|
|
Post by happyhoya1979 on Jan 24, 2015 17:20:23 GMT -5
Foreign Policy again (last ranking was in 2012) ranks SFS Number one at Masters Level and Number 4 in front of Columbia and Yale and behind Harvard, Princeton and Stanford for Undergrad.
Congrats to the SFS!
|
|
|
|
Post by datombz on Jan 25, 2015 13:49:31 GMT -5
Link?
|
|
|
|
Post by happyhoya1979 on Jan 25, 2015 20:52:30 GMT -5
Saw it in my hard copy which came in mail Saturday.
|
|
|
|
Post by datombz on Jan 26, 2015 18:20:03 GMT -5
Ah, OK. I was curious of rankings of other schools - SAIS, Tufts, Columbia, Princeton, George Washington, American--since I don't have a subscription and can't find it online.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2015 12:16:12 GMT -5
Ah, OK. I was curious of rankings of other schools - SAIS, Tufts, Columbia, Princeton, George Washington, American--since I don't have a subscription and can't find it online. So has anyone been able to track down the actual list? Would be curious to see the full rankings.... |
|
SirSaxa
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 15,620
|
Post by SirSaxa on Feb 3, 2015 19:47:10 GMT -5
Someone didn't search the web all that hard. I found the following lists - below. Excerpts - and a link - included for your convenience :
Top Master's Programs for Policy Career in International Relations
1.Georgetown University 58.61% 2.Johns Hopkins University 47.76% 3.Harvard University 46.31% 4.Princeton University 33.33% 5.Columbia University 31.21% 6.Tufts University 29.08% 7.George Washington University 26.06% 8.American University 17.11% 9.London School of Economics 13.42% 10.Stanford University 5.37% 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% LINK: foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/ |
|
|
|
Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 4, 2015 0:13:43 GMT -5
Yikes. #4 in undergrad?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2015 13:17:22 GMT -5
Someone didn't search the web all that hard. I found the following lists - below. Excerpts - and a link - included for your convenience :
Top Master's Programs for Policy Career in International Relations
1.Georgetown University 58.61% 2.Johns Hopkins University 47.76% 3.Harvard University 46.31% 4.Princeton University 33.33% 5.Columbia University 31.21% 6.Tufts University 29.08% 7.George Washington University 26.06% 8.American University 17.11% 9.London School of Economics 13.42% 10.Stanford University 5.37% 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% LINK: foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/I actually spent quite a bit of time searching for this with no results. The only thing that came up was the 2012 poll. I wonder if FP just put this article up on the site because it certainly wasnt there the previous week. Thanks for linking though. (And the snark) Edit: I actually just re-searched on google and it only went up on the FP site yesterday.... www.google.co.il/search?q=top+international+relations+programs&oq=top+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59j69i60j69i59j0l2.2320j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8#q=top+international+relations+programs+foreign+policy |
|
|
|
Post by datombz on Feb 4, 2015 17:59:14 GMT -5
Someone didn't search the web all that hard. I found the following lists - below. Excerpts - and a link - included for your convenience :
Top Master's Programs for Policy Career in International Relations
1.Georgetown University 58.61% 2.Johns Hopkins University 47.76% 3.Harvard University 46.31% 4.Princeton University 33.33% 5.Columbia University 31.21% 6.Tufts University 29.08% 7.George Washington University 26.06% 8.American University 17.11% 9.London School of Economics 13.42% 10.Stanford University 5.37% 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% LINK: foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/Just came out online yesterday. Thanks for finding it though. |
|
RusskyHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
In Soviet Russia, Hoya Blue Bleeds You!
Posts: 4,596
|
Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 4, 2015 19:03:09 GMT -5
Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Have you taken a look at the endowments of the three schools above Georgetown in this list? Or, for that matter, the ones immediately below? Talk about "punching above your weight..." |
|
|
|
Post by Problem of Dog on Feb 4, 2015 23:40:05 GMT -5
Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Have you taken a look at the endowments of the three schools above Georgetown in this list? Or, for that matter, the ones immediately below? Talk about "punching above your weight..." If you're not first, you're last. |
|
|
|
Post by hilltopper2000 on Feb 6, 2015 17:01:09 GMT -5
I completely agree pash. Very good point. Why the Government Department cannot obtain the sorts of ranking generally that SFS does for masters and undergrad is beyond me. Some of this is surely the endowment's continued weak performance (which is a topic for a different thread), but the overall strength and reputation of the institution, as well as the location, are assets that should allow us to develop a world-class program, instead of just a good one. Government did have a recent big lateral hire in political theory, but we have never replaced Ikenberry with someone of similar stature, and he left ages ago.
|
|
RusskyHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
In Soviet Russia, Hoya Blue Bleeds You!
Posts: 4,596
|
Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 6, 2015 17:14:53 GMT -5
That undergrad ranking is up a spot from the previous survey, G'town having jumped over Columbia. If I recall correctly, the undergrad ranking comes from a survey of policy people who are asked which undergrad institution provides the best preparation for a career in international affairs, regardless of major. So it's not really a program ranking; if anything, I'm slightly surprised that G'town ranks as highly as it does there. The master's ranking comes from a question that asks more specifically about a particular degree program. Georgetown's MSFS offering seems to have solidified its grasp on the top spot in recent years, picking up a little breathing room over SAIS's programs. There's no indication that the question is any different for the graduate programs - it's an institutional ranking, not a ranking of a specific major or program. Here's the wording from FP: When I worked for one of the SFS master's programs (I won't tell you which one, but it's the one that is much stronger and more prestigious than the MSFS hahaha  ), everyone EXCEPT for the MSFS folks understood it to be a "SFS graduate programs"-wide award. Or, potentially, even broader than just the SFS, since programs like the M.A. in Conflict Resolution or MAGIC (M.A. in Global, International, and Comparative History) could also conceivably be viewed as IR terminal masters. The thing that stands out to me about these rankings is the disparity between G'town's rankings at the undergrad and master's level versus the PhD level. Georgetown has consistently come in between 13th and 17th in doctoral ranking, and that's probably even too high, a product of the institution's overall reputation in the field rather than an accurate reflection of what Georgetown's doing at the doctoral level. The SFS, of course, doesn't even grant PhDs; the program that this survey ranks is presumably the IR program offered by the Government Department, in the College. It's disappointing to me that Georgetown has no world-leading doctoral programs, and all the more so that it lacks one in the field ithe university's best known for—and seemingly only because of institutional politics. There's every reason to think that hiring some theory people and building out an IR program with the SFS's name on it would give great results, but nobody seems interested in giving it a try. I think it's worth parsing out the two different threads here: the ranking of Georgetown's IR PhD program and the fact that the SFS is not in the business of granting PhDs. I'll tackle the first one here and save the second for a bit later on. With the PhD rankings, one really must bear in mind that this is a survey of academics at universities. Said academics are very strongly biased in favor of academia and self-propogation. IR as a field may be a bit better in this regard than most, but it is still a strong bias. What I mean by this is that, generally speaking, academics in the humanities and social sciences see only one purpose to doctoral studies: the creation of future generations of academics (who will, preferably, go on to spread the theories and philosophies of their teachers). It's pretty much U.S. tenure-track job or bust, the most prestigious the better. Working at RAND or a think tank or in government or at the University of Lisbon or something is not considered worthy. Georgetown, by contrast, accepts and graduates a huge (relatively speaking) proportion of PhDs who have no intention of becoming academics. They are military officers, career civil servants, university administrative lifers trying to get a PhD in order to break through many of the glass ceilings that exist in academia for non-PhDs, internationals of various stripes, etc. etc. As a result, Georgetown's program is not regarded as highly, irrespective of the quality of the instruction, the dissertations, the faculty's research output, or the learning outcomes. Now, there's various reasons why the Georgetown Government PhD program has not been smashingly successful at placement of those who do want to pursue academia. Money has a lot to do with it: for a long time, the funding for doctoral candidates did not materialize as successfully as it did at more deep-pocketed institutions (if you're gunning for a top-tier tenure-track position, 999 times out of 1,000 you're getting your PhD for free and getting a stipend - that's just how the system works). More recently, the fact that Georgetown has resisted the prevailing tide of turning the discipline into a purely quantitative, number-centric enterprise (note that the program is still called Government, NOT political science) has also had a major impact. Long story short: there's a price to one's reputation to be paid for not going along with everyone else. |
|
RusskyHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
In Soviet Russia, Hoya Blue Bleeds You!
Posts: 4,596
|
Post by RusskyHoya on Feb 14, 2015 12:24:57 GMT -5
I think we're on the same page with regard to the what the survey asked. FWIW, you can find the 2014 TRIP survey here. The questions were worded as follows: What are the five best colleges or universities in [[country name]] for undergraduate students to study IR?
What are the five best masters programs in the world for a student who wants to pursue a policy career in international relations?
What are the five best Ph.D. programs in the world for a student who wants to pursue an academic career in IR?Needless to say, the fact that the PhD question explicitly asks about how well the program positions a graduate for an academic career in IR looms large in Georgetown's ranking. Were the question not specifically tied to the tenure track academia path, I suspect Georgetown would score better. With the PhD rankings, one really must bear in mind that this is a survey of academics at universities. ... Georgetown, by contrast, accepts and graduates a huge (relatively speaking) proportion of PhDs who have no intention of becoming academics. Yes, I know. That's my point. In our era of continually inflating credentialism, a PhD might increasingly be a professional qualification, but all the same a PhD is still primarily and essentially an academic credential. A doctoral program prepares a candidate for doing academic research, and a PhD remains the basic qualification for entry into the academy. If you think the only reason to get a higher degree in IR is to prepare for a career as an IR practioner, then it makes perfect sense that the SFS gives out only master's degrees. But if you think Georgetown could and should also be in the business of training the next generation of researchers and of shaping the contours of thought in the field (as I do), then the SFS's lack of PhD programs is a big demerit. Georgetown is too narrowly specialized on the practice of IR, on training diplomats and policy wonks, in my opinion; the SFS would do better to embrace the academic side of IR as well. The current arrangement of programs at Georgetown obviously has a lot to do with institutional inertia and the way things developed and shook out over time, but I do think there is a logic to it. I would amend your statement to say that it's not that Georgetown specifically is "too narrowly specialized on the practice of IR," but rather than the School of Foreign Service is indeed specialized on the practice of IR - and is intended to be. Its original raison d'etre was to train diplomats, to put IR into practice. It's not a school of international relations, it's a school of foreign service. The area studies programs and practical functional programs housed within the SFS reinforce this. There are many implications of this core mission and identity: the curriculum is intentionally highly interdisciplinary, with courses drawn from many different departments, an emphasis on languages, four economics courses (two short of a minor!), and strong encouragement for study abroad. This is a much different curriculum than what one would pursue if one wanted to specialize in the academic study of international relations as a subset of political science. Study of IR as an academic field is certainly necessary to a foreign service education, but it is not sufficient. Fortunately, for those who DO want to focus their energies on IR as an academic discipline, that pathway is available at Georgetown...through the Department of Government. It seems like a perfectly logical dichotomy and 'division of labor' to me. Now, there's various reasons why the Georgetown Government PhD program has not been smashingly successful at placement of those who do want to pursue academia. ... One of them, I would argue, is that Georgetown isn't getting the caliber of candidates it could because it doesn't offer a PhD in IR under its best brand—the SFS. I would argue that the institution's brand as a whole is much more important than the brand of a specific school within that institution. Still, granting that the 'IR school' brand does carry some weight and value, it is certainly a plausible argument that granting PhDs under the SFS brand, combined with a re-orientation of the SFS toward a more academic and less practical education in IR, could improve the overall ranking of Georgetown IR PhDs. So, let's look at the some other schools by comparison. Johns Hopkins SAIS is obviously a very strong brand, falling 2nd behind Georgetown for Master's programs, above even Fair Harvard. Obviously, there is no SAIS at the undergraduate level, which helps explain why Hopkins is only 16th in the undergrad rankings. But SAIS does have a doctoral program. Where does JHU rank there? 17th - 2 spots BELOW Georgetown. How about Tufts? A very strong, well-regarded Master's program - good for 6th. Fletcher too grants PhDs... yet Tufts is nowhere to be found in the Top 25 PhD programs. The Maxwell School is good enough to get Syracuse a 16th place ranking among Masters, above the likes of Cal-Berkeley, Cambridge, and Michigan. They are nowhere to be found on the PhD list. I'm sure we could do some interesting statistical analysis to see what sort of relationship there is between the two variables (Masters ranking vs. PhD ranking), but from just taking a glance, I would say that there's plenty of instances where the an IR school's strong brand at the MA level is not translating to a comparably high ranking at the PhD level. Again, to me this is perfectly logical. Practically-focused programs, including those Master's cited above, are interdisciplinary, emphasize part-time faculty who still have one or both feet firmly in the realm of practice, and value pragmatism over theoretical orthodoxy. Academic-focused programs are... pretty much exactly the opposite. I'm simplifying things a bit, obviously, but there's a clear distinction between the two approaches. It is also quite logical to me that, given these two competing approaches, it is better to let each one pursue excellence in its own way. Countless literature has been written (I'm thinking specifically of Harvard Business professor Clayton Christensen's works) about the dangers of trying to make a single organization optimize itself for more than one way of doing things. The value propositions, incentive structures, target audiences, etc. are just plain different, and trying to be too many things to too many people is typically a recipe for failure. So, to sum it all up: Let the SFS be the SFS. Let the Government program, with its academic (though less purely academic and quantitative than most) study of IR as a subset of political science, be the Government program. They are both better and stronger as distinct entities with different missions and approaches. |
|
), everyone EXCEPT for the MSFS folks understood it to be a "SFS graduate programs"-wide award. Or, potentially, even broader than just the SFS, since programs like the M.A. in Conflict Resolution or MAGIC (M.A. in Global, International, and Comparative History) could also conceivably be viewed as IR terminal masters.