Cali2015

You touched on two things that I kinda keep noticing: 1. Everybody at American is really nice, from the faculty to the students. Especially the students. Maybe thats because its not as "wealthy" as a school or because its more of a "service" reputation, but consistently I hear praises about the people. Conversely, I rarely hear anything positive about the people of GW/Elliott. Not necesarily negative, just not positive. 2. In spite of this, and other factors, people still choose/will choose Elliott. I don't think I've seen anybody on this forum explicitly say "I picked American over another DC school because reasons X, Y, and Z." And that kinda worries me. Almost like I'm missing something or I'm gonna get there and then realize why people go to other schools.

Filmore, that's a great response, thanks so much for sharing that information. Definitely encouraging to hear. I kind of feel the same way. American has been in contact with me multiple times and have really gone the extra mile to make themselves available. Any question I've asked has been answered very quickly and professionally. GW, on the other hand, seem somewhat disinterested and content to let their apparent reputation do the talking. The more I hear from people like yourself and Winter Solstice, it seems that the perceived idea of GW may not match up with the reality that I'm seeing. American seems like they're really gunning hard to improve their program and steal students away from other area schools.

Would love the opinion of both prospectives students and especially current/past grad students in DC on this one. I've been accepted into SIS and Elliott, waitlisted at SAIS and SIPA. I know I want to be in DC so that narrows it down one. The big catch is that SIS offered me an extremely generous aid package that covers a substantial amount of my education, while Elliott gave me nothing. Clearly, SAIS and SFS are the two biggest fish in DC. In searching these forums, there seems to be a feeling that Elliott is better than American, but I haven't seen any real discussion on the topic and that's what I'm hoping to generate here. I really like American's campus and how personal they've been with me so far. I've received an email from a professor I expressed interest in working with and a call from the director of the Global Governance/Security Program to help with any questions or thoughts I have about the school. This is a really encouraging thing to see and definitely has piqued my interest in the school. My biggest concern is being viewed as a second-rate Graduate student because I go to American. I don't want to lose out on jobs or internships simply because I'm going up against competition that outranks me. The FP poll had GW and American neck and neck, with GW one slot above it, but oftentimes I feel like people on this forum think it's bigger than that. So, GradCafe, let's hear what you think.