IR_Lion

My fiancee thought it up. We can't really afford a super fancy place for the wedding but since SAIS has been a place to educate my family for two generations she thought it was a cool idea. We decided on July 4th 2013 for our wedding date. She is applying to SAIS next year to join me since she is getting pretty tired of working at Accenture.

So maybe this is the ultimate in signal in lameness but does anyone here think SAIS would allow me to hold my wedding ceremony at the Nitze building?? lol

Georgetown, Columbia, and GWU are the best for the Middle East.

Then definitely due Georgetown though to be completely honest with you as someone that also specializes in Asian studies and Asian politics Georgetown is not very well known for Asia related stuff. Middle eastern fogettaboutit but Asian politics Georgetown is probably the only major IR school with no significant presence in Asia. I know Georgetown has a Japan specialist...I suddenly forget his name but he also is a SAIS alum. I'd suggest get some working experience, improve your Chinese, and apply to UCSD, SAIS, GWU, American. I spent some time abroad in Taiwan as well and I know NTU and NCCU have scholarships for foreigners to study Chinese. And while you are there you can try to get an internship at the cross straits friendship bureau. Grad school is an investment and something you should be 1000% sure will fit your career goals in the future and something you can gain out of it. My sister did an mphil in IR at Oxford 5 years ago and hated it and decided to go to American and loved it. She did the dual degree with a Japanese university and loved it. She just quit her job at Goldman Sachs Tokyo and is taking the Foreign Service Exam and hopes to follow in our parents footsteps by being a career diplomat in Asia.

Hi, My Fiancee's best friend did the LSE-PKU program and said she was extremely disappointed. The academics at PKU were extremely poor just because most of the professors struggled with english. She also complained that PKU used the english programs as ways to make cash. Also she said Wang Jisi the one head honcho that everyone wants to meet with doesn't care at all about the english taught program students. Also unless you are completely fluent in Chinese and can fight the administration to take Chinese taught courses I'd say go to georgetown but since its brand new may I ask why would didn't you apply to programs with more established Asian politics programs like GWU, American, or SAIS?

SAIS is the best in the country for ASIA related IR, the China department has David Lampton who is considered the godfather of all Chinese foreign policy, an extremely old and well known Japan studies program that has birthed such noted alumni as former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone, and the new Korea program is flushed. The functional programs get a lot more press but the asia concentrations are the real cream of SAIS.

I have to agree with yo_yo, I have come across plenty of SIPA grads in NYC and they tend to grumble when it comes to SIPA. Mainly they complain that the school seems like an afterthought to Bollinger's grand schemes for Columbia such as relying on the other divisions of Columbia to buttress the school instead of giving the school room to grow into its own. A pretty damn good example is the fact that if you want to study Asia at SIPA its basically through the weatherhead institute in Columbia College, instead of allowing SIPA the ability to establish its own centers that could cooperate with weatherhead the university tends to basically tell SIPA to latch on to everything the school's good at and no need to do anything on its own which is a damn shame. From what I know SIPA is great for international finance but thats mainly cause the people I met that had the most positive things to say did that focus.

@ Tingschu what people in HK do you talk to? Yes the normal HK citizen won't know JHU but the upper echelons of course will. And its the upper echelons that matter. I went to a JHU alumni gathering last time I visited HK to network with some HK SAIS people and there was the president of I-Banking at the Bank of China international there as well as a bunch of really high level personnel from HK government and business it seemed. Also HK in general seems to have a british education bias. One of my classmates did his masters at CASS last year and when he went to HK for job hunting he was pummeled with offers while when he tried to go back to America all he got were raised eyebrows. The reason why Georgetown is so famous is they are good at what they do. Their job was originally pumping out talented qualified diplomats for the American diplomatic corps and they have done that. Out of all the top 3 Ir schools (SAIS, Tufts, SFS) SAIS is the one that I feel is the least american centric of them. As in the people going there aren't gunning for a place in the US government.

I think SFS is more of a feeder school for the American foreign service from what I hear. SAIS is as well but it has more of an international flare, you have nations from around the world send their people there, for all those interested in Japan its almost like there is a clique for LDP high powered officials that are SAIS graduates (Former PM Nakasone for example) and relations like that can go a long way. At least in Asia SAIS is the most recognized IR school brand. SFS is still the magnet school for the rank and file American diplomat but at least for Asia SAIS wins hands down. By any chance does anyone know if they still teach Burmese at SAIS?? Its the only SEA language that is a closed link.

My stepmother is Japanese and she started teaching me Japanese after she married my Dad. They met when my dad worked at the US embassy in Japan years ago and they reconnected when she moved to DC to work at the Japanese embassy there and then got married. She is an awesome person but drove me crazy a bit when she decided to redecorate the house to make it more "Japanese" for her. She started to speak only in Japanese to me because I think she wanted to hear her mother tongue at home. Chinese wise..... when I was much younger I enrolled in one of the local afterschool "chinese" schools for Chinese kids whose parents want them to maintain their culture and language. Well I'm biased towards SAIS, I was willing to go completely into debt to go there, when I got the email I had my fiancee read it to me and when she shouted I got the tuition covered I honestly just broke down, called both my parents and my entire family and she did the same thing (she is half taiwanese half japanese and her parents weren't too thrilled about her moving with me to China for a year and taking a year off from her job in DC. We have been together for 6 years 2 of those long distance and she said she would come with me to China to avoid another year of long distance). I just received an email from a SAIS admissions officer that I built a really good relationship with.....OMG I CAN STAY FOR A 4th SEMESTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone in the China studies department I'll see you guys there!!! I am soooooooo relieved. 谢天谢地 上天你真的眷顾我！！！！！！！I'm now going to catch the amtrak down to DC. See my gal and go see SAIS with her knowing this is gonna be my home for 2 years!!!

Yes I got the The Starr China Knowledge for the World Fellowship and fully covered tuition ! And @IRToni I've had 10 years of Chinese (and working in China with Chinese clients kind of makes you kind of need it) and 7 years of Japanese before going to university and the only reason why I didn't say I'm completely native is that my Chinese scientific terms knowledge is a bit weak. Like I said before its hard for people to believe that a white person can be native in an asian language and I totally get that so I'm not insulted by your attempt to put down my accomplishments. 2nd of all the program is at the SAIS DC campus but the Nanjing program is like a top off. So I'm hoping that they will say fine you can stay for you final semester at SAIS. @ Ukiyo I know its about networking but I've done enough of that in Beijing and want to stay in DC. Oh my goal is to become the next Edwin O. Reischauer =). My biggest treasure are my pictures of me shaking Hu JinTao's hand and one of me shaking Junichi Koizumi's hand. They are framed on my wall with their nation's flags hanging below. I'd love to end up being the ambassador to China or Japan but since the only people that get that are millionaire donors to the president or political allies/compromises I'll take the private route and hope that I'll make enough $$ that when the time comes the democrat I support for president will win xD.

Hey I actually was considering applying to that school and it looked good but I got application filling in burn out syndrome by the time I decided to apply there lol. Are there any other schools in Asia you are applying to?

So can anyone help me out I'm really freaking out here. I was originally accepted into the SAIS program 3 semesters at the DC campus and 2 in Nanjing and I was hoping to know if I can just switch to the the 2 year program at DC? I recently returned from a business trip in China where I had the chance to fly down to Nanjing and visit the JHU center. Well I saw classes dumbed down because nearly every single foreigner there was "HSK" (the Chinese TOEFL) fluent but in the real world could not function in an academic environment in Chinese. I want my specialty at DC to be Japan AND China studies and was hoping to discuss the chance of this with the SAIS administration. While I'm not Asian I'm nearly native in Mandarin Chinese (if it comes to the admin questioning my language abilities since people tend to "exaggerate" their abilities when it comes to Asian languages I can show evidence supporting my claims. I was a published author in Chinese at a top Chinese university literary festival and have given talks on alternative energy investments all over China) and fluent in Japanese and was hoping to use that fact to buttress my argument for a double concentration since I heard its really hard to do especially if you weren't an economics major in undergraduate. I studied Political Science and East Asian Languages from a top 10 school in '09 and was asked to by SAIS to take their summer economics stuff. I'm really upset about the quality of students at the Nanjing campus and am worried that I won't get the full benefit of SAIS because I'd be basically doing nothing for 2 semesters but don't know how to ask SAIS if I can switch programs without stirring up drama. Does anyone have any ideas? SAIS has been my dream school since I can remember(my father, mother, both my uncles, and one of my aunts went there so there is a huge SAIS pride in the family) and I was really demoralized after visiting nanjing. Quick view of my stats. Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.):IR Schools Applied To: SAIS, SIPA, UCSD, Waseda University (Japanese taught IR masters), Peking University (Chinese taught IR masters), Georgetown SFS, Tufts Schools Admitted To: SAIS, SIPA, UCSD, Waseda, Peking University, SFS, Tufts Schools Rejected From: None Still Waiting: None Undergraduate institution: Top 10 Undergraduate GPA: 3.6 overall; 3.8 major Undergraduate Major: Political Science, East Asian Languages & Culture Last 60 hours of undergraduate GPA: Study abroad: China (one semester, 3 summers) Japan (one semester) GRE Quantitative Score: 670 GRE Verbal Score: 790 GRE AW Score: 5.5 Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 3 Years of Work Experience: 3 Describe Relevant Work Experience: Investment analyst in alternative energy based in Shanghai for 2 years then was moved to NYC last year Languages: English (native), Mandarin (99.99999999% native), Japanese (fluent), Korean (beginning), Thai (intermediate), Khmer (Beginner) Quant: 0 Econ all the Quant I have is what I picked up from my job International Exposure: Worked and studied all over East Asia. Internships at various think tanks in China as well as being the only undergrad foreigner invited to be a research assistant at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences when I was a sophomore. Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Demonstrated my interest in IR and my passion for Asian politics. I discussed the lack of transparency in the Chinese military as the main element of American foreign policy specialists viewing China as a revisionist power, Japan's goals of becoming a "normal" nation and how it can benefit America in southeast Asia, as well as my own experiences in Asian politics. Strength of LOR (be honest, describe the process, etc): 3 Recommendations: 1 big shot professor from my University that specializes in domestic Chinese politics that wrote me a glowing recommendation, my Chinese professor that stated I was the only non asian student she had ever taught that mastered a flawless standard Chinese accent as a sign of my tenacity and work ethic, 1 from my current boss that also consults for the UN in energy matters that joked around he would write me a horrible rec in order to make sure I stay at the company but wrote me a fantastic LOR. Others: I love pudding! 0 Quote MultiQuote