<p>It does not have any particularly strong department, except SFS. Northwestern, Rice, UChicago and even WashU are all much better than Gtown. Anyone care to explain?</p>
<p>Location , Location , Location
And a beautiful campus</p>
1 Like
<p>Clinton went there, thatâs why</p>
<p>Prestige is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but thereâs a couple of broadly understood reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Georgetown is the oldest Catholic university in the United States. Insofar as attending Catholic - and only Catholic - schools was considered an imperative for Catholics in America for a long time (and for some to this day), Georgetown was seen as a top destination for the Catholic elite in America. Antonin Scalia, the valedictorian of his graduating class in the College, would be the most prominent modern example of this. Some earlier examples would be Francis Kernan, who was a U.S. Senator in the 1870s; Francis Condon, who was a Rhode Island congressman and Chief Justice of the RI Supreme Court in the middle of the 20th century; and Philip Hart, for whom the Hart Senate Office Building is named.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>One has to keep in mind that anti-Catholic sentiment remained strong in many pockets of the United States throughout most of this time period, so the list is perhaps not as long and prominent as one might imagine. Within Catholic society, however, the school occupied a high place. </p>
<p>This is also true to an extent in Central and South America, where many of the elite sent their children to the U.S. to be educated. This is the source of alumni like Ricardo Arias Espinosa, president of Panama in the 1950s; Alfonso L</p>
<ol>
<li>Royalty and International Prominence. Georgetown is the alma mater of the King of Jordan, the past president of the Phillipines, the crown princes of Spain and Greece, the immediate past prime minister of Lebanon, the founder and first leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the oposition party leaders in Pakistan and Indonesia and current lesser known heads of state for Costa Rica, Lithuania and Bosnia. The head of the European Commission taught at SFS in the early 1990s as well. It can be argued that Georgetown is the most politically prominent institution in the world.</li>
</ol>
<p>âIt does not have any particularly strong department, except SFS. Northwestern, Rice, UChicago and even WashU are all much better than Gtown. Anyone care to explain?â</p>
<p>Based on what metric specifically? For example, if you wanted to go to Wall Street, Gtown hands down is better than any of those schools mentioned. But if you wanted say engineering, then obvi some of those schools are better (since Gtown does not offer engineering).</p>
<p>Georgetown actually has many strong departments, although SFS may overshadow some of the others. Itâs also in a great location, and some of its sports teams are occasionally pretty good (basketball is the one that comes to mind). I remember attending my schoolâs session with a Georgetown representative, and I swear Iâve never seen a bunch of more starry-eyed teenagers in any other such session besides Princetonâs. I think itâs just a really good school in an awesome location, that also happens to have a pretty good social scene.</p>
<p>Georgetown is very fortunate, and prestige is in peopleâs minds.</p>
<p>Georgetown has a commanding position in peopleâs minds because it boasts a number of differentiating characteristics that make it unique and desirable. There are too many to list, and some have already been listed, but here are some.</p>
<p>First, it is really hard to get accepted, and has been for years. It consistently attracts an international applicant pool from the best high schools not only in the usa, but also Europe, and Latin America. Not everyone can get in. Wash U, NW, and Rice havenât always been as hard to get in to. </p>
<p>Second, it is old. 1789. It has had generations to build its track record as a prestigious university. Wash U, NW, and Rice do not have this advantage.</p>
<p>Third, amazing alumni. Rhodes Scholars, Heads of State, Law Makers, Military Officers, Educators, Athletes, Artists, and Leaders in general. Wash U, NW, and Rice have not differentiated themselves this way.</p>
<p>Fourth, location. Wash U, NW, and Rice are in nice cities, but they offer different opportunities than DC. St. Louis, Evanston, and Houston are not as well known as Washington, DC and arenât as âprestigious.â Georgetown is fortunate to be the best school in the nationâs capital.</p>
<p>Fifth, emphasis on undergraduate education, but with the resources and opportunities that come with a large research university.</p>
<p>Before I start, Iâm going to say that Iâm not going to be a Georgetown basher. In fact, I have visited Georgetown and I love DC. However, this being in the Georgetown forum does result in one sided arguments. I want to make this a âdynamicâ discussion.</p>
<p>
Umm not necessarily: Northwesternâs Kellogg is viewed as one of the top, and occasionally the best, B-school in the country. Their track record in terms of graduate performance and alumni reputation at large firm is very solid. I have a family friend who got a pretty amazing offer to be a manager of operations between China and US at a large pharmaceutical company before she even graduated. Kellogg has great recruitment and itâs reputation is difficult to rival. UChicagoâs Booth is often considered just as good and often times better than Kellogg (1st many times). It benefits from the countless Nobel Laureates it has in economics, along with MacArthur fellows. Itâs faculty in many ways is unrivaled by any school in the country, even Harvard. Even economics at UChicago (at the undergrad level) is often viewed as the toughest and the best due to its amazing faculty.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The âdoes not have any particularly strong departmentâ bit is misleading. When âstrengthâ and âreputationâ of academic departments get discussed, the conversation is really skewed toward graduate (and PhD in particular) programs, research grants secured and funding generated, inventions patented and technologies commercialized, etc.
[quote]
Unfortunately, the argument present here is common and somewhat misleading. The strength of its research program at a research school depends on itâs grad program. Reason being: grant money. Grant funding from NIH and NSF is often is often dependent on the its graduate program. Reason being is that graduate students are the one that have the most experience and are permanent members of the lab (for 5 years, unlike undergrads who are often a year or so). So the strength of the research at a school depends on its grad program. Now if you are going to talk about education, then the best schools are not research school really. The best schools are liberal arts schools. Unfortunately Georgetown does not secure as much NIH/NSF grant money as Northwestern, UChicago and especially WUSTL. The three schools dwarf Georgetown. This means that there are oftentimes better research at the three other schools. Of course I am talking about research, reputation of a department in the academic world comes from research. If you are going to be an academia and are aiming for a Ph.D. (in science that is) as an undergrad, to say that oh âresearch skews the reputation of a departmentâ is a really bad idea. The majority professors end up being researchers and if you want to work at a renown university, you have to do research.
Pure speculation as people often come up with these to explain why they have not gotten into a school. Exhibit A: the âTufts Syndrome myth,â even admissions representatives on CC from other schools have said that this is a myth. BTW, you know that Yale waitlisted 900 kids two years agoâpeople should start accusing them of using their waitlist to game their admissions number. Also all of these schools listed (with the exception of Rice) received applications over 25K, which further proves that the statement is just pure speculation since it is not like the school is short on the number of people they can admit. Pretty sure that over 5K of those students are top 10% of their class.</p>
<p>
Sports does not determine prestige. This was a good to extend the number of word count in that post. I mean one can just say that Rice baseball made it known for D1 seeking athletes. Northwesternâs Big Ten football is well respected. Also, there is the problem that people realize that the Big East conference has become somewhat of a laughing stock. Even Georgetown admitted in the Hoya (student newspaper) that their basketball program is failing. They always get out in the first few rounds. Georgetown basketball has lost a lot of its prestige. </p>
<p>
Northwestern Law School is often considered just as good, occasionally better. </p>
<p>
Two words: Nobel Laureates</p>
<p>
Age is not a factor in determining the reputation of a college. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is older than Georgetown but lesser known. So is The College of William & Mary. But lets say this: MIT is a younger school than Georgetown, why is it known in the world as the best engineering/science school? Proves that age does not really affect prestige. </p>
<p>
Gotta disagree on this one. NW and Uchicago is located near chicago. Top firms in business, law, medicine, etc have bases if not headquarters in Chicago. Not to mention the Chicago Stock Exchange, Georgetown doesnât have one. The medicine can be countered with the number of top hospitals in Chicago: NW Hospital, UChicago hospital, Rush hospital. BTW, NIH research is often not done in Bethesda Maryland. Many of their research is linked to top universities like the schools above. Houston has the Texas Medical Center: the largest collection of hospitals and medical institutions in the world. It is many times larger than NIH complex. The result: million in biotech and biomed research. Top cancer research in the world (MD Anderson). Houston has the SECOND highest number of fortune 500 companies in the WORLD, after NYC. DC canât top that. A cityâs prestige doesnât mean a schools prestige. Look at American University: itâs in DC, but it is not well known. But look at Princeton: oh yeah, its in Princeton, NJ. Nothing there but amazing restaurants and shops. Oops, it somehow got to be one of the best schools.</p>
<p>
Sigh, all of these schools have focus on undergrad education. Rice has more undergrad than grad students. WUSTL, UChicago and NW has great push on accelerating its undergrad students by providing graduate resources to them, while maintaining that professors have to teach undergrads.</p>
<p>^^^Good points</p>
<p>Although I still think age does play somewhat of a factor. The Ivy League is proof. They have had many more years to increase their endowments and to attract the nationâs best and brightest. Rutgers is an outlier and it could be argued that William & Mary is well known because of its history, not in spite of it. Princeton also has the advantage of age and historic location (off Rt. 1 the oldest east coast thoroughfare) connecting Boston, NYC, New Brunswick, and Philly.</p>
<p>Also, I think sports can play a roll in determining prestige. Again, I will point to the Ivy League. By competing in the Ivy League there is automatic prestige for non-HYP Ivies. I think Rice and WUSTLâs prestige would greatly increase if they were invited to compete in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Georgetownâs greatest strengths when it comes to prestige are:</p>
<p>Consistent and sustained selectivity (I think age is a factor here);
Attracting elite applicants (I think location, post-grad opportunities and DI sports are a factor here); and
Educating well-known and successful alumni in prominent fields</p>
<p>gunit5 - Sure, Iâm game:</p>
<p>Pure speculation as people often come up with these to explain why they have not gotten into a school. Exhibit A: the âTufts Syndrome myth,â even admissions representatives on CC from other schools have said that this is a myth. BTW, you know that Yale waitlisted 900 kids two years agoâpeople should start accusing them of using their waitlist to game their admissions number. Also all of these schools listed (with the exception of Rice) received applications over 25K, which further proves that the statement is just pure speculation since it is not like the school is short on the number of people they can admit. Pretty sure that over 5K of those students are top 10% of their class.</p>
<p>Not pure speculation at all - Iâve worked in admissions and am speaking from direct experience. Iâm not talking about âTufts Syndrome.â If you really want to know the nitty gritty, feel free to PM me. </p>
<p>Iâm not sure what the Yale waitlist comment is supposed to mean - schools use waitlists to make sure they donât underenroll and to guard against greater-than-anticipated summer melt. Yale doesnât have to worry about summer melt as much as almost any other schools, but having a waitlist is still prudent. The number of people you ultimately draw from a waitlist is not large enough to substantially impact admissions numbers, so if youâre suggesting that a school might waitlist people instead of admitting them outright in order to deflate their admission rate, I can tell you that doesnât really work.</p>
<p>Also, the point of manipulation isnât being âshort on the number of people they can admitâ - it is to artificially lower the admission rate. This is often done by attracting people to your applicant pool who you probably would NOT admit. Thatâs why itâs considered to be ethically questionable.</p>
<p>*Sports does not determine prestige. This was a good to extend the number of word count in that post. I mean one can just say that Rice baseball made it known for D1 seeking athletes. Northwesternâs Big Ten football is well respected. Also, there is the problem that people realize that the Big East conference has become somewhat of a laughing stock. Even Georgetown admitted in the Hoya (student newspaper) that their basketball program is failing. They always get out in the first few rounds. Georgetown basketball has lost a lot of its prestige. *</p>
<p>The âword countâ jab doesnât really make sense - why would I or anyone else on here want to increase our post word counts? Iâm not Dickens, getting paid by the word.</p>
<p>In any case, sports may not directly correlate with prestige, but they do correlate with name recognition and have other related effects (school and campus spirit and alumni loyalty are the most commonly perceived ones) that can boost prestige. It is inarguable that Duke and Georgetown got massive boosts in name recognition thanks to their basketball programs, and this took place at the same time as their selectivity and national reputations grew. Meanwhile, lots of great schools, particularly LACs, are unknown to most Americans because of their lack of high-profile sports. </p>
<p>College baseball is not particularly high profile, especially outside of the South, but Iâm sure that Rice does get some benefit from having a top flight baseball team. </p>
<p>I have no idea where you get âthe Big East conference has become somewhat of a laughing stockâ - in basketball?!?! UConn won the national title this year! And got 11 teams into the tournament! WVU was in the Final Four last year, UConn and Nova both the year before that. As for Parimalâs column, note that its title implies GUâs program is still elite (a status it risks losing if lack of success continues). In any case, though the last few seasons have been disappointing, Georgetownâs brand and name recognition (which is what weâre talking about here) remain strong.</p>
<p>You cannot seriously compare Northwestern football to Georgetown basketball in terms of name recognition, especially among those who were around in the 1980s and early 90s, many of whom now have kids who are applying to college.</p>
<p>Northwestern Law School is often considered just as good, occasionally better.</p>
<p>It is also less than half GULCâs size. Notice I said âvery large and very prominent,â not âbetter than all the others.â</p>
<p>Two words: Nobel Laureates</p>
<p>How many Nobel Laureates can you name? Especially non-Peace Prize ones? How many do you think the average person can name or has ever heard of?</p>
<p>Age is not a factor in determining the reputation of a college. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is older than Georgetown but lesser known. So is The College of William & Mary. But lets say this: MIT is a younger school than Georgetown, why is it known in the world as the best engineering/science school? Proves that age does not really affect prestige.</p>
<p>Age is not a necessary or sufficient condition for prestige, but it is a contributing one for sure. Just look at a list of the âcolonial colleges,â i.e. the colleges that were chartered as such prior to the Revolution. Seven of the nine are ivies; the other two (W&M and Rutgers) became public schools later in their history. Institutional history unquestionably plays a role.</p>
<p>Location is similar - contributing condition, but not necessary or sufficient. A lot depends on how well an institutional takes advantage of its location.</p>
<p>Sigh, all of these schools have focus on undergrad education. Rice has more undergrad than grad students. WUSTL, UChicago and NW has great push on accelerating its undergrad students by providing graduate resources to them, while maintaining that professors have to teach undergrads.</p>
<p>Itâs all relative and a question of degree, of course - no one is going to come out and say âwe donât focus on undergrads.â To what extent promotion matches reality is always hard to know without being on the inside. In this case, I was discussing Georgetownâs specific history, which makes it more akin to LACs (who all hammer home the âundergraduate focusâ theme constantly) in some ways. Iâm willing to bet the proportion of resources devoted to undergraduate vs. graduate education is much more heavily weighted toward the former at GU, although they are looking to balance things out more going forward.</p>
<p>
Letâs see: MIT and Caltech, no sports, better known than Georgetown. Williams, Swathmore, Amherst: D3 sports, well known. Emory, Vanderbilt: Not big accomplishment in sports, well known.
GEORGETOWN DOES THAT A LOT. They consistently emailed me as a Sophomore after I took the PSAT. They sent me a HUGE package describing their school and their financial aid. It was like the size of an acceptance letter package. I get post cards telling them that they are going to be in my area or to come visit during the summer. They remind me that the application deadlines are this and this date. Tell me that isnât attracting applications like crazy. L
ast time I checked, Harvard does that too. [Ivy</a> League Colleges Solicit Students Rejected for Stake of Selectivity - Bloomberg](<a href=âBloomberg - Are you a robot?â>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>
Ehh, if you know how getting to March Madness works (and I believe you do), you would realize that each conference has already a selective amount of openings. There is ALWAYS an Ivy school, regardless of how good their basketball is. There are Always numerous Big Ten schools, regardless of how good they are. Itâs not like the Frozen Four where you actually have to win regardless of your conference. As for the Big East, they are viewed as very disappointing in the last for years. For 11 teams, there should have been much more winning, but the number of upsets shows you that big east did not deserve to have 11 teams in the tourney. [Big</a> Eastâs Performance Is Upsetting, But Itâs No Failure - NYTimes.com](<a href=âBig East's Performance Is Upsetting, But It's No Failure - The New York Timesâ>Big East's Performance Is Upsetting, But It's No Failure - The New York Times)
<a href=âhttp://www.thehoya.com/gu-risks-losing-elite-status-if-lack-of-success-continues-1.2231404[/url]â>http://www.thehoya.com/gu-risks-losing-elite-status-if-lack-of-success-continues-1.2231404</a> </p>
<p>
Hello, we live in the 21st century. Children today have the wonderful internet to learn about colleges. The âmouth to mouthâ way of telling a person to apply to a certain college has become outdated as children are expected to understand a college through research as oppose to just hearing it from another person. A person can learn more about Georgetown from the internet than from another person, including their parent. Plus, colleges has changed dramatically since the 19th, 20th century. Name recognition changes throughout the year. Many schools have rose in academic accomplishment over the years so that 19th, 20th century prestigious school may have been replace by a more superior school that wasnât there years ago. WUSTL is a good example of this, so is Rice.
Heck, before all this, only wealthy families could afford to pay for the top schools, not the internet had allow students to search up financial aid and has allowed schools to advertise their financial aid advantages.
This does bring up one point, Georgetown financial aid is not very stellar, making it less attractive to poorer kids. </p>
<p>
You do realize that if you ask the common people, most people canât name the college that Bush went to. They will name that Clinton (both of them) went to yale, as oppose to Georgetown. Many people donât know that Obama transferred to Columbia, instead they know that he went to Harvard law. Many people canât name the school that Kennedy went to (Harvard). Many people donât know that Carter went to the Navel Academy. Point is, many people donât really know the colleges another person went to. Many alumnus donât advertise the school they went to. Go around and ask what college Bush graduated from and most people wonât even know that he went to Harvard. Similar to how many wonât think that Clinton went to Georgetown.
P.S. The alumnus reputation doesnât always mean a school has better teaching. Why is it that UChicago is the most sought after school for Wall Street recruiters? Itâs because they know that UChicago grads are often some of BEST students in Economics and Business graduates and have some amazing training in economics and business due to their training by Nobel Laureates. How many classes has Clinton taught at Georgetown? UChicagoâs reputation is very high (higher than Georgetown) amongst grad schools and employers because they know that their grads have been taught by faculties that are in the top of their field. Georgetown SFS has some of this advantage but many of their other departments donât have this advantage. Also Georgetown has many visiting professors, which is a good thing as it provides them with real life experience, BUT it provides many cons. While they may be interesting and might help you learn about their field, the problem is that they are not fully dedicated to teaching and thus are harder to keep in tough with. Also some newer professors (ones that are new visiting professors) do not have much experience with teaching, which further limits the âliberal artsâ that georgetown offers. The large number of visiting professors kinda counters the âundergrad focusâ as true undergrad focus would mean professors who are dedicated to teaching, not to doing other professions like researching or doing their other jobs (reason why LAC are not called Research universities).</p>
<p>
True, but it does reveal that one canât say Georgetown is better than the other schools because of this.
To me, I see that location can only boost, but location does not equal prestige. Dartmouth, which is in the middle of nowhere (okay maybe not but it somewhat isâŠapologies to my friends at Dartmouth), is prestigious but most people canât even say what state Hanover is.
Age is still a debate. A school like Caltech has accelerated itself into one of the best college in the world but itâs more due to its own research achievements rather than its history. Johns Hopkins has been viewed has one of the best biomed school not because of its location (heck Baltimore has become synonymous for crime) but because of its research.</p>
<p>Anyways, Georgetown is still a great school, thatâs not lie. This probably is my last post because I realize posting is taking a long time and I have to study for finals. Itâs been fun though.</p>
<p>Youâll def come back⊠you just spent all this time writing this (you might not post, but youâll come back)âŠ</p>
<p>Hmmm.</p>
<p>So when the 8th place team in the Big East team wins the national championship, and a middle of the pack team (St. Johnâs) beats Duke during the regular season the Big East is disappointing? I am sorry Gunit5, that argument defies logic and is not supported by empirical data. Your time may be better spent studying for your finals rather than making ridiculous arguments supported by opinion pieces from a college newspaper and the times. </p>
<p>Regardless, the OP was asking about the reason for Georgetownâs prestige not whether or not it is better than WUSTL, Rice and Chicago.</p>
<p>@gunit5 - Bush went to Yale undergrad. Both of 'em. Also Caltech has very little international recognition. Same goes for Vandy, Emory, Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst.</p>
<p>2 things i find awkward about this thread. </p>
<p>the big east is beginning to be seen as overrated, for the past two years, to many teams have gotten to the dance but have gotten out early, or underwent big upsets. also, one team doesnât define a whole league. that would be saying that the Western Atheltic Conference is a great league because the affiliated team BYU has made it to the sweet 16. you have to look at the performance of the whole league and the past two years have been pretty disappointing for most of the league ([2010</a> NCAA Tournament: Big East Leads Conferences in Letdowns - The Daily Fix - WSJ](<a href=â2010 NCAA Tournament: Big East Leads Conferences in Letdowns - WSJâ>2010 NCAA Tournament: Big East Leads Conferences in Letdowns - WSJ)). i do give props to UConn for winning, though iâm not very happy with their ncaa conflicts. </p>
<p>@rainbsprinles: yes, bush went to harvard (business school). and georgetown also has very little international recognition. common people in asia and europe canât name beyond the the HYPSM. just go study abroad and go around asking, i can tell you thatâs for a fact when people asked what school i was applying to.</p>
<p>When you are abroad in Asia and Europe and are doing your asking are you doing so near the Presidential or Royal Palace? I would find it hard to believe, for instance, that an educated person in say Spain or the Philippines is not aware of Georgetown.</p>
<p>^^you said educated person
if we take that into account, many educated person would know caltech, duke, northwestern, dartmouth, uchicago and a lot of the other prestigious non-HYPSM. esp since duke and northwestern has campuses in china and the middle east so it doesnât even have to be the educated. caltech is funded partly by NASA as it has the jet propulsion lab, which all physicists and astronomers know what that is. we are talking about common people who are not as educated about the world as people who have professions where they spend a great deal of time in academic institutions.</p>
<p>*I am sorry Gunit5, that argument defies logic and is not supported by empirical data. Your time may be better spent studying for your finals rather than making ridiculous arguments supported by opinion pieces from a college newspaper and the times. *</p>
<p>Sports junky right here, but to just touch upon basketball, i have to agree with gunit5 (what a gangster name) on this one.</p>
<p>âempirical dataâ: capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment (Merriam-Webster)
Statement to prove true: the big east is disappointing/not good in performance</p>
<p>Observation (quantifiable):
11 entered.
By the 3rd round, 4/11 teams were out.
By the Sweet 16, 9/11 teams were out.
By the Elite 8, only one team was left: UConn.
For 11 teams, 5 of which were ranked top 4 in their region, one would expect more.
In 2010, only 2/8 teams made it to the sweet 16. Deja vu in 2011? I think so.</p>
<p>Also, isnât reputation subjective? To blow some opinion page off doesnât fit when you are trying to argue âreputationâ. Itâs funny that you blow off your own collegeâs newspaper. Great school support right there. By the way, when someone writes an opinion page, there usually is facts in it. You might want to learn how to read articles rather than just the title/subject. Journalism today (unfortunately) has a lot of opinion in it. Big East had a bad performance, thatâs why people wrote about it. If it didnât then it wouldnât have been published. The NY Times is a well respected paper, heck it is one of the worldâs best. Itâs articles are backed by facts you know. Though ESPN or SI would be a better site for sportsâŠ</p>
<p>Letâs see: MIT and Caltech, no sports, better known than Georgetown. Williams, Swathmore, Amherst: D3 sports, well known. Emory, Vanderbilt: Not big accomplishment in sports, well known.</p>
<p>The name recognition of Caltech, Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Emory are far below that of almost any school with big-time athletics. That says nothing about relative prestige, mind you, but the subject in this particular instance was name recognition and the effect that had on Duke and Georgetownâs visibility. In their cases, that visibility was accompanied by descriptions of them as âelite.â</p>
<p>GEORGETOWN DOES THAT A LOT. They consistently emailed me as a Sophomore after I took the PSAT. They sent me a HUGE package describing their school and their financial aid. It was like the size of an acceptance letter package. I get post cards telling them that they are going to be in my area or to come visit during the summer. They remind me that the application deadlines are this and this date. Tell me that isnât attracting applications like crazy. L
ast time I checked, Harvard does that too. Ivy League Colleges Solicit Students Rejected for Stake of Selectivity - Bloomberg</p>
<p>Yes, most schools do PSAT Search letters. But the vast majority target them toward students who are likely, based on their scores, to end up in the competitive applicant pool. Certain schools increase the range of scores to include those who can be reasonably expected to not be competitive. Some go even further beyond that. That is what Iâm referring to, not just advertising or direct mailing writ large.</p>
<p>Hello, we live in the 21st century. Children today have the wonderful internet to learn about colleges. The âmouth to mouthâ way of telling a person to apply to a certain college has become outdated as children are expected to understand a college through research as oppose to just hearing it from another person. A person can learn more about Georgetown from the internet than from another person, including their parent.</p>
<p>I know what century we live in, thanks. A person can learn lots of stuff on the internet, of course, and how much they do will vary on a case to case basis. In general, however, parents continue to play a primary role in the college search process, particularly since most often they are the ones footing the bill. Studies have borne this out repeatedly - parental input in the process is one of the most important variables.</p>
<p>*Ehh, if you know how getting to March Madness works (and I believe you do), you would realize that each conference has already a selective amount of openings. There is ALWAYS an Ivy school, regardless of how good their basketball is. There are Always numerous Big Ten schools, regardless of how good they are. Itâs not like the Frozen Four where you actually have to win regardless of your conference. *</p>
<p>Huh??? There is always an Ivy League school because every conference gets one auto-bid. It is absolutely not true that âeach conference has already a selective amount of openingsâ - the selection committee decides how many teams get in from each conference, beyond the one automatic qualifier. You absolutely do âhave to winâ to get picked.</p>
<p>The selection criteria for getting picked are primarily RPI, quality wins, W-L record, etc. Reputation plays into that, especially the first two categories, and the BEâs reputation is a big factor in them getting that many teams in.</p>
<p>What all the people commenting on the basketball aspect seem to be missing is that March Madness, as a single-elimination tournament, has a large degree of luck and chance in it. Looking at the teams that won or made the Final Four has some value, but only some - the CAA and Horizon League arenât substantially better or more elite just because George Mason and Butler made the Final Four. You have to look at overall performance throughout the course of the season.</p>
<p>Look at RPI, look at national rankings, look at how many teams were picked for the tournament, look at amount of national television exposure and TV contracts. By all these metrics, the Big East remains a powerhouse conference.</p>
<p>You do realize that if you ask the common people, most people canât name the college that Bush went to. They will name that Clinton (both of them) went to yale, as oppose to Georgetown. Many people donât know that Obama transferred to Columbia, instead they know that he went to Harvard law. Many people canât name the school that Kennedy went to (Harvard). Many people donât know that Carter went to the Navel Academy. Point is, many people donât really know the colleges another person went to.</p>
<p>Your last sentence is accurate, but politicians tend to be a notable exception to this rule because their biographies are so widely dissected and publicized. They donât go over a Nobel Laureateâs past the way they do a politicianâs, even a relatively local politicianâs.</p>
<p>Also Georgetown has many visiting professors, which is a good thing as it provides them with real life experience, BUT it provides many cons. While they may be interesting and might help you learn about their field, the problem is that they are not fully dedicated to teaching and thus are harder to keep in tough with.</p>
<p>âVisitingâ doesnât mean what you think it means in academia - it is a designation given to non-tenure track faculty who are given full-time appointments. You mean adjuncts.</p>
<p>The large number of visiting professors kinda counters the âundergrad focusâ as true undergrad focus would mean professors who are dedicated to teaching, not to doing other professions like researching or doing their other jobs (reason why LAC are not called Research universities).</p>
<p>The amount of time in the classroom is the same, whether the professor is a full-time faculty member or an adjunct. There are lots of full-time professors who spent all of their time outside of the classroom doing research and other things not connected to undergrads; conversely, there are many adjuncts who mentor undergrads and assist them in myriad ways.</p>
<p>*True, but it does reveal that one canât say Georgetown is better than the other schools because of this. *</p>
<p>Itâs a good thing I never claimed it did, then. The question was âwhy is Georgetown so prestigious.â Age and location are part of the explanation - for Georgetown. For other schools, the factors will differ.</p>