Chance Me / Match Me Please: Female, Security Studies, 3.96 UW, 1300 SAT, East Coast / SE, <45K

Chance Me / Match Me
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My son graduated from the IA program at JMU a couple of years ago. If you are interested in the program, I highly recommend contacting the head of the program and requesting a meeting. Not only did the dean have a sit down meeting with my son, he arranged for him to accompany a senior student around the building. I did not attend that part.

BTW, I am just a parent, so I could be a bit off of my perceptions. After reading the course descriptions and the meeting, my thought was that the program was geared toward people who wanted to be those behind the scenes people in the Jack Ryan/Jason Bourne movies. Not in the field getting shot at, but the ones on the computers feeing them intel. And while that probably isnā€™t completely off-base for some gradutatesā€¦ at graduation, the professors had a reception for parents/graduates that talked more about the program. There, it was presented to be more like an LAC education. They learn to take information from all kinds of sources in various academic areas, analyze it, and be able to present it (in written and oral format) to the targeted audience. They learned how to think and work well in groups.

The minor is so you can be more specialized in what you want to do. I know there are languages, data analytics, business, and geography. Iā€™m sure there are others. But this is so you can get jobs in any field, not just the FBI/CIA, etc. At our meeting, he said that all his seniors at jobs by November. With my sonā€™s class, Iā€™m not sure that held true, but I believe everyone he knew had jobs by graduation. Of course, now it is not the best time to try for a Federal job, but again.. the minors can help make you marketable elsewhere.

Re: Honors. My son chose not to go the honors route. At JMU, you have to take a bunch of classes that did not interest him at all. If youā€™re looking for a small cohort, I believe you will find that in the IA program. Unless they expanded in the last couple of years, it is capped at 55 students, due to class/lab space. This is why there is that secondary admission after your freshman year. However, in our meeting, the dean said most of the students dropped out themselves, as the program wasnā€™t what they thought it would be. They thought it was more like CSI on TV. But again, this could be different now.

FWIW, my son absolutely loved the program. The professors are highly regarded in the DC area. My son from time to time gets ā€œoh you had X as your professor? Wow!ā€

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Wow thank you so much this is exactly what I was hoping the program would be. I will reach out to the Dean thatā€™s a great idea!!

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28

A couple of other things.

I will say my son came to the meeting with a list of questions. I was a silent participant.

A benefit of the Honors college is that you can pick your classes early. We are in-state and my kids participated in a program that gave them an associateā€™s degree upon HS graduation. All 50-60 credits transferred. Thus, he got to pick his classes VERY early despite not being in the honors college. So that can be a big benefit to some.

There is also no way to graduate earlier than 4 years. The program is designed that way. My son had enough credits to graduate in 3 years or less. Admissions almost dropped his Madison Scholarship because they thought he was done. But the IA program is very structured.

There is no way to do a semester abroad. You can do summer abroad. My son tried twice to do an internship in Spain, but both years were cancelled due to covid. Hopefully, nobody else will have this experience!

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Below are some schools you may want to consider, based on your stated preferences.

Appalachian State (NC) has about 19k undergrads, big spirit, D1 football, and a variety of majors that might suit your interests, as well as the option to create your own major. Additionally, it falls within budget at sticker price. Some of the potential majors are linked below:

Duquesne doesnā€™t have the same degree of school spirit as Pitt, but it does have D1 football. This Jesuit school of about 5200 undergrads allows to students to design their own major and also has some options that may be of interest such as International Security Studies or the Criminal Justice concentration within sociology or Cybersecurity studies. Looking at the net prices at various income levels, I suspect that Duquesne could fall within budget:

Marshall (WV): About 8200 undergrads

Middle Tennessee State: About 18k undergrads

I donā€™t have time to go into as much depth on these other schools, but these are some others I would investigate:

Schools with greater levels of school spirit around sports

  • Michigan State: About 45k undergrads
  • Oklahoma State: About 21k undergrads
  • Texas Tech: About 33k undergrads
  • U. of Central Florida: About 59k undergrads
  • U. of North Dakota: About 10k undergrads
  • West Virginia U.: About 19k undergrads

Schools that donā€™t have the same degree of enthusiasm for sports as above, but generally still have some:

  • East Tennessee State (TN): About 11k undergrads
  • Miami U. (OH): About 16k undergrads
  • Rowan (NJ): About 15k undergrads
  • Towson (MD): About 17k undergrads
  • U. at Albany (NY): About 12k undergrads
  • U. of Alabama-Birmingham: About 12k undergrads
  • U. of North Carolina - Wilmington: About 14k undergrads
  • U. of Southern Mississippi: About 10k undergrads
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