy? Does that include other schools at Gtown? Does that mean preparation for a career inside or outside academia? Is an academic dean qualified to judge relative preparation for a career outside academia?
In this post you said the dean used the term “peers”. We don’t know what he/she means by that. What was the criteria?
According to the Chronical of Higher Education, in academia, “peers” are usually aspirational. In the Chronical study (circa 2012), none of those “peer” schools mentioned Gtown as a peer (for the record, Princeton did not list any peers, so apparently it thinks it doesn’t have any 
). In that study Gtown did not list either Stanford or Princeton as a peer, but did choose Columbia and UChicago. All in all, the term “peer” is pretty ambiguous.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Selecting-Peers-for/134228
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/peers-network
A deans’ “presentation” to a potential applicant is best viewed as a sales pitch. The speed of response to a question is more a sign of practice, than a measure of certainty.
@SJ2727 - More likely than not, the dean has read the most recent ranking published in Foreign Policy Magazine
(SFS has a pointer to it on it’s web page). Since none of the SFS deans have attended any undergraduate (or graduate) IR programs their opinion is likely derived from the ranking published by Foreign Policy. This means that using the deans’ statement as validation of the ranking would involve circular logic.
Note that the ranking published in Foreign Policy is the result of a survey of a selected population of academic political scientists (who perform some IR research) conducted by William & Mary (not Foreign Policy Magazine). It has the same weaknesses as all rankings based on polls of academics with a vested interest in the outcome, but it arguably has more credibility than the opinion of a single admin at a single school. It is interesting that after several years of communicating with the sampled population, William and Mary now appears in their own ranking of undergraduate IR programs.