Which university is more prestigious, Georgetown or University of Washington?

May 25, 2010 2:18 PM

Which school, Georgetown or University of Washington, do you think has more name recognition and prestige? I got into the Masters program for Computational Linguistics for both universities but I'm not sure which one I should go to. It's okay if you don't know anything about the actual departments or linguistics. Just want your overall impression of both schools. Thanks!

Obviously I recognize that prestige should not be the only factor for deciding which school to attend but it is one of the variables I am having the most trouble quantifying. Other factors include cost and the quality of academics.

Academically, I believe the Georgetown program is a little better. But Georgetown is also more than twice as expensive as UW; something like $80K vs $30K for UW for the total cost of the degree. Unfortunately I haven't been able to scrape up funding from either program so far, so I'll probably have to pay for it on my own. Intuitively, I feel that Georgetown has a bit more name recognition which could be important in looking for a job afterwords.

If I didn't have to care about money it would be Georgetown without a doubt. But that $50K difference is pretty big and I'm not really sure a Georgetown degree is worth that much more than a UW degree. The reason I think "prestige" is so important is because, while I love linguistics, I still want to leave open the possibility that I might not be doing this 15-20 years from now, so I still want my degree to have some value (even if it's only cachet).

What do you guys think? Any thoughts?

posted by w84rav to Education (27 answers total)

It's a little shallow, sorry. Fifteen to twenty years from now your resume and experience will probably matter more than where you went to school. Forced to choose at gunpoint I'd say Georgetown, but that's pure name recognition.
posted by fixedgear at 2:22 PM on May 25, 2010

Actually I'd say UW is the better choice. Georgetown, to me, reads as more of a professional school/degree (Law, MPA, etc) whereas as a the flagship state libarts school (think Indiana, as opposed to Purdue), nobody would ask, "you can get an MA in linguistics there?" I just don't think of G'town as the sort of school that one attends to get something like a trad arts-letters-science MA.

Now if you're from WA state and you did your BA there, you might look a little more provincial if you went to UW for your grad school, but otherwise I'd perceive UW to be the better degree.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 2:26 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Honestly, I would go to UW. You'd have much better pull for jobs - You're close to Seattle and the Bay Area, which will be where the hot jobs are after graduation.

Georgetown might be a better school, and i'm sure the "big" companies will recruit there, but you'll miss out on all the cool startup/smaller companies that are located along the West Coast that won't even bother going to Georgetown.
posted by unexpected at 2:53 PM on May 25, 2010

East Coast or West Coast audience? UW means nothing to me here on the East Coast.
posted by smackfu at 2:58 PM on May 25, 2010 [6 favorites]

Georgetown (I'm an undergrad alumna; I went to UT-Austin for grad school but if Georgetown had a library science Master's program I absolutely would have tried to stay there)
posted by candyland at 3:01 PM on May 25, 2010

Don't know about computational linguistics, but UW is known as a top-notch school in a number of areas of computer science.
posted by madmethods at 3:20 PM on May 25, 2010

Yeah, where do you want to work? In DC / the East Coast in general, Georgetown hands down. On the West Coast, I bet people have a lot more respect for UW.
posted by charmcityblues at 3:42 PM on May 25, 2010

Really, GU by a landslide. (I don't know anything about the specific Comp. Ling programs, so I'm assuming they are about the mean of other programs at both schools.)

GU is a world class University. It's not a Ivy/Chicago/Standford (not all Ivy's actually are either), but it is firmly in the second group, in almost everything I've ever read. And (most importantly) this is not just and only about the prestige of the place, it is not all about the paper chase; it is also about what you will learn and be exposed to there. True, the biggest, best know Georgetown programs or the professional ones (Law, Medicine), but the renown of those programs helps them to attract people in other fields too. Plus, the location means that the professors there are better able to attract collaborators, and they can find exciting and important people to teach seminars and symposia.

Fifteen year from now you may not want to be in that field, but by then your opportunities will depend on the experiences and exposure you have had during this program and during those added years (not the name on the degree), and GU will provide more and better ones of those.

I'm not being negative about UW (at least not greatly; why don't people just call it Triple U?), I believe it is a very good state school, but it isn't even usually mentioned among the top of those, is it? Washington has two advantages: Lower cost (not to be ignored, for sure), and the huge network large state schools can provide. I can't see the second one mattering here; an undergrad in Business, sure; but in Linguistics of any kind? Employers are going to know the field.
posted by Some1 at 3:52 PM on May 25, 2010

I have to agree with those who say this may be an East Coast/West Coast thing. Where do you want to end up? And what, exactly, do you want to do with this degree? Academia or private sector?

(I'm really entertained by this question as my mother went to both schools for linguistics - undergrad at Georgetown, masters and PhD at UW.)
posted by shiny blue object at 4:08 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Georgetown has the name recognition, but assuming people who are hiring you actually know the reputations of the specific programs, that shouldn't be your biggest factor.
Also think about where you want to end up geographically after graduation.
But the money is a huge difference. I would figure out about how much you expect to make out of school and figure out if the debt you will be in with Georgetown is doable.
posted by ishotjr at 4:10 PM on May 25, 2010

I've taken classes at both - spent my freshman year at UW, and spent a summer at Georgetown. I live in DC now, but I hated Georgetown. It's tiny, there are little to no research opportunities (compared to a huge research institution like UW), and the people that I met were not nearly as interesting (interpret this as you will) as those at UW. I ended up at the University of Wisconsin, which will always occupy the largest chunk of my higher education heart, but the University of Washington has the most beautiful campus I have ever seen, has all of the opportunities Georgetown has x10, and I would tell you 500 times over that while you'd be perfectly satisfied with Georgetown (if you don't mind the small school atmosphere), you would fall head over heels in love with UW. Go Huskies!

Let us know what you decide, and if you need any more info, feel free to drop me a line! Good luck!
posted by eenagy at 4:27 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

$50,000, seriously? And you don't have the money?

If I had to chose between paying $1,000 a month for more than four years (just to put in perspective, interest-free) and, well, not...

With a masters in computational linguistics, how much could you expect to earn after graduation? I assume that your staring salary would be about $50K maxing out at about $75-100K at the height of your career (Google confirms). Seriously, it's not worth it. Not even close to worth it.

Not to mention that UW is a very good school, and living in Seattle is much more likely to score you those internships that will make or break your career.

$50,000.
posted by halogen at 4:28 PM on May 25, 2010 [4 favorites]

I think you should care a bit more about how the specific programs to which you've been admitted are viewed among those in the profession. I'm not sure you've been out of undergrad, but once you're trading on a grad degree, what matters is the quality of that program, not the quality of the school as a whole.

If you aren't really sure you want to stay in computational linguistics, you should not spend your own money to get a degree.
posted by OmieWise at 4:50 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Speaking as someone who grew up on the West Coast and did a master's at a prestigious university in the DC area, I agree that it's partly a regional prestige question and partly a debt question. And while Georgetown has more national name recognition, it's for other reasons and grad departments are sui generis animals; future you will be much happier (and less broke) after having gone to UW.
posted by kittyprecious at 4:54 PM on May 25, 2010

I'm a GU alum, and I would be the first to recommend it to you above another school, but as others have said, it really depends on your particular program and what you intend to do with your degree. Although GU has a very good linguistics faculty, for computational linguistics UW might be the better choice, especially given its size and location in the Pacific Northwest.

I see you posted the same question here as well.
posted by armage at 5:06 PM on May 25, 2010

UW is consistently on top lists for computer science! According to US News, it is currently number 7. It will also be tens of thousands of dollars less. Georgetown has a great linguistics program, but you may be confusing a school's relative worth in the academic world with name brand household recognition. If you can't get funding, most definitely go to UW. Why take on a mountain of debt for a school that won't even give you a TA position?
posted by 200burritos at 5:28 PM on May 25, 2010

Chiming in on the "depends on what coast you want to live on" chorus. You know how someone from the East Coast was all "University of Washington means nothing to me" and "it's a very good state school, but..."? I grew up on the West Coast, and Georgetown to me means professional programs and not much else; according to the listings it's well-regarded, but it is almost entirely off my radar. Likewise, the Northeast tends to deprivilege public school education, whereas on the West Coast the very best schools are all either public or Stanford. I don't think anyone thinks the UW is quite at the same level as, say, the best UC schools, but it is in most fields it has a very, very good reputation. Just like Georgetown is good but not quite an Ivy, right?

Is there anyone in particular at either school who you want to work with? And what are you planning on doing with your Master's? If you're planning on going on for a PhD, that's the school that's going to matter when you go on the job market...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:40 PM on May 25, 2010

I would say Georgetown, for both the prestige and the comp. ling program. Good luck; that's awesome you got into both...amazing accomplishment!

And I'm jealous.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:57 PM on May 25, 2010

UW is consistently on top lists for computer science! According to US News, it is currently number 7. It will also be tens of thousands of dollars less.

I don't think the UW computational linguistics masters program is part of computer science -- it seems to be an independent "professional masters program" with distinct faculty (some overlap with linguistics). So if it were in CS I think the choice would be clear (UW has name recognition in computer science no matter what coast you are on), but it isn't. If I were talking to one of my students I would recommend georgetown over UW for this kind of masters (though for various reasons my advice is kind of biased). However, I would also give blanket advice that you should never pay 50k a year for a graduate degree that isn't an MD or JD (and maybe not even then, these days).
posted by advil at 7:11 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

For what little it's worth, here are the US News rankings of Georgetown (#23) and the University of Washington (#42). I'd lean toward UW based on cost and quality of life being better in Seattle than DC.

Just curious - what can you do with a Master's in computational linguistics?
posted by lukemeister at 10:28 PM on May 25, 2010

I'm a computational linguist. I went to George Washington as an undergraduate, but I took all of my linguistics courses at Georgetown. I found the quality of the classes to be high and the faculty to be attentive.

However, though I applied to and was accepted by the Graduate program in linguistics at Georgetown and I turned it down. I did this because almost every other school I applied to offered me funding and Georgetown did not. After pestering the department, it was clear that the money wasn't there, and this was during boom times.* Ultimately, I chose to go to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon.

Also, a good part of being a computational linguist, the part that will keep you employed more that other linguists, is having good programming skills. The University of Washington has better facilities and faculty than Georgetown. It's a lot harder to make up for mediocre infrastructure within a computer science department than a linguistics department.

Plus, there is not that much of a prestige difference between the two schools within the computational linguistics community. Sure, Georgetown has history within the machine translation community, but it takes a lot of blame for setbacks to the field.

It's much more important to latch onto a faculty member who is doing new and interesting work. Think about who you'd rather work with rather than the department itself.

if you're planning on skipping the research assistant route all together go with U of W. It's a much, much better deal.

*Really, no one should be paying for a computational linguistics degree. There is plenty of money available in grants to keep any graduate student in the black as a research or teaching assistant. Most departments won't guarantee funding to masters students, but the money is out there. Based on my experience, I think you'll have a better chance of finding something at U of W than Georgetown. Being persistent over the summer could secure you something by the fall.
posted by Alison at 5:58 AM on May 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is actually what I do, and I've spent time going through every single damn program in the US trying to figure out where to apply, since there aren't that many straight computational linguistics programs. Here's the deal:

Georgetown is still seen as better in computational linguistics, and it was one of the only programs in existence as of about 7-10 years ago when I was straight out of undergrad. U of W's computational linguistics program is fairly new and I know they were really publicizing it and getting the classes shaken down as of last year (one of my old advisors is friends with Emily). I also know my current university has hired linguistics professors from Georgetown specifically because they were from Georgetown. U of W is seen as a good, respectable school, but it doesn't have that little extra cachet that Georgetown does in regards to linguistics in general.

However...I've also heard grumblings lately that the students Georgetown is producing are somewhat old-fashioned, and I have not run into anyone from Georgetown that I can recall at artificial intelligence or cognitive science conferences. The professor we hired specifically because she was from Georgetown ended up being let go because she was *so* traditional and had no flexibility.

There are basically two main views of computational linguistics - the cognitively-focused side and the statistically-focused side. (I'm assuming you kind of know that already.) I get the impression Georgetown does the latter and only the latter. Since I am a proponent of the former, I have a weird mental dichotomy going on of being jealous you got into Georgetown and a suspicion that knowing what I know now about their views and methods that I might turn it down if I got in today.

Also - if you just get a Master's, no matter where you go, it's going to be nearly impossible to find a job doing actual research. That was what I ran into a few years ago, and it's taken another Master's and most of a PhD later before I'm finally in a position where I get paid decently and get to present my own project proposals for things I'm interested in. At this point, there are not actually that many jobs out there for computational linguists that actually WANT computational linguists (as opposed to computer scientists that know commonly used computational linguistic algorithms), so it's hard, if not impossible, to get your foot in the door with a Master's. That would give Georgetown the edge there. (Data point - I work for the govt. Once I finish my PhD, there will be two people in the ENTIRE US GOVT with the job code for "computational linguist." Those two people are me and my boss.)

However, if you're doing a PhD and want to go into actual fun, new research, I'd check on that new U of W Ling-CL program they're advertising and see what research they're doing and if their views are compatible with yours. (I don't even think they had that last year.) I think that program will be more sustainable over the long run, and U of W faculty also seems to have more friendly connections with outside communities, and a great CS program.

Er - on preview I saw Alison's. I agree wholeheartedly with the computer science thing. One of my degrees is in CS, and we used to mock Georgetown's CS. However, I disagree with the funding thing. There are only a handful of schools that offer great packages for CL, unless stuff has changed drastically in the past few years. If the CL program is part of a CS program, there is much more likely going to be funding than if the program is part of a CogSci or linguistics program. CS programs just have more money.
posted by wending my way at 6:18 AM on May 26, 2010 [4 favorites]

I see lots of ads on the bus and metro for new master's programs from Georgetown. I know their law school and undergrad are good, as is their business school, and their foreign service school. Outside of those, it seems easy to get into most of their other programs and they're really creating a ton of cash cow programs that are diluting the "brand." Georgetown seems really suspect outside their professional programs.

Honestly, don't be fooled by the Georgetown name. I would think that the state school program would be more competitive. You can get into a really elite private school for nearly any master's level program if you pay the big bucks, and it's not worth it.
posted by anniecat at 8:27 AM on May 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

Like a lot of people here, I think much of your decision depends on what you want to do once you finish. Without knowing that, I would advise you to take the cheaper option.
posted by ob at 9:06 AM on May 26, 2010

Maybe I'm shortsighted, but like halogen, all I'm seeing here is the cost. If you're anywhere close to ambivalent, the $50,000 dollars of your hard-earned money you'll save (!!!) might help you choose.
posted by threeants at 10:27 AM on May 26, 2010

Outside of those, it seems easy to get into most of their other programs and they're really creating a ton of cash cow programs that are diluting the "brand."

QFT. Not as bad as GW with this, but getting there.
posted by jgirl at 1:10 PM on May 26, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks for all the replies! It's given me a lot to mull over :)
I've lived on both the East and West Coast and have been to both Seattle and DC and enjoy both areas, so location isn't really an overriding factor.
Both programs, btw, are offered out of the Linguistics department.
From a career perspective, I think I wouldn't mind being in academia; GU is most likely better for that. But that path is a little fraught considering the job market for professors. UW, as many have stated, seem to have closer industry ties, especially for IT/CS stuff.
I'm slowly edging towards UW just because of the debt issue.
posted by w84rav at 9:37 AM on May 27, 2010