<p>Many many schools have a semester in Washington Program. Some are better connected than others for internships on the Hill or in a Cabinet Department. But there are lots of stories of kids from lesser known schools finding great jobs and beating out the Ivy kids. Depends on what you want to do with your life. If its working IN government you can take any GS-9 job upon graduation and then work the system…you get promoted EVERY year whether you need it or not…until you hit GS13 then it gets tougher. Some people (an inlaw of mine) made it into the Senior Executive Service (SFS) and he started as a GS-5 in the AirForce. He never served in the military either. And he went to a small western LAC. </p>
<p>The “program” you seek depends on what your interests are…foreign policy/foreign service versus energy issues or tax issues or law enforcement (FBI) or land management (Interior or Agriculture) or whatever. A lot of government offices are seeking engineers and scientists and math majors/computer science majors or obscure linguists in arabic etc. I wouldnt worry about those high falutin programs at Georgetown or Johns Hopkins just yet. Those are better for grad school anyway. I would focus on WHAT you want to do and just getting a well rounded degree in that field.</p>
<p>Good luck. </p>
<p>p.s. the government hires from all sorts of schools. I know someone from Iowa State who had a degree in Russian and he made it BIG in the State Department. Go to a school you really like and dont worry about the prestige.</p>