Stanford vs Williams vs Georgetown

collegemom3717
Wed, 29 Apr 2020 08:30:41 +0000

Why would you use up your EA on Georgetown? they are super specific that there is no admissions boost.

REA at Stanford appears to double your chances of admission- including athletes (so the bump is not as strong as it looks), and legacies. Legacy status at Stanford is supposed to mean that instead of a 5% chance you have a 10-15% chance(based on a comment from Hennessy in 2013).

In other words, your legacy status probably puts your statistical odds in the same range as Williams and Georgetown SFS.

But: Williams takes almost half its class ED.

Based on what you have posted, it seems that your main interest in Stanford is that it is, well, Stanford (“weather, campus, and elite reputation”), and you might be able to leverage connections to help you get a top name. Williams won your heart with its environment, culture, and proximity to home. Rather than working on trying to figure out odds, I suggest that you start drafting your ‘why us’ essays: the discipline of shaping a strong case may help you focus on what really matters to you.

Finally, about Georgetown…

has fabulous programs in the areas im looking to study, but I’m a little concerned about its quality of student life (I’ve read online reviews saying that students are often stressed and unhappy), and I’ve heard that its facilities are siginificantly worse than S and W (probably because of its low endowmen per student). Is this true in your experience? Georgetown has been my dream school for years, so it would be great for me to have these concerns addressed.

1. The College and SFS are different beasts entirely- be sure which you are dreaming of, and which you are evaluating.

2. Online reviews should always be read with a caution!

3. Anecdotal: one of my collegekids has spent time at both Stanford and Georgetown. Stanford's big budgets show around campus (it is beautiful), but her dorm rooms weren't noticeably better / worse, nor was the food. Couldn't tell you about gyms, etc. I will say that ime Georgetown is very DC- policy wonks are not the most attuned to how swishy their digs are!

Distilling out the factors that matter most in a decision is hard. Watch any home-buying show on tv and there is the first time buyer couple with a tiny budget who simply can’t buy that house b/c it didn’t have the granite countertops and stainless appliances that they deem essential. You have to decide what is essential for you, at this stage of your life. SFS is quite simply in a universe by itself for IR. It will not have granite countertops, but it will have the best foundations going.

Fwiw, another choices you should consider, but that won’t be at the level you are looking: GW. In some ways GW is an even better option that Georgetown- esp if you lean more politics than IR- b/c they are really, really good at in-term internships (neither SFS nor AU come close). That’s partly b/c the campus is an easy walk to all the offices where you would intern, and partly b/c the course structures are timed to work with internships. Make no mistake- it takes some hustling to get the internships (there is a lot of competition!)- but the school works with you and you have some built in advantages. Money may be no object for tuition, but after you graduate the field you are looking at is ferociously overcrowded, and poorly stipended internships are the price of entry (followed by a masters in about 5 years time). The more you can knock out while in college the better set up for meaningful (meaning decently paid) jobs soon after you graduate.