<p>Hey Guys, So I have started my college search and I'm kinda at a stand still right now. I want to go into Public Policy so the most likely major would be Political Science and/or Economics but i want to know what schools offer the best program for going into policy work and what schools are heavily recruited for policy work. Is it going to be schools up and around DC or are they just going to be generally good schools? and if so what schools do I have a chance at? </p>
<p>Thanks to anyone who posts in advance.</p>
<p>Here are my stats</p>
<p>ACT 32
SAT Subject Test</p>
<p>US History 740
Math 1 770
Literature ( Scores not released yet) </p>
<p>Freshman</p>
<p>English 9 B
World history A
Honors Biology A
Geometry C</p>
<p>Final GPA 3.76</p>
<p>Sophomore</p>
<p>English 10 A
AP US History A 5
Honors Chemistry A
Algebra 2 C
Japanese 1 A</p>
<p>Final GPA 3.66</p>
<p>Junior</p>
<p>Honors English 11 A
AP Government A (don't know scores)
AP Psychology A (don't know scores)
Trigonometry B
Honors Physics A
Japanese 2 A</p>
<p>Final GPA 3.87</p>
<p>Senior </p>
<p>AP physics
AP Euro History
Pre-Calculus
Honors English 12 </p>
<p>My son received a degree in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of Denver–a surprisingly strong program. The school is often overlooked. You might get a lot of merit money there. The program has two former governors of Colorado involved, and they do a lot of team teaching. The program is well connected with lots of interesting internship opportunities.</p>
<p>When it came time for grad school and getting his MPP, my son had a lot of guidance from his professors on where to apply for specifically what he wanted to do. He just finished his MPP at American University in DC and has started his dream job. (not one he could have gotten with only a undergrad degree).</p>
Some colleges offer majors in public policy. Here’s the list of universities with public policy majors, listed by the number of graduating seniors:</p>
<p>172 Duke
141 USC
85 Princeton
76 UNC Chapel Hill
70 Cornell
60 Brandeis
58 Michigan
46 Georgia State
41 Chicago
31 Northwestern
29 Virginia Tech
28 William & Mary
27 Penn State
26 Stanford
25 Brown
20 Georgia Tech
19 Ole Miss
17 Vanderbilt
16 Washington State
15 Carnegie Mellon / DePaul / UC Riverside
13 RIT / SMU
12 Penn
11 UT Dallas
7 U Denver
5 Northern Arizona
4 Central Washington / Rice
1 ASU</p>
<p>Liberal arts colleges:</p>
<p>28 Trinity College
20 Hobart & William Smith
14 Hamilton
11 Pomona
8 Mills
6 Dickinson / St. Mary’s College of Maryland
2 Pitzer
1 Scripps</p>
<p>Of course, not all of these programs are structured the same. For example, public policy at Princeton is an undergraduate program within its excellent Woodrow Wilson School, whereas public policy at Chicago is entirely separate from the Harris School and is merely an interdisciplinary undergrad program cobbled together from offerings in econ and political science. Moreover, some of these programs (e.g. Ford at Michigan) have a separate application process and do not accept all undergraduates into the major.</p>
<p>First of thanks for the replies and i didn’t know that so many schools offered public policy major but my question would be is a real program or just a interdisciplinary degree offered for students who took some econ and some poly sci classes. The thing is I do need to take into account financial aid so going out of state (I live in Pennsylvania) for a public school would require a lot of aid. Also, I don’t want to go too far from home i would prefer staying in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, or the Midwest. Also what schools would give me a good chance of getting into a good grad school for a MPP?</p>