<p>Is it easier to be admitted as a government major (CAS), policy analysis & management (HE) or industrial labor relations? I'm a current senior from CA with a strong GPA, SAT, and extracurriculars. I was originally planning on applying for ILR but I feel like my extracurriculars are not particularly geared towards ILR. I'm also interested in gov & PAM, but I'm not incredibly set on either of them. I figured that I should apply to the school which is easier to get into..any thoughts?</p>
<p>You should pick the curriculum that suits you best. All three options should afford you enough flexibility so you can take most of the courses you would want. I was a Government major in CAS and you will have a pretty significantly course load than someone in ILR or PAM. If you have specific questions about Government, I can answer those.</p>
<p>My suggestion is take a look at each program’s website, and look at a list of sample courses you would take and read their descriptions. This exercise should take you like 20mins and I would expect you would come away with a good idea of which program you like best. </p>
<p>That said, if you really only care about getting in, PAM and ILR are probably similar, with CAS being the hardest school to be admitted to.</p>
<p>Hi, thanks for the reply! The government major sounds great, but like you said it is difficult to get into. I’m confident in myself but still a little worried about that. HE is apparently the easiest out of the three to get into (although I dislike choosing schools based on acceptance rates). My career goal is to be a policymaker, and it seems like policy analysis & management would be appropriate…but would a government major give me more freedom? Also, when you applied did you have a profile that demonstrated interest in the subject. Thanks again!</p>
<p>I actually don’t know that much about PAM. I would go government (as I obviously did) because I like the CAS curriculum. Btw, government = political science, in case you didn’t know that. Cornell is old school and still refers to it as a Government major. I definitely like the whole liberal arts thing. If you are interested in a career in policy analysis, going on just the two curriculums, I would go PAM because of the analytical courses. The government major has very loose requirements, none of which are particularly analytical, in terms of what matters for policy. That said, I find the PAM courses to be boring. Out of my 10 government courses I needed to complete the major, I thoroughly enjoyed 9 of them. The professors are (almost) all fantastic lecturers with really engaging courses.</p>
<p>I was an economics double major as well, so I was able to get the analytical rigor I needed (and my current job is in policy analysis). That said, if you do government, taking at least one statistics class (probably better off with two), maybe even just doing the PAM analytical courses, would be a good idea. Or ideally you would double major in economics as well ;)</p>
<p>For CAS, unlike the other colleges, you don’t really need to demonstrate an interest in a particular major. Many students are undecided, and CAS doesn’t let you declare your major right away anyway. I actually had no interest in government coming into Cornell. AP Government was one of the 2 APs my high school offered that I didn’t take. I ended up in the major because my 3rd choice freshman writing seminar (which I ended up in) was a government class that I really enjoyed. I decided to take another government course for fun. That led to another course with the professor who taught my seminar, and ultimately he became my academic advisor for the government major.</p>
<p>Wow, this information is incredibly helpful! I’m looking at the government ([Department</a> of Government at Cornell University | Courses › Fall 2011](<a href=“http://government.arts.cornell.edu/courses/2011/fall/]Department”>http://government.arts.cornell.edu/courses/2011/fall/)) and PAM (<a href=“http://www.human.cornell.edu/registrar/degree-progress/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=63928[/url]”>http://www.human.cornell.edu/registrar/degree-progress/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=63928</a>) course listings and I have to admit that the government courses are calling to me. The PAM courses are much more specific towards policy, while the gov courses cater to a wider range of subjects. Are there certain categories in public policy, like policy analysis and policy…making? I’m a little confused about the two majors in terms of careers and specific interests. But you did say that you are currently working in policy analysis, so it seems to be pretty flexible.</p>
<p>I am actually planning on being an economics double major (yay!) and I’m glad that I’ll have time to explore my options. Do you feel like your gov + econ major prepared you well for a policy job? Also, for example if I am in the school of HE, but I decide to major in something different (for example, econ) is it possible for me to switch schools? If not, I would definitely be apprehensive about applying to one school and being “stuck” there. I would assume that CAS would leave me with the most options.</p>
<p>Once again, thanks for your detailed replies! People like you make me love Cornell even more :)</p>
<p>Oh no question econ + government >> PAM. A PAM major might obviously choose to disagree, and perhaps for something like health policy PAM might be better, since the program allows you to have a health focus, but with the analytical tools econ gives you, along with the insights into politics Government gives you, I think you are more than well-prepared for a career in policy. I would say economics alone is better than PAM as well for policy analysis, but that’s because I have a strong bias towards the “economic way of thinking” (but so does policy analysis). Economics will also be better prep for grad school because you will have taken more rigorous courses. For example, PAM stats is basically AP stats (from what I can tell). Econometrics (esp. the advanced 3190-3200 sequence), goes in-depth and uses multivariable calculus, which grad schools will like, should you choose to do a policy degree in grad school. If you do decide to go for an MPA (something I will probably do in the near future), almost any undergrad degree will be fine. It’s not like a science/engineering/economics masters degree that will require significant prerequisite knowledge (I think the requirements for MPA programs are typically just intro economics).</p>
<p>As for career preparation, I don’t know much about PAM. People from PAM end up in all kinds of fields, from policy to finance/banking. Government/political science qualifies you for whatever a general liberal arts degree qualifies you for. The job prospects are probably worse for Government, but with Government, I would guess you are more likely to go to grad school for something more “practical” whereas it seems to me PAM is more of a terminal degree. Political science is definitely more “academic” whereas PAM is more about building skills. That said, if you are going to do Economics, your job prospects will aways be good and varied. While Economics doesn’t give you any particular practical skills either, it does emphasize critical thinking/math to the extent that a lot of employers will like that and what you learn is widely adaptable to a variety of careers. As far as a 4-year degree goes, Econ is only less monetarily valuable than like computer science and a few of the engineering degrees (and not by much).</p>
<p>It’s easier for me to talk about how great preparation Economics is for the real world/grad school/whatever, whereas Government classes probably were the highlight of my Cornell experience.</p>
<p>You can’t double major across colleges, so you’d have to transfer, which is fairly painless if you keep your grades up. CAS has a pretty flexible curriculum. At a glance, the requirements can be overwhelming, but I can tell you, I naturally filled my liberal arts requirements without much effort. That said, some students in CAS struggle, if they really were only interested in their major, and not into the whole liberal arts experience. I ended up with the Econ/Govt double major, and minors in International Relations and German Studies.</p>
<p>Glad you find my information helpful.</p>
<p>Mikeyc, thanks for the comprehensive explanation. Between ILR and PAM, which do you think is harder to get into for an international student? From your observations do you think its harder for an international to get into the landgrant colleges, esp since ILR and PAM have some courses focused specifically on US history/policies?</p>
<p>Also, you mention that transferring is “fairly painless” if students discover that the course they applied for isn’t best aligned with their interests. Is this only for CAS into PAM/ILR, or PAM/ILR into CAS, or any other variation of that group?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!:)</p>
<p>Human ecology is easier to get into. From what I can find, the proportion of international students in HumEc is about the same as the university as a whole. I don’t have intimate knowledge of the transfer process. No matter how you do it, it shouldn’t be hard as long as your grades are decent. The only difficulties that come with transferring is if your grades are low and/or you’re radically shifting programs (like chemical engineering to English). Neither of those scenarios should apply to you, especially since getting bad grades in PAM/ILR/Econ/Govt means you really aren’t working much at all. Some people I’ve known in engineering have had trouble transferring, but engineering courses are more “failable” (in the sense that if you don’t “get” something, you get questions wrong…in the social sciences, if you don’t “get” something, with hard work you should at least be able to come up with some decent answer).</p>
<p>Thanks Mikeyc. 
Do you think PAM or ILR is harder to get into? (given the competitiveness of the applicant pool). </p>
<p>Also would you happen to know if PAM, ILR, and even AEM prefer a rigorous high school math background or is a less rigorous one acceptable at entry? (i did the IB diploma and took SL math, doing HL eng a1 bio and econ; i dont wanna apply to the major and realize i dont even have the prereqs later on!)</p>
<p>PAM is in Human Ecology, so PAM is easier. I would say none of them will really care about how rigorous your math background is, assuming you’ve gone through Calc I (I don’t know IB). AEM is probably the hardest program to get into, because it’s a very well respected undergrad business program. AEM, PAM, and ILR are all “easy” majors at Cornell (relatively speaking). Econ is more intellectually challenging, but the workload isn’t bad and government is probably similar to ILR because it’s mostly a lot of reading.</p>
<p>You really should apply to whichever program interests you the most though. They all have fairly significantly different curriculums and it’s rare that you would have gotten into one college and not the other. In some sense, outside CAS the applicant pool is more self-selecting because they offer more specialized programs. For example, Engineering has the highest acceptance rate, especially if you’re a female, but their applicants by-in-large have extremely strong math/science credentials.</p>