Recommendations for Political Science undergrad programs based on my stats?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everyone! This is my first "official" post on CC and I'm quite intimidated, haha.</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm an senior (Asian female) located in California, attending a competitive public high school. I'm looking into Political Science - confident I'll end up in this field; most likely going to grad school (law school or public policy) so the college will have to prepare me well for it. LACs are awesome but I don't know where to look first!</p>

<p>Scores/GPA not that outstanding but hopefully ECs are decent...</p>

<p>Stats:
- GPA: UW 3.68 / W 4.33
- ACT: 34
- AP scores: AP Biology - 5 , AP Chinese - 5, AP US History - 5 , AP Eng Language - 5, AP Music Theory - 4. In progress: AP Eng Lit, AP Environmental Science, AP Calc AB, AP American Gov, AP Macroecon
- Total: 14 AP/Honors by graduation</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Taking a class at the local community college this fall (should help a little with the GPA, also aligns with my interest in Polisci)</p></li>
<li><p>Awards: National Merit Commended Scholar (aahha), AP Scholar with Distinction, MTAC Level 10</p></li>
</ul>

<p>ECs:
- Choir outside of school - Highest level, done it for 11 years, been to a few (fruitless) competitions HAHA (9, 10, 11, 12)
- Piano - for 10 years (9, 10, 11)
- JV Badminton (9, 10)
- Interact Club - awarded a scholarship to attend a leadership camp; approx 80 hours of community service (10, 11, 12)
- Yearbook - Copy Editor & advertisement representative (11, 12)
- Model UN - Treasurer (11, 12)
- Peer Tutor - tutored English/ESL, Geometry, Biology and CAHSEE preparation (11)
- Lit Mag - Design Editor (11)
- Summer Youth Volunteer Club at a local nonprofit - Public Relations Officer & approx. 40 hours of community service; looking to continue working with this nonprofit (11, 12)
- Youth leadership program - helped plan a community health fair to increase awareness of Hep B and treatments in low-income communities (11, 12)
- Summer internship at a California State Assemblymember's Office (11)- did research on local nonprofit organizations to compile into database
- Internship at local non-profit that seeks to increase civic engagement in minority communities (12)
- Campaign Intern for a US Congressional Campaign - MAAAAN I gotta tell you I love photocopying and scanning things like nobody's business (12)
- & looking into: Congressional internship, high school advisory board for more local stuffs, etcetera </p>

<p>There is a noticeable shift in ECs around the middle of junior year because that's when I realized how much I love politics, public policy, social work and getting involved in the community versus just school stuff (so I ended up sacrificing a few school ECs that were too time-consuming)</p>

<p>I'm already applying to/thinking about:</p>

<p>Bowdoin (EDing here if I can't find any other schools that I really like)
Tufts
CMC (ultra-reach...)
Cornell ILR (maybe)</p>

<p>Thank you all in advance!</p>

<p>WHAT MONSTROSITY HAVE I JUST TYPED OUT. WoaaAAAHH</p>

2

<p>Georgetown would be a perfect fit. If you want a LAC, Claremont McKenna College in California is known for polisci.</p>

3

<p>muhlenberg college, haverford college, kenyon college and vanderbilt university (larger school)</p>

4

<p>If you are willing to consider a big school like Cornell, will you have various UCs and Minnesota on your application list?</p>

<p>Have you run the net price calculator on each school’s web site, if cost and financial aid are concerns?</p>

5

<p>mmmgirl - I’ll do some more research on Georgetown, thank you! CMC is on my list already but it’s definitely a reach school.</p>

<p>zobroward - Checked out Kenyon, will be applying. Thanks for your input!</p>

<p>ucbalumnus - I “have” to apply to the UCs (because of my parents) but it’s not exactly where I’d like to go for a variety of reasons. If I don’t get into any of these private schools I’ll be okay going to somewhere like Davis, but it’s not ideal…Cornell is there because of the ILR program and I don’t know if I can find anything else quite like it.</p>

<p>Haven’t done the calc yet but mostly because my parents haven’t given me updated information so everything would be a bit skewed. I’ll need some financial aid though, which is another plus with LACs since they do tend to be a bit more generous.</p>

6

<p>Yay bump bump bump</p>

7

<p>c: 10 character minimum okay</p>

8

<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p>

9

<p>UC San Diego (Safety)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Match)
Washington University in S. Louis (Reach)
Columbia (High Reach)
Duke (High Reach)</p>

<p>All of the above universities have very strong Political Science programs. Georgetown and Tufts aren’t really that good in this field besides IR contrary to public opinion.</p>

10

<p>George Washington U (target) and American U (safety) in Washington D.C… Would be cool to attend school a few blocks away from the White House!
Check for other threads in CC, this questions gets asked a lot.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>American University says that “level of applicant’s interest” is “very important” in freshman admissions. Presumably, this means that they tend to reject or waitlist high stats applicants who appear to be using them as a safety. So don’t use it as a safety.</p>

12

<p>The last USNWR ranking on PS programs I see is 2009 (not that the rankings are the be all…). But the rankings were:

  1. Harvard; 1 Princeton; 1 Stanford; 4 Michigan; 5 Yale; 6 UC -Berk; 7 Columbia; 7 UC - SD; 9 Duke; 9 MIT; 11 UCLA; 11 U Chicago; 13 NC; 13 Wash U Stl; 15 Rochestor; 15 UW - Madison</p>

<p>Thus, your best bets in this list are Michigan, Berkeley, SD, UCLA, NC, Rochester and Madison. Obviously some are a better bet than others and there is always a chance for the others but you are likely to get admitted to at least a couple. Now what you can afford is super important, if not critical.</p>

13

<p>^ Those are graduate program rankings.</p>

14

<p>annalogies, I highly recommend you to look into Chapman University. One of the Chapman’s political science students won the prestigious Truman Scholarship award this last school year. Chapman and Stanford were the only two California institutions to have recipients last year. Chapman also has an excellent law school. [Chapman</a> student wins prestigious Truman Scholarship](<a href=“http://blogs.chapman.edu/happenings/2011/04/25/chapman-student-wins-prestigious-truman-scholarship/]Chapman”>Chapman student wins prestigious Truman Scholarship | Chapman Newsroom)</p>

15

<p>With a 34 ACT score you could likely be admitted to NYU with merit scholarship and NYU does have an excellent department.</p>