Hi. I was wondering if anyone was aware of any smaller schools (ie. less than 6 or 7 thousand) that had good political science or history programs?
-Geographic preferences?
-Do you have a budget?
I would prefer colleges east of the Mississippi or in the North East area. And with budgets asie (although my family can probably afford around 40,000 a year approximately)
Here are 3 east coast of varying selectivity with strong History programs
Yale
William & Mary
Gettysburg
Most strong colleges are going to have a good political science or history department. There are hundreds of really excellent small-to-medium colleges on the East Coast and Northeast specifically that have good solid political science or history departments.
As an undergrad, you are really selecting a holistic college education and experience - not a specific department or program. It’s not quite like grad school in which your academic life is spent entirely inside the department - in fact, in college, most of your classes will be taken outside the department in which you major. So while picking a school that has solid departments in your interests areas is important, you don’t need to select a place solely or primarily on the basis of your major.*
*I would say maybe with the exception of some harder to find pre-professional majors, like engineering or nursing or public policy. But definitely not for common social sciences/humanities majors like history or poli sci.
I saw you have a 3.6 & 2100. You should get good merit aid at most of these schools.
-Agnes Scott College
-Bentley University
-Catholic University of America (A girl on CC with a 2100 got a $20,000 scholarship)
-Centre College
-Dickinson College
-Elon University
-Furman University
-Gettysburg College
-Hampshire College
-Lafayette College
-Muhlenburg College
-Providence College
-Rollins College
-Saint Anselm College
-Ursinus College
-Wheaton College - MA
I second Muhlenberg for Poli Sci and if you are considering law school they do a very good job of placing their grads into a whole range of law schools as well. Best of luck to you!
I second Elon
Georgetown or George Washington University but that may be hard with your GPA
My boyfriend is attending Allegheny for a polisci-related major. I’ve heard they’re decent with merit?
Being in Washington, DC is a great resource for someone interested in political science (certainly American politics) so you might consider schools like Georgetown, George Washington University, and American University.
newjerseygirl, it is funny that you gave me that list of colleges, because Lafayette, Dickinson, and Gettysburg were all in my top 10 colleges currently. How do you think these colleges’ history and poli sci programs compare?
@h012345 Villanova should be on your list. St. Anselm has one of the best known programs in the country, it should be on your list as well. You could get a big merit award.
http://www.anselm.edu/Institutes-Centers-and-the-Arts/NH-Institute-of-Politics.htm
Also, don’t buy into the myth you need to be near or in Washington for this major. It is simply not true.
No one said that it the OP needed to be near DC for this major–simply said that it was a plus, especially for someone interested in American politics. Even for someone interested in IR–DC locate would be a nice extra.
GW is blocks for the white house smack in the middle of DC.With a 3.6 and 2100 you should get in
i heard however that gw is a ridiculous amount of money
I’m not really sure how their programs compare, but:
-Political science was the 2nd most popular at Dickinson in 2014 (10% of students)
-History was the 4th most popular major at Gettysburg in 2014 (7% of students)
So, you’d have a pretty large community within your major.
The OP wants:
- good history/political science
- Eastern USA
- < 7K students
- realistic admission chances with a 3.6 GPA, 2100 SAT
- <= $40K net
The first 3 criteria are easily satisfied. Many good possibilities fall among the US News national LACs ranked in the top ~100 (but outside the top ~20, which may be too selective). The $40K target price may or may not be a problem, depending on the Expected Family Contribution (which can be estimated with an online net price calculator).
New College of Florida and St. Mary’s College of Maryland are two solid public LACs with OOS sticker prices around $40K (or a little higher). Most schools with sticker prices <= $40K will be much larger state universities. If family income is under ~$150K (with commensurate financial assets), many selective private LACs should be more-or-less affordable after need-based aid (although the best n-b aid will tend to come from the more selective schools). Check out Gettysburg College.
If you think you need ~$25K in merit aid, have a look at St. Lawrence, College of Wooster, Centre, Rhodes, Juniata, Earlham. The top LACs in New England generally don’t offer much (if any) merit aid (so for that, you’d need to focus on the mid-Atlantic, southeast, or midwest.)
Ok thanks
This all may really come down to what your end-goal is. You can get a Poli-Sci degree from any of a number of colleges and at the end of the day, you will learn mostly the same stuff. What some of the aforementioned schools get you is contact with the rich and powerful in national politics.
If your dream is to be your local city manager or the local chair of a particular party, a degree from a local school will be as valuable as one from a bigger name school. If you want to work in Washington, your chances are enhanced by the panache and contacts a name-brand school brings…but you also get the price tag.
Torveaux. BS- Poli-Sci