<p>Just building on what everybody else is saying, but use your CC, UMass & AP courses to jump over as many 100 level classes as you can. </p>
<p>PoliSci is not seen as a particularly rigorous major in general, so there will be a fair few students who will not be as ambitious as you are. Moonchilds suggestion of double majoring in PoliSci & Econ is a good one- or even consider doing Econ as your major and minor in PoliSci. </p>
<p>I get what you mean about doing better when you are working close to your ability. As others have said, choose rigorous classes. Equally, get to know your profs and establish a reputation as the class star. They will be looking for students like you- the ones who really want to learn / do well / achieve- and they will help you in many ways, from summer internships (the good kind) to grad school references, to earlier admission into the fun but challenging seminars. </p>