I want to major in International Relations and Affairs and i would like to know which universities have the best program in the country. And I want to know about their undergraduate foreign relations program since i am still in high school. Thanks!
Since international relations is generally an inter-disciplinary field, majors such as Government, International Studies, World Politics, Global Studies and Public Policy should also be considered.
[Here ya go](Inside the Ivory Tower - Wikipedia).
London School of Economics is ranked 2nd in the world behind Harvard. The school is also 20% American, so you won’t be alone!
The rankings referred to above are not data driven. They are the result of a simple poll of professors in Poly Sci Departments (which as mentioned above are only one component of IR) conducted by The College of William & Mary. Foreign Policy magazine only publishes the poll. The fact that William & Mary now appears in their own ranking system (after about 10 years of advertising to the population they are polling) raises questions about what the poll is really measuring.
https://trip.wm.edu/home/index.php/data/snap-polls
The following article (from Inside Higher Ed) makes for an interesting read, and raises the question - if the research of political scientists isn’t relevant outside of political science circles within academia, then why would the results of the poll be?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/07/polisci
Note that the IR “Undergraduate” rankings in the poll tend to correlate closely with the ranking of IR Phd programs. This makes sense given the population that is being polled.
In one of the years, people working in government were polled and the results correlated closely with the ranking of IR
Masters programs. This makes sense given that masters programs are more focused on “relevancy” because they feed government and NGO’s rather than academia.
In general, I would recommend evaluating programs based on ones own criteria.
If you are going to use rankings as a guide, then the “undergrad” rankings would be relevant to people who are not concerned about being relevant and the “masters” rankings would be relevant to people who are concerned about being relevant.
All the rankings are listed below with a link to the source.
In terms of career rather than academic focus, the US Government provides Diplomats in Residence to one school in each geographic region.
Here is the link to the schools:
http://careers.state.gov/connect/dir
Here are the complete rankings with the percentage of respondents.
Top U.S. Undergraduate Institutions to Study International Relations
1.Harvard University46.20%
2.Princeton University39.14%
3.Stanford University33.02%
4.Georgetown University28.06%
5.Columbia University24.37%
6.University of Chicago19.62%
7.Yale University18.67%
8.George Washington University11.39%
9.American University9.92%
10.University of Michigan9.49%
11.University of California—Berkeley8.54%
12.Dartmouth College8.23%
13.University of California—San Diego7.70%
14.Tufts University7.07%
15.Cornell University6.43%
16.Johns Hopkins University6.12%
17.Massachusetts Institute of Technology5.06%
18.College of William & Mary4.54%
19.Swarthmore College3.48%
20.Williams College2.95%
21.University of California—Los Angeles2.85%
22.Brown University2.74%
22.University of Virginia2.74%
24.Ohio State University2.64%
25.Duke University2.22%
Top Master’s Programs for Policy Career in International Relations
1.Georgetown University58.61%
2.Johns Hopkins University47.76%
3.Harvard University46.31%
4.Princeton University33.33%
5.Columbia University31.21%
6.Tufts University29.08%
7.George Washington University26.06%
8.American University17.11%
9.London School of Economics13.42%
10.Stanford University5.37%
11.University of Denver5.15%
12.University of Chicago5.03%
13.University of California—San Diego4.70%
14.University of Oxford4.47%
15.Yale University3.91%
16.Syracuse University3.13%
17.University of California—Berkeley2.57%
18.University of Cambridge2.35%
19.University of Pittsburgh1.79%
20.Massachusetts Institute of Technology1.68%
21.Middlebury Institute of Int’l Studies at Monterey1.45%
21.Sciences Po—Paris1.45%
21.University of Michigan1.45%
24.Graduate Inst. of Int’l and Dev. Studies1.12%
24.New York University1.12%
24.Texas A&M University1.12%
Top Ph.D. Programs for Academic Career in International Relations
1.Harvard University62.51%
2.Princeton University53.17%
3.Stanford University48.76%
4.Columbia University32.44%
5.Yale University21.80%
6.University of Chicago21.37%
7.University of California—San Diego16.00%
8.University of Michigan15.68%
9.Massachusetts Institute of Technology13.43%
10.University of California—Berkeley12.03%
11.University of Oxford8.59%
12.Cornell University7.30%
13.London School of Economics6.66%
14.Ohio State University5.48%
15.Georgetown University5.37%
16.University of Cambridge4.51%
17.Johns Hopkins University4.08%
18.George Washington University3.22%
19.New York University2.69%
19.University of Wisconsin—Madison2.69%
21.University of Minnesota2.26%
22.American University2.15%
22.Duke University2.15%
22.University of Rochester2.15%
25.University of California—Los Angeles2.04%