Tufts v Bowdoin

juliatorgo
Tue, 02 May 2006 00:31:35 +0000

The thing that you have to keep in mind is that Tufts has a lot of people who are interested in IR…IR grad programs are not included in the second link that gellino provided, from what I understand, so this places Tufts quite low on that ranking purely because it attracts a lot of students (of which I am one) to its exceptional IR program. The first ranking seems to put a lot of emphasis on public perception and popularity among the general public, where Tufts does tend to take a beating. Finally, I would say that the list of percentages of students that go on to obtain doctoral degrees suffers from the same skew with regard to Tufts as the second link; Tufts produces a lot of IR-interested graduates who go on to IR grad programs of various forms and end up at non profits, NGOs, various international organizations, humanitarian causes, working as diplomats, etc – most of these do not require a doctoral degree. I’m not saying that all students here major in IR; I’m just saying that since IR majors make up a large portion of Tufts graduates, it is likely to skew the rankings provided by gellino. Notice that I say skew. Certainly, there may be some truth to some of the rankings, but do take it all with a grain of salt.