<p>I'm kind of stuck in a rut with finding a school. I think I want to do Economics or Political Science, but I'm having some trouble widening my scope of schools. I live near Canton, Ohio and I'm looking at Miami (Ohio) and UPenn at the moment. I would like to go somewhere thats reasonably close (9 hours to UPenn is just about pushing the limit). I know Duke and Chicago have great programs, but my concern is that those schools have so many Econ students that my freshman classes will be huge. Any thoughts? Thanks for your help...</p>
<p>I think no matter where you go freshman econ classes will be huge because you'll most likely be in an Intro class, which are always packed. With this in mind, Chicago has a fabulous econ program. However, take a visit and spend the night. After spending the night at Shoreland (ewww) and dealing with the stingy, unresponsive, and unfeeling financial aid officers, I opted to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>I recently saw syllabus for an Econ course at Chicago that said the target enrollment was 15 students.</p>
<p>If you're interested in attending a liberal arts college in your home state, you may want to check out Denison. Its economics and political science departments are very strong, and classes are small.</p>
<p>There are many schools to check out:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University (primarily in Economics)
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester</p>
<p>Carleton College
Denison University (great backup...close to home)
Haverford College
Macalester College
Oberlin College
Swarthmore College</p>
<p>Idad, I would be seriously surprised if intro Econ classes at Chicago had 15 students in them. I would actually be surprised if they had fewer than 100 students in them. Even at schools like Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, Penn and Stanford, intro classes in popular majors like Econ will have huge lectures.</p>
<p>Econ at Northwestern is great, but the Poli Sci dept. isnt all that great.</p>
<p>All is relative KK. Compared to its Econ program, I agree that Northwestern's Poli-Scie program is not all that great. However, from what I have seen, NU has a very good Political Science program.</p>
<p>Re Econ course sizes at UChicago Fall 2005: Intro to Microeconomics capped at 90 (current enrollment 88), Intro to Macroeconomics capped at 90 (current enrollment 67), Intro to Economic Analysis capped at 40 (current enrollment 28). Most, thereafter, have caps of 40, upper division courses have caps in the teens.</p>
<p>The following were mentioned under both Poly Sci and Econ in either the Gourman Report Undergrad or in Rugg's Recommendations (excludes colleges alraedy named above)</p>
<p>Cornell
NYU
Michigan State
Ohio State
Hamilton
Kenyon</p>
<p>^ Anyone have the top 50 or so strictly for undergrad political science?</p>
<p>There are no undergrad rankings of such.</p>
<p>Penn has a PPE (philosophy, politics, and economics) program, one of the few outside of Oxford.</p>
<p>London School Of Economics And Political Science</p>
<p>Thats interesting, I always thought Oxford was the only university to have such a major.</p>
<p>Go to the website on top in bold:
the school specialises in ECON and pol SCI</p>
<p>My Macroeconomics class has 200+ people in it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help guys... My dad is a professor at Ohio State, so Michigan is kind of out of the question. I don't care too much for the small liberal arts colleges either. I was looking at Penn's PPE program and that is what I will do if accepted. Do the class sizes shrink considerably after freshman year, or are they still going to be 100-200+. If any one can tell me more about the class limits at Chicago that would be helpful. Also if you could keep the schools/info coming that'd be great.</p>
<p>At Miami (OH), the 100-level poli sci classes are 36-64 people. That number seems to hold pretty steady until the 400-levels.. even in the 300s, classes are normally 30-50. For micro econ, most classes have about 40 students, although there are 3 or so huge sections of about 130. All of the macro classes are capped at 40 or less. Most of the other economics classes are capped at 30; only a few at 40.</p>
<p>"Thats interesting, I always thought Oxford was the only university to have such a major."</p>
<p>Google PPE Majors and you'll see many more than one university offering the major. Even Eastern Oregon University offers one. :)</p>
<p>Idad, when I said intro classes, I meant the generic 101-102 classes. I guess at Chicago they have roughly 90 students in those classes. That's actually small comapred to most schools. At most top Econ programs, intro classes have well over 100 students. But even 90 students is not small. Although most universities do not impose "caps", most Econ classes outside of the generic required classes have fewer than 50 students in them. I would say Chicago is no different than most other top research universities in that respect.</p>
<p>This said, Chicago is one of the top 2 or 3 Econ programs in the World and one of the top 10 Political Science programs in the US, so I would obviously recommend it very highly...assuming MrHarris feels it is a good fit.</p>
<p>MrHarris, I would apply to Michigan if I were you. Your father will understand. Of all the top universities close to home, Michigan is probably the least selective. If you are a top student, the other schools may still be reaches whereas Michigan would probably be a match. </p>
<p>And certainly apply to OSU. OSU is very good in Political Science and quite decent in Econ.</p>
<p>Duke! It has a very solid econ program (one of the three most popular majors, I'd bet), and its poly sci program (and/or public policy) is also pretty good, although very liberal. It also offers a PPE certificate (8 courses) program. Intro econ is huge (~150), but econ classes quickly get a lot smaller (~30-40). Therefore, yes, econ is extremely popular, but class sizes aren't that large.</p>