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For anyone seeking a Masters in international affairs (MIA) in the US, there are a couple of top schools, a handful just below - and then the rest. The Yale Center for International and Area Studies, which has just accepted Euan Blair, sits stolidly among the rest.
Yale University's grand reputation rests on the excellence of its undergraduate education and certain of its graduate programmes, notably in law, the humanities and architecture. The international studies masters programme is not where it shines.
The most recent ranking of American MIA programmes put Yale's at number 12, just below the University of Denver's. Far and away the top two schools are the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, both in Washington
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DC, with Harvard's Kennedy School back in a distant third.
Whereas Johns Hopkins receives some 1,800 applications every year and admits around 280, Yale receives just 300 applications, offers places to 60 and gets about 30 acceptances - all of which begs the question why Euan Blair decided to go there. He is said to have been offered places at Harvard's Kennedy School and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Government, both of which carry more prestige. Neither, however, offered the kind of subsidy he will be receiving at Yale, said to be around £50,000 over two years, almost the entire cost of his tuition and estimated living expenses.
Whereas many of the top schools offer financial aid based on financial need, Yale makes its offers based on merit. Only 30 per cent of those admitted receive such support, and only the most impressive receive 
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