Which schools offer the best internship opportunities and placement for undergraduate political science majors? Also, is it critical to be near DC or a state capitol to attain a job after graduation?
“is it critical to be near DC . . . ?”
Your choices, excepting personal preference, do not need to be limited to those schools in or near capital cities. Colleges with semester programs in Washington can offer similar – and possibly even more concentrated – opportunities, for example.
Lots of schools are good for political science.
One of the more interesting is St. Anselm. NH is a very active state politically and that school has the state institute. It also hosts at least one of the Presidential debates and countless visits from candidates.
Grinnell might come as a surprise: https://www.grinnell.edu/offices-services/ocs/giw
It’s consistent with their strong emphasis on social justice and support for social entrepreneurship.
It depends on what kind of internship(s) you want. Georgetown’s school of government is top tier, but NYU has a good program as well. Penn’s political science program links up with its communication program and has some fascinating research going on. There is a plethora of things you can do with political science, so in order to get a more reasonable answer, you’ll need to make your question more specific: what kind of internships are you interested in? What kind of jobs are you interested in?
I graduated with a political science degree and went into software consulting and then management consulting. The closest I ever came to working for or with the government was working for a company that also does work with Amtrak!