Should You Apply to GW, American, or Howard?

George Washington, American, and Howard are three private universities inside Washington, D.C., all with strong undergraduate programs, all with substantial international student populations, and all sitting inside the same federal city — but they are unmistakably different institutions. GW is a downtown urban-immersion campus, surrounded by the State Department, the World Bank, and the Watergate complex. American is a residential quad-and-dormitory campus in upper Northwest's Tenleytown corridor, with a strong public-affairs identity. Howard is the historic flagship HBCU on the U Street and LeDroit Park line, with a civic and cultural identity that is central to the educational experience.

For an international family deciding among the three, a comparison that ranks them is not the right shape. The three are different in kind, not in tier. This guide walks the academic culture, the application logistics, the on-campus rhythm, and the surrounding neighborhoods of each, so families can make a fit decision rather than a ranking decision. Verify current admissions policies, deadlines, and visit rules with each university's Office of Admissions before planning anything specific.

GW / American / Howard route

For the cluster's geographic context — how the three sit in Washington, D.C. relative to Georgetown, Catholic, Gallaudet, and the suburban anchors — the Washington, D.C. university city map lays out the academic geography.

George Washington University: Urban-Immersion in Foggy Bottom

George Washington University (GW) sits in Foggy Bottom, a half-mile west of the White House and immediately adjacent to the U.S. Department of State, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Kennedy Center, and the Watergate complex. The campus does not have a traditional front gate or quadrangle. The academic buildings, residence halls, and library sit on regular city blocks bounded roughly by H Street, I Street, 19th Street, and 23rd Street NW. The Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station on the Blue, Orange, and Silver lines is at the center of campus and is the practical front door.

The undergraduate enrollment is roughly 11,500. GW also runs a smaller, more residential second campus at Mount Vernon Campus about three miles northwest in the Foxhall neighborhood, with a free Vern Express shuttle running between the two. Many first-year students live on the Mount Vernon side; most upperclass students live in Foggy Bottom.

Academic identity

GW's most-visible identities are policy-and-international-affairs and political-science-and-business. The Elliott School of International Affairs is one of the most prominent undergraduate international affairs schools in the United States and is a direct peer of Georgetown's SFS and American's SIS. The GW School of Business admits students directly into the BBA program. The Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, the political science department in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and a strong pre-law and pre-medicine pipeline through Columbian fill out the undergraduate footprint. The GW School of Media and Public Affairs is a focused undergraduate school on the western edge of campus with a journalism, political communication, and media studies orientation.

The character of a GW education is shaped by the urban setting. Internships during the academic year are unusually accessible — federal agencies, embassies, think tanks, advocacy groups, and Hill offices are reachable by Metro or walking — and the city itself is part of how students learn international affairs and policy. The policy and IR major-fit guide walks how Elliott compares with SFS at Georgetown and SIS at American.

Campus character

A GW visit feels meaningfully different from a Georgetown or American visit. The campus has no quad in the traditional sense. Instead, Kogan Plaza, a paved central plaza near the academic core, functions as the social heart, with Gelman Library, the Marvin Center (now the University Student Center), and several academic buildings around it. University Yard is the closest thing to a small green quad on campus. Lisner Auditorium anchors the cultural side, and the surrounding blocks contain residence halls, a Whole Foods, dining options, and the Metro entrance. Students cross between buildings on city sidewalks, share blocks with federal employees and embassy staff, and step into the Metro and the city bus rhythm as part of daily life.

For applicants who want a residential quad-and-tree campus, GW will feel like a city block rather than a campus. For applicants who want urban energy, federal-city proximity, and city-as-classroom learning, GW is one of the most-immersed undergraduate experiences in the country.

Application logistics

GW uses the Common Application with GW-specific supplements. Verify the current essay prompts, deadlines, and Early Decision / Early Action options on the GW Undergraduate Admissions site each cycle. International applicants from non-English-medium schools typically submit results from a recognized English proficiency assessment; verify the current accepted assessments and minimums on the GW International Admissions page. GW has been test-optional in recent cycles for many applicants; verify the current testing policy before deciding whether to submit.

Direct admission to the Business School and to the School of Engineering and Applied Science is more selective than admission to the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Internal transfer between schools is possible but not guaranteed; applicants with a clear school preference should generally apply directly to that school.

Who GW fits well

• Students who want a downtown city campus and find energy in a federal-city setting.
• Students drawn to international affairs, political science, public policy, business, or political communication who want to do substantive internships during the academic year.
• Students comfortable navigating city sidewalks, the Metro, and a campus that does not look like a traditional college quad.

Who GW fits less well

• Students who want a residential quad with green space at the center of daily life.
• Students who would rather have a college-town main street than a federal-city avenue.
• Students who prefer a smaller class profile than a mid-sized urban research university provides.

American University: Residential Campus in Upper Northwest

American University (AU) sits in the Tenleytown / AU Park / Spring Valley corridor in upper Northwest D.C., about six miles northwest of downtown. The campus is residential and tree-shaded, with a recognizable quad, a clear academic core, and a residential ring of dormitories and apartments. The Tenleytown-AU Metro station on the Red Line is about a 15-minute walk south of the main quad, and an AU shuttle (the AU Shuttle) runs between the Metro and campus on a frequent schedule.

The undergraduate enrollment is roughly 8,500. AU is best-known for its School of International Service (SIS), the School of Communication, and a public-affairs orientation across most of its programs.

Academic identity

The School of International Service is one of the largest undergraduate international affairs schools in the United States, with a curriculum organized around policy, diplomacy, regional studies, international development, and global communication. SIS is a direct peer of Georgetown's SFS and GW's Elliott; the differences are texture rather than tier. SIS tends to lean toward applied policy, international development, and global ethics; the school's identity is closely connected to AU's broader public-affairs and civic-engagement mission. The policy and IR major-fit guide walks the comparison in detail.

The School of Communication is one of the strongest undergraduate communications programs in the country, with concentrations in journalism, film and media arts, public communication, and political communication. Its proximity to the federal city's media ecosystem — the press corps, public radio, advocacy media, and political communication consultancies — gives the school an applied edge that pure-academic communication programs lack.

The Kogod School of Business, the School of Public Affairs, and the College of Arts and Sciences round out the undergraduate footprint. The School of Public Affairs houses public policy, justice and law, political science, and public administration programs and is the public-affairs counterpart to SIS's international focus.

Campus character

A morning walk on the AU campus is closer to a traditional U.S. college walk than a GW or Georgetown walk. The American University Quad is the central green; Bender Library sits on the south edge; Kay Spiritual Life Center and Mary Graydon Center (the student union) anchor the central area. The surrounding residential ring of Anderson Hall, Letts Hall, Hughes Hall, and other dormitories makes first-year residential life centralized in a way that GW's distributed urban housing is not.

The surrounding AU Park and Spring Valley neighborhoods are residential and quiet — a striking contrast with Foggy Bottom's federal-city density. Tenleytown's commercial corridor along Wisconsin Avenue NW provides daily-life amenities (a Whole Foods, restaurants, cafés, banks, a public library), and the Metro connects students to the rest of the city quickly when they want it.

Application logistics

American University uses the Common Application. Verify the current essay prompts, deadlines, and Early Decision / Early Action options on the American University Undergraduate Admissions site each cycle. AU offers binding Early Decision; verify the current rules. International applicants from non-English-medium schools typically submit results from a recognized English proficiency assessment; verify the current accepted assessments and minimums on the AU International Admissions page. AU has been test-optional in recent cycles; verify the current testing policy before deciding whether to submit.

Admission to SIS and the School of Communication tends to be more selective than to the College of Arts and Sciences. Direct admission to a specific school is the standard path; internal transfer is possible but not guaranteed.

Who AU fits well

• Students who want a residential quad-and-dormitory campus inside Washington, D.C. but outside the federal city's daily density.
• Students drawn to international service, communication, public affairs, or political communication who want a focused undergraduate program in those fields.
• Students who want easy Metro access to downtown without living downtown.

Who AU fits less well

• Students who want maximum federal-city immersion at the daily commute level.
• Students who would prefer the urban-density of GW or the historic-prestige aesthetic of Georgetown.
• Students looking for a large public-flagship scale.

Howard University: HBCU Flagship in U Street / LeDroit Park

Howard University is a private historically Black university founded in 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War. The campus sits about two miles north of the U.S. Capitol on the line between the U Street and LeDroit Park neighborhoods, with the Shaw-Howard University Metro station on the Yellow and Green lines about a 10-minute walk away. Howard is one of the most prominent HBCUs in the United States and a flagship institution of African American higher education with deep alumni networks across policy, law, medicine, the arts, and public service.

The undergraduate enrollment is roughly 8,000, with substantial graduate and professional populations across Howard Law, Howard Medicine, Howard Dentistry, Howard Pharmacy, and the Divinity School.

Academic identity

Howard's academic structure spans:

• The College of Arts and Sciences, which contains the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and most of the broad pre-professional pathways.
• The School of Business, with a long-standing strong undergraduate business program.
• The Cathy Hughes School of Communications, a focused undergraduate school in journalism, media, film, and communication studies, with a notable alumni list across broadcast and political journalism.
• The College of Engineering and Architecture, with engineering disciplines and an architecture program with a long history of producing prominent African American architects.
• The School of Education and the health-sciences schools across pharmacy, nursing, allied health, and dentistry.

Howard's identity is inseparable from its founding mission and its civic and cultural significance. The university was central to the early-20th-century U Street "Black Broadway" cultural corridor, central to the legal architecture of the civil rights movement (Howard Law produced Thurgood Marshall, Pauli Murray, Charles Hamilton Houston, and many others), and central to a continuing tradition of Black intellectual leadership in the United States. For prospective international students, the HBCU framing is part of the educational identity, not an aside; engaging seriously with that framing — and with what an HBCU education means for a particular applicant's intentions — is part of a serious application.

For international applicants from outside the United States who may not be familiar with the HBCU tradition, the campus-tour questions article elsewhere in this series suggests respectful and substantive ways to ask current Howard students about the experience.

Campus character

A walk through Howard's campus is anchored by Founders Library and the central green known as The Yard. Founders Library — built in 1939, named to honor the university's founders, with a tower visible across the surrounding neighborhood — sits at the head of The Yard and is the canonical photographic icon of Howard. The Yard is the social heart of campus: at lunchtime, between classes, and on warm afternoons, students gather, club tabling appears, performances happen, and the lawn functions as a public square in the same way the Diag does at Michigan or Healy Lawn does at Georgetown.

Around The Yard sit Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall, the Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, the Blackburn University Center (the student center), and several academic buildings. Greene Stadium, the football stadium, sits on the campus's eastern edge. The Howard University Hospital anchors the medical-center side and is one of the country's longstanding teaching hospitals serving a primarily Black urban patient population.

The surrounding U Street and LeDroit Park neighborhoods are central to the Howard experience. Ben's Chili Bowl — a Howard institution as much as a U Street institution — sits a short walk south of campus. Lincoln Theatre, Howard Theatre, and the U Street jazz history are part of the cultural backdrop. The African American Civil War Memorial sits a few blocks south. A campus visit that does not include at least 30 minutes of walking through U Street and LeDroit Park misses a significant part of what Howard is.

Application logistics

Howard uses the Common Application. Verify the current essay prompts, deadlines, and Early Action / Early Decision options on the Howard University Undergraduate Admissions site each cycle. International applicants from non-English-medium schools typically submit results from a recognized English proficiency assessment; verify the current accepted assessments and minimums on the Howard International Admissions page. Howard's testing policy has shifted in recent cycles; verify the current rules before deciding whether to submit.

The Cathy Hughes School of Communications, the College of Engineering and Architecture, and the School of Business have school-specific admissions considerations. Read the school-specific page on the Howard Admissions site, not just the general university page.

Who Howard fits well

• Students specifically drawn to an HBCU community and the educational experience an HBCU provides.
• Students interested in journalism and communications, business, engineering and architecture, the health professions, or the arts who want a Howard-specific cohort and alumni network.
• Students who want a campus inside the historic civic and cultural corridor of Black Washington and want that corridor to be part of daily life.

Who Howard fits less well

• Students who do not engage with the institutional identity. Treating Howard as "just another D.C. private" produces a less satisfying experience for both the student and the community.
• Students for whom the specific extracurricular footprint of GW or AU — particular clubs, particular study-abroad partners, particular academic programs not strongly represented at Howard — is central to the choice.

How a Campus Visit Should Compare the Three

A focused multi-day visit to all three universities can fit into two days if the family commits. A pattern that works:

Day one: GW + Foggy Bottom + Penn Quarter

Morning at GW. Take the Metro to Foggy Bottom-GWU and walk through Kogan Plaza, Gelman Library, Lisner Auditorium, and University Yard. Walk past the State Department, the World Bank, and the Watergate to feel the federal-city density. Lunch on M Street in Georgetown (15-minute walk) or in Foggy Bottom proper. Afternoon: the White House viewing area, Lafayette Square, and Penn Quarter for dinner.

Day two morning: American

Take the Red Line north to Tenleytown-AU and either walk or take the AU shuttle to campus. Walk the American University Quad, Bender Library, Mary Graydon Center, and the residential ring. Walk down Wisconsin Avenue afterward to see Tenleytown's commercial spine. Lunch in Tenleytown.

Day two afternoon: Howard + U Street

Take the Red Line south, transfer to the Yellow or Green Line to Shaw-Howard University. Walk into The Yard, Founders Library, Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall, and the surrounding academic core. Walk south through LeDroit Park into U Street, with stops at Ben's Chili Bowl, the African American Civil War Memorial, and Lincoln Theatre. Dinner at one of the Ethiopian restaurants on 9th Street NW or 14th Street.

A two-day pattern produces real comparison information across all three. A three-day pattern that adds Georgetown across the same trip produces a substantive comparison across all four D.C. private universities; the campus-visit landmarks article walks the four-university route in detail.

Comparing the Three at a Glance

A useful summary: GW walks like a downtown city campus, American walks like a college quad inside a quiet residential neighborhood, and Howard walks like a community-rooted historic campus tied to Black Washington's cultural and civic memory. Each produces a different student experience.

What Questions to Ask on Each Visit

The questions a student asks on a campus tour matter as much as the campus itself. The campus tour questions article elsewhere in this series goes deeper on phrasing. A short list per institution:

• GW: "How does the relationship between the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses work for first-years? What are the typical paths into Elliott or the School of Business for an international applicant? How accessible are internships during the academic year compared with summer-only?"
• American: "How does residential life on the quad shape first-year community? What does an SIS student's typical week look like during the academic year? How do students balance the Tenleytown setting with downtown access?"
• Howard: "How does The Yard function in daily life beyond photographs? What does community engagement look like in the first year? How does the Cathy Hughes School connect to U Street's media ecosystem?"

Asking specific questions is the single most useful behavior for getting real information from a tour. Generic "Is this school good?" questions get generic answers.

After the Visits: Compare Carefully

Within a week of returning home, the prospective applicant should:

• Write one page per campus — three things observed, one thing that impressed, one concern.
• Compare the lists side by side, not from memory but from the written notes.
• Revise the school list based on the comparison.
• Begin drafting supplementary essay points with concrete details from each visit.

The three universities are different in kind. A serious international applicant who picks GW or American or Howard for the right reasons typically writes a stronger application than an applicant who treats the three as interchangeable. A campus visit is the cheapest tool for converting abstract impressions into the specific, defensible language that distinguishes a serious application from a generic one.