Excalinbai

If you have a job lined up in the Foreign Service afterwards, then obviously the concerns would be A) personal enjoyment, and B ) maintaining as much money saved as possible :). In this case, if SAIS hasn't given you a full tuition, then i think it would be incredibly foolish to attend it (and pay out the nose) when you could go for free + subsidization elsewhere. This is especially true when you consider the opportunities if you choose to leave, at any point, the foreign service. If you do decide to leave, Princeton or Harvard will give substantially more 'oomph' to your resume and applications than SAIS. From my view I'd take Princeton because of the full tuition, extra stipend, and the high academics and community. Harvard's name might be good, but HKS is hardly IR focused - and Cambridge/Boston while nice is not exactly a breeding ground for either IR or future FSOs. That leaves SAIS, of course, but again, tuition is notable and are you really willing to pay what, 50KUSD per year just to live in DC, when the future of being an FSO is not living in DC anyways? I'd say the decisions is set but just my opinion.