<p>What are the reputations of these programs at UChicago? What are the job prospects? I think IS has decent prospects, but I am not sure about PPS. Are they looked at as inferior to more complex areas of study? What if you majored in one of those and minored in statistics, looking for a research job in foreign policy, demographics, etc? Any info about the two programs would be helpful.</p>
<p>Although it is not intended to be so, public policy has a reputation as being an administrative dumping ground for people who were unable to make it through the four quarter, intermediate sequence in economics required for the BA or struggled or the affiliated math / stat / econometrics requirements. Realistically, only your guidance counselor and some very perceptive employers recognize this, so if it appeals to you contentwise or it is what you can realistically handle, go for it.</p>
<p>Consider though that public policy also forces you to take some specific UG centric courses that are not perceived as being very interesting / challenging in an attempt to differentiate it from both the traditional social sciences and economics, and there is some type of capstone project which people tended to find unduly onerous. Look into this before you leap.</p>
<p>However, the econ major leaves sufficient room for electives including PP courses, so there is really no reason to do public policy if you can get through the econ BA program, which is both excellent academically and has a lot of professional / academic cache. Which is an indirect way of saying if you are smart enough to minor in stat alongside PP, you are better off just majoring in economics and taking stat courses as electives. This is <em>very</em> common; most stat majors are either econ + stat or math + stat.</p>
<p>International studies in contrast is just another flavor of history / political science and basically is a major in name only (drawing most of its courses from these two fields plus the various area studies committees). With respect to both PP and IS, the relatively qualitative social sciences broadly at Chicago are nonetheless very strong and any of these choices is still solid for college as long as you build out a game plan about what you want to go with the degree down the road. You will get a solid liberal arts education, but it will convey few marketable skills other than indicating you are bright.</p>
<p>Caveats: You should note that the public policy UG program is different from the Harris School MPP co-term program. A handful of students each year in the college who “study public policy” are really in a five year BA / MPP combined degree plan, where both degrees are labeled PP. The same holds for some college students doing “international relations.” There is a five year program where you get say, a BA in History and a MA in IR. Unfortunately, there is an internal GPA threshold so you cannot know for sure if you can take either route until you are well into your studies. Chicago is not like Stanford or MIT where many students walk away with a master’s.</p>