<p>While obviously Washington DC is the seat of federal politics, as Tip O’Neill said “All politics is local”. Politics is everywhere, so you really don’t have to be in DC to do it. And let’s face it, the competition for political jobs in DC is fierce. Tulane has a strong department also, with a star professor in James Carville, although admittedly he only teaches one class a year and it is hard to get into. Also, remember that a typical student in most majors only takes about 25% of their courses in their major, the rest being in various distribution requirements and for other interests. So they need to look at the broader picture. With few exceptions for certain highly specialized majors (architecture and engineering come to mind) where students take the majority of their courses in their major or in support of it, an undergraduate school should never be chosen based on which school is “better” in that major. Universities in the USA are not supposed to be trade schools, they are liberal arts institutions where students happen to specialize in a certain area.</p>
<p>Anyway, not trying to run down American in the least, it is a fine school that is extremely strong in these areas of course, and DC is amazing, just amazing in a very different way than New Orleans is. My advice would be for him to attend whichever school he feels fits him best. Tulane is somewhat more academically selective than American, but only slightly. They are very similar in that way as well. If he came away from Honors Weekend at Tulane thinking it was the school for him, then great. He should go to Tulane (assuming he has seen American already). If he has seen both and is still undecided, then he just has to think about all the things that are important to him in all aspects of a college and try to sift through it to see what comes out in the end. If he has not visited American yet, he should do that as soon as possible so he has a fair comparison.</p>