<p>In many cases, the difference between undergraduate and graduate programs is virtually non-existant. There are exceptions of course. Some universities lack the resources and student body to make for a strong undergraduate experience, but generally speaking, there is a strong correlation between graduate and undergraduate excellence. Undergrads will be taught similar classes (albeit slightly less quantitatively) by the same faculty in the same facilities as graduate students. In almost all cases, a strong graduate program will translate into a strong undergraduate program.</p>
<p>This said, the opposite of the above is not true. A school does not have to be excellent at the graduate level to be excellent at the undergraduate level. For example, schools such as Claremont McKenna and Kenyon have excellent undergraduate Political Science departments but their graduate programs are either nonexistent or weak.</p>
<p>“This said, the opposite of the above is not true. A school does not have to be excellent at the graduate level to be excellent at the undergraduate level. For example, schools such as Claremont McKenna and Kenyon have excellent undergraduate Political Science departments but their graduate programs are either nonexistent or weak.”</p>
<p>Exactly my point. So just listing strong graduate poli sci departments is somewhat disingenuous at best, and downright misinformation at worst.</p>
<p>MrFantastic, I would not go so far as calling it disingenuous or “misinformation”, but I agree that a list that does not include strong smaller departments would be incomplete. I personally always try to add LACs in my list but I sometimes forget to do so. Unfortunately, most people can only refer to rankings, and rankings are typically centered around top graduate programs. As such, unless one conducts a thorough search on their own, they will miss out on many excellent programs, such as Claremont McKenna, Kenyon, Macalester etc…</p>
The only “disingenuous” thing would be to claim that any list of suggestions is in any way comprehensive. </p>
<p>The posts I quoted contain no fewer than 41 undergraduate programs, mostly at LACs. If you have more to add, then by all means, do so.</p>
<p>As Alexandre said, graduate rankings are only a piece of the puzzle, but they can be a useful part if used correctly. Say you liked both Berkeley and Georgetown, for example. You’re interested in Classics, and you’re not sure which is better. Looking at the NRC ranking, you’d notice that Berkeley is ranked #2, and Georgetown is unranked. At the very least, you can assume from this that Berkeley has a good program. Indeed, that’s the case. (Note, however, that you cannot and should not assume from this that Georgetown has a weak program.) Berkeley has a couple dozen classics professors, a Sather professorship that brings a world-renowned scholar to campus each year, the largest papyrology collection in the western hemisphere, intense language training workshops in the summer, a chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America, and two (!) excavations in Greece and another in Turkey, not to mention its additional strengths in the related areas of Egyptology, Assyriology, etc. Georgetown has…about a half dozen faculty, and that’s about it. Rankings can be unreliable, but with the exception of a very few programs where undergraduate and graduate students are completely separated (e.g. art history at NYU), they at least indicate where some (though certainly not all) of the strong undergraduate programs are.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, however, they can be used as part of the process of assessing academic strength, but that step should come AFTER a student has created a tentative list based on personal preferences. Overreliance on rankings is, of course, ill-advised and lazy. Long-time poster Carolyn posted [an</a> excellent list of suggestions for assessing program strength.](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1822982-post4.html]an”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1822982-post4.html)</p>
<p>Its Georgetown. You’ll find pretty good PoliSci classes at most great Universities. What those others can’t offer, however, is the opportunity to be the best University in the city (and “state”) with the greatest number of influential people in politics. You’ll have fantastic opportunity to work in and around the capitol complex, something almost no University outside of DC can offer as conveniently. You’re also living in whats probably the most politics-aware city in the nation, and attending school with kids who more than likely were drawn to Gtown based on its political location as well.</p>
<p>What do you want to do with a poli sci degree? </p>
<p>A note about Georgetown: if you’re interested in research, Gtown doesn’t even rank top 10. If you want field experience in politics, go for it!</p>
<p>And even though graduate program strength isn’t the same as undergrad strength, they aren’t completely unrelated. If the graduate program is weak, then you TAs are probably also not the most qualified. Graduate programs are ranked mainly by the strength of faculty–many which will also be teaching undergrad classes!</p>
<p>here are some (very very roughly, since I don’t know what your specific interests are):</p>
<p>The power houses in political science: stanford, princeton, harvard…i’d probably put princeton at top, they’ve been slowly acquiring many of harvard’s faculty over the past years :)</p>
<p>If you want to work in government, yale, columbia and georgetown are also great.</p>
<p>For academia, most of the above + Cal, UCSD (outstanding theater program too), UMich, and UChicago</p>
<p>Duke is a very good political science university–it tends to be a little on the liberal side but it has a very good reputation for it’s studies–it has been ranked top 10 for 2011 political science grad and it’s probably up there for undergrad</p>
<p>I can back J2 up. I go to Duke and major in PoliSci and it is very good. Internships are easily attainable. I’m going to be a sophomore and I worked in Congress this past summer. Good stuff.</p>