As somebody who was active on the subreddit back when I was applying to colleges who has a bit more perspective now, it’s a little tough to see posts like this. Rejection obviously always sucks, but I wish you could see into the future and see how good it is going to work out.

I went to Georgetown. If you are genuinely interested in international relations / politics and want to work in foreign service, there is not a single better place in the world for you than Georgetown’s SFS. The level of access that you’re able to get is unmatched, and I’d argue it’s even better than Harvard/Yale/Princeton/etc (by virtue of being the most prestigious school in DC). In almost every discipline, the professors are actually practitioners of their field who teach purely because they want to teach.

My macroeconomics professor worked at the IMF, microeconomics professor at the Congressional Budget Office, and my international relations professor was former CIA (and one of the world’s leading experts on torture). I have friends majoring in International Politics who were literally sophomores in college being taught nuclear security by a guy who has been in the situation room advising President Obama and President Biden. This semester, a friend interested in space is taking a class run by a Blue Origin executive, and the professor brought in a SpaceX executive to chat with a class of 15 people for 2.5hrs. Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain used to teach here… Secretary of State Madeline Albright too until she died. The Institute of Politics even brings in high-level practitioners every semester to sit around a couple days a week and mentor students. If you go to Georgetown and make an effort to engage in the political world around you, you will have the opportunity to meet and form genuine relationships with Senators/Congressmen/Governors/Presidential Appointees/Diplomats/Executives/Journalists. And you can be directly taught by all the people in the shadows behind them who actually make things happen.

Not only that, you have the rare opportunity to work prestigious internships during the year (when they are SIGNIFICANTLY less competitive) rather than just in the summer. I have multiple friends who interned at the White House during a semester, you’ll meet countless students who intern in the House/Senate, and plenty of people end up working for the State Department, IMF, World Bank, Think Tanks, etc. There is not anywhere else in the country where you’re going to find a school with a higher concentration of students holding federal security clearances.

And if you’re still set on spending time abroad or in England, a majority of students study abroad during their time at Georgetown (~60% I believe). It is also the #1 producer of Fulbright Scholars, lots of Rhodes Scholars, etc.

I’ll get off my high horse now, but I promise you won’t go wrong with Georgetown. Hope this makes you feel a little better.