American University

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is more competitive than GW. This has been discussed on these boards previously.

GW - 40%+ acceptance rate
American - 36% acceptance rate

How obtuse can you get? You have to look at who's applying and who's getting in. At AU the mid SAT range is 1220 to 1380. At GWU it's 1310 to 1440. That's a pretty big difference.

Pretty obtuse on DCUM. There are hundreds of past comments in dozens of threads re how easy it is to get into Virginia Tech because of the high acceptance rate.

And then you have kids with 1500 SAT and 4.5 not getting in to Va tech. But hey, their acceptance rate is high. Whatever.

American U is not with the money. Its $67,000 full fright which is most readers of this forum. Virginia a tech is $27k for in-state and a better reputation

Nobody is applying to AU and VATech (or at least they shouldn't be). They are completely different schools, in different environments, with different strengths.

[Anonymous]

OP, our friends’ son who is very interested in politics went to AU and had a good experience (he graduated a couple of years ago). He got lots of internship opportunities - he actually took a semester off to help run a campaign - and has been steadily employed in campaign work across the country since graduating.

Other schools to consider with those stats: U of Delaware, VA Tech non engineering, JMU, Elon, U of Tampa.

[Anonymous]

oh and College of Charleston

[Anonymous]

I’m an AU alum, and all my fellow classmates I’m still in touch with have gone on to solid (and in some cases stellar) careers in journalism, law, politics/campaign management. The career center there is excellent. The vibe is definitely more pre-professional than humanities-focused, and is also liberal, as someone else pointed out. Merit aid can be really good for applicants with strong stats. (One of my kids applied a few years ago but did not attend.) There is also strong support for students with LDs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can do a lot better than American U with $67k a year.

OP here. Can you give me some examples of "better than" schools for a kid with same stats? Again, let's say 3.6 W and 1250 SAT (Naviance shows good likelihood from our public school). I think AU has some cache in this town. I am involved with recruiting at my company, and AU has more name recognition than other random privates or even some lower ranked publics that accept kid with same stats. In other words, for a kid looking to stay in DC, AU is probably a better bet than a SLAC in the mid-west that people around here have not heard of. Or on par with some of the lower ranked state schools in the DMV.[/quot


Yes, you said you were in-state FCPS. All of the better ranked in-state Virginia schools -the top one your kid can get into. Exhaust those first and save the difference for grad school. If you really want to throw money at privates, there are many threads here on better privates for a kid with your child’s stats. But first look at the Virginia schools with great placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is more competitive than GW. This has been discussed on these boards previously.

GW - 40%+ acceptance rate
American - 36% acceptance rate

I noticed this. Also the cost of attending American seems to be astronomical. It seems to be a complicated place I'd love to hear from actual grads what they make of it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is more competitive than GW. This has been discussed on these boards previously.

GW - 40%+ acceptance rate
American - 36% acceptance rate

I noticed this. Also the cost of attending American seems to be astronomical. It seems to be a complicated place I'd love to hear from actual grads what they make of it all.

acceptance rates mean nothing. All it says is that the school devoted more marketing resources to generate more applications. Lots of privates hire departments who do nothing but market the school in order to get your kid to apply in order to turn them down in order to drop the selectivity percentage. For example, see U of Chicago and Northeastern. This will be specially true this year but there has been an abnormal increase in no. of Hail Mary applications at the elite schools because some students thought “test optional “ was their Golden ticket. (so far that has not turned out to be true SCEA,REA, ED and EA.

[Anonymous]

“Especially”. Sorry. Tony phone.

[Anonymous]

Tiny phone. Lol

[Anonymous]

The significant factor isn’t selectivity, since tgat can be manipulated, it’s the quality of the student body as 14:18 on page 1 points out. Those are large SAT differences

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is only a sophomore in HS (FCPS highly ranked), but I am curious about kids from the DMV who go to American. In my line of work, I meet many recent American grads and am almost universally impressed by them. My DS likely won't have the stats to go to UMD/UVA type flagships but still a good A/B student and we can afford private. I don't see AU mentioned much on this board. Any thoughts as to why?

It doesn't get as much play on this board because most kids who stay local, go to a state institution in VA or MD, and those who do not stay usually try to put some distance between college and home.

[Anonymous]

They marketed themselves as the wonk school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got an MA at American but would not have spent the money there for undergrad. I think it’s worth only for certain programs like international service, pre-law or law, journalism and communications, and political science. I know there are a lot of internship opportunities in DC and they help facilitate those which also make it strong for the aforementioned areas. I got an internship while I was in grad school which, along with my MA, surely helped me land a job in my field after I got my degree. AU definitely has name recognition in DC but I agree has an inferior reputation compared to GW and Georgetown, except for the programs I mentioned. I think the campus is fine, I mean it’s not huge but in my view preferable to GW which feels so disjointed.

Me too. I went to Howard for undergrad (English/Spanish) but attended AU on a fellowship. They did a fantastic job of preparing me for a career in the Foreign Service. However, if I had 67K to spend, I would want a more highly-ranked school in another state.

[Anonymous]

Why would you pay that kind of money for a dinky school no one respects. It’s for rich kids who were too dumb or poorly connected despite being rich kids to get into a respectable school. Send your kid to UVA / UMD if they don’t get into Harvard / Princeton or another Ivy.

[Anonymous]

It has it's own stop on the Metro, that is super cool.