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Post by WilsonBlvdHoya on May 27, 2005 7:17:25 GMT -5
I had occasion to be in the GU Bookstore yesterday and noticed that it was carrying a profile of the University published by College Prowler for prospective students. The book was composed by former and existing students, including Derek Richmond, formerly of the Hoya. It's an interesting read and if you go to www.collegeprowler.com, you'll find GU is the #3 best-seller behind U Miami and Stanford. Some of the ratings are interesting too; the book rates "Guys and Girls!" Girls are given an A- and Guys a B (I think!). Certainly, the ratings for both sexes would have been lower in my time! More importantly, "Academics" is given an A and "College Town" an A+ (along with "Off-Campus Eating."). Feedback on Jesuits is universally and effusively positive as well. To close, the book provides instructive advice, stating that although GU is trying to become the "Stanford of the East" in attempting to enroll Harvard rejects, it also recommends that, if you would have preferred Princeton or Berkeley, don't come to GU since the school needs students whose dedication and commitment are unquestioned!!
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SaxaCD
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Post by SaxaCD on May 28, 2005 7:54:22 GMT -5
Harvard rejects? Wow, I never even considered Harvard as a place to go to school, because the time I visited there when my older brother was looking at colleges, all I saw were some of the geekiest people I'd ever seen outside of a tv show or movie. Maybe that's the way it is now, but when I went to GU, it was a school full of people who were looking for something quite different from what Harvard had.
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HoyaNCCT
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We will remind them.
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Post by HoyaNCCT on May 29, 2005 19:42:06 GMT -5
Harvard is a machine and produces machines. GU produces intelligent people with social skills - you make the choice!
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 3, 2005 22:51:00 GMT -5
As a male undergraduate I can happily report that the ratings of the guys and girls are about on target .
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thebin
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,848
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Post by thebin on Jun 4, 2005 10:59:09 GMT -5
CD, we may have covered this ground before, but when you applied in what, 80 or 81, probably very few GU students applied to Harvard, whether they wanted to or not, because let's face it, very few of them would have had a fighting chance. That's simply not the case anymore. I would say there are indeed plenty of Harvard rejects at GU these days. What I wonder about is how many Harvard admits matriculate here. I am sure there are several in the SFS, what I would like to know is it really just a dozen or so or considerably more. I don't think I will ever know though.
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FormerHoya
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Post by FormerHoya on Jun 6, 2005 17:52:00 GMT -5
Cue Jack...
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Jun 7, 2005 9:45:45 GMT -5
You rang?
Re: Georgetown v. Harvard- The best data I can obtain shows that Harvard has been in the top 5 overlap schools for applicants for at least 10 years now. Although there are obvious differences between the two institutions socially, there are also some similarities that would lead a student who is applying to Harvard to also consider Georgetown. The two are similar in size, highly selective, and located in great college towns in or nearly-in major east coast urban centers. For several years, GU and Harvard had similar early admission policies, with both schools allowing students to make multiple early action applications, and so many students applied to both schools early. Harvard no longer allows multiple EA applications, and as a result the numbers at both schools have had significant shifts in the past two years.
Furthermore, Georgetown does the majority of its recruiting with Harvard, Duke, and Penn as travel partners and consequently students interested in one of those 4 schools will hear from all of them and likely see them as peers. It is not coincidental that Penn and Duke are also in the top 10 crossover schools for applicants to GU. Other schools in that cohort include BC, GW, NYU, and Columbia. Clearly midsize east coast urban private universities are a draw to our applicants, and religious affiliation and big time hoops are only part of the equation.
As for how many Georgetown students were rejected by Harvard vs. how many turned down Harvard, keep in mind that Harvard accepted less than 10% of its applicants this year and every year over 80% of their admitted students choose to enroll, and that is done without binding early decision. Georgetown admits around 21% and somewhere around 45-50% enroll, and that still makes GU among the 15 most selective schools in the country. GU's yield has actually gone up in the past two years now that no Harvard applicants are in the EA pool- the yield on that group actually went from 39% in 2003 to nearly 60% in 2004 after Harvard adopted their single choice early action policy, so you get some idea where Georgetown was losing kids.
After that, win/loss data is much less scientific because it relies entirely on students telling you where they got in and where else they applied after they have made their decisions. GU attempts to survey all admitted students, but the response rate for those who do not enroll is typically only about 50%. Even so, we can safely estimate that more than 90% of Georgetown admits who are also admitted to Harvard choose The World's Finest University. That leaves maybe a 5-10 students in each class who choose Georgetown instead, and those who do so typically choose GU for a particular niche, most often SFS but occasionally Catholic identity or athletics.
In the end, I do believe that Georgetown has a significant population of Harvard rejects, but so do Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, Penn, Duke, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Cornell, Columbia, Williams, etc. It is not such a bad thing and it does not make it a safety school by any stretch. I also believe that many of the students who come Georgetown also come to love it and believe it was the perfect place for them even if the label Harvard was more prestigious initially. There may be a few students with Ivy-envy, but there also plenty of students like me who are glad they did not get into Harvard because Georgetown meant so much more than a degree.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 7, 2005 16:16:57 GMT -5
Being on campus for 3 years I don't think that ivy-envy is that prevalent. What I have noticed is GU-envy on the part of American and GW (I even heard a rumor that GW's new student orientation has a line about them all hating Georgetown). When I think of safety schools on the east coast I think more of: Syracuse, Pitt, BC, St. John's, Villanova, Providence, Seaton Hall, etc.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Jun 7, 2005 16:22:46 GMT -5
Being on campus for 3 years I don't think that ivy-envy is that prevalent. What I have noticed is GU-envy on the part of American and GW (I even heard a rumor that GW's new student orientation has a line about them all hating Georgetown). When I think of safety schools on the east coast I think more of: Syracuse, Pitt, BC, St. John's, Villanova, Providence, Seaton Hall, etc. GU envy is alive and well. I have brothers at GW and American. Both feel it would be weird to wear the gtown t-shirts and other gear I gave them/passed down to them over the years around their respective campuses. I don't think anyone would bat an eyelash if you wore Eagles or Buff and Blue stuff on the GU campus. Also, having hung out on both those campuses, the kids instantly bring up the issue...comparing the schools and alternating radically between speaking really self-deprecatingly and blasting Gtown for totally fictional faults.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 7, 2005 16:49:00 GMT -5
My personal favorite fictional fault was when I had a party at my Burlieth house last fall semester and a girl there from GW blasted Georgetown students for not inviting GW students to their parties.
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CTHoya08
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Bring back Izzo!
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Post by CTHoya08 on Jun 7, 2005 20:32:30 GMT -5
I for one am glad I received rejection letters from three Ivy League schools, as I probably would have chosen one of them over Georgetown. I'm very glad that I'm here, and do not experience any "Ivy envy" and I think a few of the schools are very overrated (although some are really excellent).
I have more of an anti-SFS bias, as most of the Foreign Service kids I know are pretensious and view themselves as the only reason Georgetown has a good reputation. (One of my best friends is SFS, and he agrees that most of the kids are full of themselves and obnoxious) I was leading icebreaker activities at a GAAP weekend and two of the kids in the group saw that they had SFS packets, and immediately started talking to each other about how they can't wait to be in SFS. I was disgusted. They also seem to have a strong dislike for the MSB (see Zumbrum's columns in the HOYA this past year) for some reason. This doesn't affect me personally, as I'm in the College, but it seems rather silly.
Also, it seems like Georgetown does a really bad job ininforming potential students about the different schools. I picked my school based on my intended major (History) without giving it much thought, as the differences were not really stressed in the literature I received or by the tour guides. I probably would have applied to SFS if I knew more about the program, but after meeting the kids, I'm glad I'm not one of them. Bit of a long response, by my basic point is that most kids are more interested in what's going on at GU than at whatever schools they didn't get into.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 8, 2005 0:39:22 GMT -5
I definitely agree that Georgetown does a very poor job informing applicants about the potential fields of study in each school. I have worked at New Student Orientation and am also a class of '06 member of the SFS and definitely saw some of the SFS exceptionalism as an orientation advisor - that was easily fixed with both example and a little sarchastic humor. I think most SFS students don't like MSB because they get fridays off and we don't because of our language classes (at least until junior year for most of us). I think all schools have an unfair perception of the nursing school, which is just as hard as any of the other schools IMO.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jun 8, 2005 8:41:25 GMT -5
"Also, it seems like Georgetown does a really bad job ininforming potential students about the different schools. I picked my school based on my intended major (History) without giving it much thought, as the differences were not really stressed in the literature I received or by the tour guides. I probably would have applied to SFS if I knew more about the program, but after meeting the kids, I'm glad I'm not one of them. Bit of a long response, by my basic point is that most kids are more interested in what's going on at GU than at whatever schools they didn't get into. "
That sounds like my story just about exactly. I was going to major in history so I applied to the college. What in hell does a high school kid know anyway? I had some sub-par history profs, and then went government (Internation Relations concentration) instead. I took as many IR classes as they would let me- and they were all SFS classes in every way. Its never been explained to me what the difference is between a college Govt-IR major and a SFS IPOL major save the map of the world test. I took several years of advanced Spanish as well.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Jun 8, 2005 9:10:00 GMT -5
As an SFS grad I can only confirm the stereotype. Most of the kids are extremely obnoxious and self-aggrandizing. Couldn't stand them. Although I will say that there were the exceptions to the rule...
In fact, I used to joke that there were plenty of closet SFSers on campus...kids who went to the classes and did well, but tried to avoid the stigma by socializing nearly exclusively with college and Bschool kids.
The funny part was, often, people you didn't realize were also in SFS would turn up in one of your classes -- at which point you exchanged guilty smiles and nervous laughter. You'd end up sitting together and rolling your eyes while some sophomore twit on a high horse made some garden variety comments in your course on US Foreign Policy and the Developing World.
Often you would see those other closeters at Chadwicks or Champs or some lacrosse party and give them a knowing smile...then crush a beer can on your forehead to eliminate any suspicion of your affiliation.
Good times.
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Jun 8, 2005 9:13:01 GMT -5
If I may, I wonder what more people think Georgetown should be doing to distinguish the schools. In the on-campus information session, 17 of the 50 slides in the power-point presentation are devoted to describing each of the four schools separately and making it clear that you must choose one of the four on your application and you may not double major across school lines. Likewise, in the shorter presentation done in the joint travel setting, 6 out of 17 slides are devoted to the different schools. To me, it seems like practically the only thing we talk about.
Certainly there is much more in-depth information that could be covered, but my experience is that a 45 minute information session is already quite long, and that there are other resources available for people who have more questions after the presentation. It seems to me that if you are going to the length of applying to GU, you could go a step further and visit the websites of the different programs you find appealing to see what is required as a government major in COL vs. what is required as an IPol major in SFS, then make an informed choice about which program is most appealing.
The one thing I will concede is that Georgetown is unusual in requiring students to make these choices before they have ever taken a class on campus, and it may be more helpful to everyone to have a common freshman year and allow students to sort out into the different departments after a year or so. That concept works for me, but would likely be frustrating to any arrogant SFS-types who believe that their program is the only worthwhile thing about GU and who would insist on knowing they were "in" to SFS before they enrolled at Georgetown. It would also create a climate for turf wars between majors and schools looking to get enough students to justify their continued existence. The current system sacrifices student flexibility for that type of predictability.
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CTHoya08
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Post by CTHoya08 on Jun 8, 2005 10:21:59 GMT -5
Maybe I didn't soak in every detail as I should have, but most high school juniors are looking more at the school as a whole rather than at specific programs, especially when they are visiting and applying to more than a few schools. It just didn't seem that the stark differences in curriculum between the schools were fully explained, the different schools seemed to me to be nothing more than a way to group majors and departments. Regarding the above post about the nursing school, one of my friends is a Health Studies major, and his classes sound a lot more difficult than mine, and he has to deal with a few male nurse jokes
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FLHoya
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Post by FLHoya on Jun 8, 2005 20:30:38 GMT -5
I had the chance to skim the GW version of the College Prowler today at work. It's also "written" by someone who graduated recently from the school and used to work in a prominent position for the school paper (The Hatchet).
Just for the record, "Georgetown" is mentioned maybe 4 times in the entire book that I saw, almost exclusively in the context of categories like "Off-Campus Dining", "Nightlife", and "Local Atmosphere" (i.e. "we go to Georgetown the neighborhood"/"you'll prob. go to Georgetown a lot while you're here").
But there's one item I found hysterical. This is the listing in the GW College Prowler for "Top Places to Find Hotties":
-Capitol Hill -Lerner Health and Wellness Center -Georgetown University
Which is odd, because the female-male ratio at GW is 57-43.
I'm not the best judge of campus life at GW, since I'm a grad student and it's an apples and oranges thing, but the gist of the comments the students made in the guide seem to be pretty in line with what I hear from undergrads and grad students who also went to GW.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 8, 2005 23:05:44 GMT -5
But there's one item I found hysterical. This is the listing in the GW College Prowler for "Top Places to Find Hotties": - Georgetown UniversityThat's odd because I've found it to be the other way around. There, I said it.
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hoyaboy1
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Post by hoyaboy1 on Jun 9, 2005 5:17:47 GMT -5
Whenever people tell me I don't seem like an SFS kid, I take it as a compliment.
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JimmyHoya
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Post by JimmyHoya on Jun 9, 2005 13:41:58 GMT -5
As an SFS grad I can only confirm the stereotype. Most of the kids are extremely obnoxious and self-aggrandizing. Couldn't stand them. Although I will say that there were the exceptions to the rule... In fact, I used to joke that there were plenty of closet SFSers on campus...kids who went to the classes and did well, but tried to avoid the stigma by socializing nearly exclusively with college and Bschool kids. The funny part was, often, people you didn't realize were also in SFS would turn up in one of your classes -- at which point you exchanged guilty smiles and nervous laughter. You'd end up sitting together and rolling your eyes while some sophomore twit on a high horse made some garden variety comments in your course on US Foreign Policy and the Developing World. Often you would see those other closeters at Chadwicks or Champs or some lacrosse party and give them a knowing smile...then crush a beer can on your forehead to eliminate any suspicion of your affiliation. Good times. Y'know this past weekend a few G'town grads came to my graduation andthey immediatly began grillin me on college vs. SFS Me: yeah I'm headed to Georgetown next year,should be exciting... SFS grad: which school? Me: college. SFS grad: UGH. Did you apply to the SFS? Why ya wasting time at the college of arts and crafts? The SFS IS the college! *college grad runs in* College grad: woooah there, maybe he isn't afraid of science? SFS grad: whaddya trying to say!? *continue SFS vs. College banter*
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