<p>Curious as to what people think are the top poli sci schools - ranked in order for undergrad?</p>
<p>Harvard
Princeton
Stanford
U Mich
Yale
Columbia
Duke
Chicago
Georgetown
JHU
Cornell
Northwestern
NYU
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory</p>
<p>Undergrads really depend on the alumni network in government.</p>
<p>So it would go something like this:
tier 1: HYPS
tier 2: rest of the Ivies, Northwestern, Duke, UChicago, JHU, Georgetown, UMich
tier 3: NYU, Rice, Vanderbilt, Emory</p>
<p>It really depends on you, rather than your school. If you are a power-networker or super smart (even a little nerdy) professional & personable person at NYU, you may get better opportunities than someone at Yale.</p>
<p>If you are open to places not on your original list I would add top LAC’s potentially above NYU and UMich ----Williams Amherst Swarthmore, Middlebury----and on par with many of the others. Some of these have January term when students do internships.</p>
<p>[This</a> analysis](<a href=“http://www.politicalstudies.org/pdf/psr/hix.pdf]This”>Political Studies – Social Science) rates the top schools this way:</p>
<p>Columbia
Harvard
Stanford
tOSU
UCSD
UCI
Indiana
Princeton
Yale
UCB
Mich State
Chicago
UCLA
Georgetown
MIT
SUNY, Bimg
Florida State :)</p>
<p>Im pretty intrigued by the fact that 9/16 of those schools are public schools. Idk why that matters, but it’s surprising to see a list not dominated by Privates.
Even more surprising is the fact that MIT is on there. Call me simplistic, but I never saw MIT as a school with a good polsci track.</p>
<p>Here are the undergrad schools that produce the highest number of future PhDs in poli sci or government per 1000 graduates:</p>
<p>**Number of PhDs per 1000 graduates<br>
Academic field: Political Science and Government</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database**</p>
<p>Does not include schools averaging fewer than 100 graduates per year over the ten year period. </p>
<p>
**10 Swarthmore College<br>
8 Haverford College<br>
8 Princeton University<br>
7 Pomona College<br>
7 Harvard University<br>
7 University of Chicago<br>
7 Oberlin College
7 Williams College<br>
7 Reed College<br>
6 Wesleyan University
6 Bryn Mawr College<br>
5 University of the South
5 Whitman College
5 Amherst College
5 Yale University
5 College of Wooster<br>
5 Stanford University
5 Georgetown University<br>
5 Claremont McKenna College<br>
5 Carleton College<br>
4 Smith College<br>
4 Middlebury College<br>
4 Franklin and Marshall College<br>
4 Tougaloo College<br>
4 Wellesley College<br>
4 Occidental College<br>
4 Brown University<br>
4 Lawrence University
4 Harvey Mudd College
4 United States Coast Guard Academy<br>
4 Earlham College
4 Kenyon College<br>
4 Knox College<br>
4 Brandeis University **
</p>
<p>I’m not sure what that’s supposed to prove or how it’s relevant to Top Poli Sci schools.
Are you suggesting that Whitman and Wooster are better for Poli Sci than Brown, Middlebury, and Wellesley?</p>
<p>Not sure about the other schools, but both MSU (Lansing) & TOSU (Columbus) are located in the State Capital. James Madison College of MSU is well regarded in International Relationship, Public Affair, and Politics in general in a residential college setting. </p>
<p>[James</a> Madison College - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison_College]James”>Michigan State University - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Whereas Ohio State’s political science department is ranked 13th in the country by USNWR, with American Politics section 5th, International Politics 12th and Political Methodology 10th. The London School of Economics (LSE) ranked it as the 4th best political science department in the world based on publications.</p>
<p>Might add a school like Holy Cross-very good LAC. HC’s political alumni network includes 1 Supreme Court Justice,1 US Senator, 4 Congressmen, Chris Mattews, Obama’S chief speechwriter.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting anything, I’m merely providing data. I think it’s relevant to a discussion of poli sci options to look at which college produce the most PhDs in poli sci and government. Make of it what you will.</p>
<p>Not everyone can get into the top poli sci schools like Havard, Pomona, Princeton, Swarthmore, etc. So for many people reading this thread, yes Whitman and Wooster might be really good options to look into.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>the US News undergrad rankings is basically the only ranking that is as dominated by privates as you’re accustomed to.</p>
<p>The Gourman rankings for poli sci are 7 publics in the top 20. So I dont think it’s just usnwr. But a lot of the schools on parent2noles’ list arent even in the top 20 in gourman.</p>
<p>re: #4</p>
<p>That ranking is driven by publication rates. And notice the margins that separate some of these schools. At Columbia (#1), faculty published an average of 2.682 articles in political science journals during a 5-year period. At Yale (#10), faculty published an average of 1.767 articles in political science journals during a 5-year period. Is this a meaningful distinction for choosing a college? </p>
<p>I don’t mean to trivialize this study. Objective performance data is good to have. However, I think each article’s marginal significance for undergraduate program quality would be hard to assess. The correlation with certain student outcomes may be small (conceivably even negative).</p>
<p>… for instance, compare the rankings in #4 with the rankings in #6. For journal production, 4 of the top 10 are large public universities. For PhD production (the number of government majors who go on to earn PhDs), the list looks very different. Small liberal arts colleges occupy 7 of the top 10 spots for PhD production in political science</p>
<p>But notice the schools that occupy high positions on BOTH lists (posts #4 and #6). Princeton, Harvard, and Chicago are #3, #5, and #6 respectively for PhD production. These are the only non-LACs in the top 10 for PhD production. Conversely, they are the only schools in the PhD top 10 that also show up in parent2noles’ list. Yale, Stanford, and Georgetown are other schools high in both political science PhD production and journal production.</p>
<p>Now consider some data on average class sizes. CC poster hawkette’s analysis shows that, on this basis, the 6 very strongest universites include Harvard, Chicago, and Yale. Princeton, Stanford, and Georgetown also do well by this measure. All 6 of these also are marked as having received USNWR recognition for undergraduate teaching excellence. (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html</a>)</p>
<p>Putting it all together, the data seems to support a fairly common sense conclusion. The best undergraduate schools will include those where the faculty are productive researchers, as long as a strong focus on undergraduates is maintained. Productive research + small classes (+ selective admissions and other factors of course) tends to yield high PhD production. At a school like Georgetown, many of the best students may choose paths other than a PhD track, but presumably do well by other relevant outcome measures.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And what are you basing this on? Anyway, this ranking of future powerbrokers might be interesting to some…
[The</a> 25 Best Schools for Future-Powerbrokers - Harvard University - Newsweek - Education](<a href=“http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/the-25-best-schools-for-future-powerbrokers/harvard-university.html]The”>http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/the-25-best-schools-for-future-powerbrokers/harvard-university.html)</p>
<p>^^^ Personally, I think that is a bit off.
For example: NYU has had 13 senators. Stern I’m sure has put plenty of graduates in as CEOs of fortune 100 companies, as well as a few billionaires. Shouldn’t that put it in front of schools such as Notre Dame on that list?</p>
<p>JMO…but I would guess that schools that have Tier I law schools would have strong poly sci undergrad progams.</p>
<p>Thoughts???</p>
<p>The OP merely asked for a ranking of those particular schools political science depts. He didnt exactly say for what purpose, but subsequent posters seemed to assume a lot of possible purposes, e.g., grad school, law school, entering politics, etc. </p>
<p>Actually, there are no rankings of undergrad political science departments. (The Gourman ratings are out-of-date at best and have no known reliable methodology.) Graduate rankings provide some indication of the research quality of the department, but dont tell you much about the quality of the teaching or the undergrad experience as a major in a particular department. Most top universities will have a decent political science department, however, and that would be the case with the schools listed by the OP. Unless he can determine anything about differences in teaching quality among those departments, all of them might serve him well and theres not much point in trying to rank them at the undergrad level. The OP should choose the best university which will admit him, that he can afford, and that otherwise is the best fit for him, rather than trying to select it on the basis of a single department. </p>
<p>An undergrad political science major is not a pre-politics degree, though many people who later choose to enter politics at all levels or who choose to work in government follow this path. So in that case, connections and prestige of a particular school (but not the department) can be a factor. At the national level, this might point to the most prestigious schools. At the regional or local level, a local or regional school might serve one just as well or better. </p>
<p>If the OP is interested in graduate study in political science, then schools with highly ranked graduate programs might result in letters of recommendations from top people in the field. Schools that produce a higher number or percentage of people that successfully go on to PhDs would be relevant, too. This would include many LACs. </p>
<p>The structure of a political science major is pretty similar across different departments. It includes introductory courses in the major subfields of American politics, international relations, political philosophy, and comparative politics; a methodology course or two; several courses concentrated in one of the subfields; and perhaps a seminar or two. If anything, the availability of seminars at the undergrad will differentiate the better departments. If he is on an honors track, he will probably do a thesis. </p>
<p>Some things to consider:
-Is there breadth and depth of course offerings across the various subfields?
-Are there good departments in related fields, e.g., history, economics, sociology, and philosophy. For some interests, supporting coursework in communication, geography (GIS), business, psychology, and other fields might be relevant.
-Are the faculty active scholars in the field? Do any faculty have work experience in government?
-Are graduates accepted in top law, public policy, and IR programs?
-Are graduates accepted into top political science grad programs?
-Are there research opportunities for undergrads?
-How large is the department in terms of the number of faculty in various subspecialties and the number of majors? </p>
<p>Some factors that might favor one department over another for an undergrad:
-Location in a state capital or in Washington, DC. If interested in urban politics, location in a big city might be a factor.
-Are there special majors such as PPE, urban studies, or political philosophy?
-Are there internships?
-If interested in international politics, are there good programs in the languages and area studies that are of interest? Is there a good study abroad program?</p>
<p>See my post on some criteria for IR programs for some similar considerations:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/932091-what-makes-good-school-ir-some-criteria.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/932091-what-makes-good-school-ir-some-criteria.html</a></p>
<p>Having a top law school may be a good indicator that there is a strong government department under the hood, too (along with any number of other strong departments). But not having one doesn’t preclude the other. Princeton and Johns Hopkins seem to be strong in government and IR, but neither one has a law school at all.</p>