stressedmom, post #5 by blue85 is the best advice you will see on this thread. There is little doubt that when it comes to IR and job placements in government institutions in DC, Georgetown is hard to beat…or match for that matter. That being said, although Michigan does not have an official IR program, it has multiple programs that, in concert with each other, afford undergrads at Michigan a very potent experience in policy and IR.
In addition to his thread, I would add the following:
- Michigan's Political Science department is ranked anywhere between #1 and #4 in the nation. The faculty is among the most well connected and active in national policy making. Most Political Science majors at Michigan are in fact prelaw. As such, the few students that are in fact interested in internships in DC usually make it happen through the University's extremely influential faculty. The handful of students I knew who were interested in government work certainly had no trouble finding internships after their Junior year at Michigan.
- Michigan recently added a PPE major which looks incredibly good. When you consider that Michigan's Philosophy and Political Science departments are both ranked among the top 5 nationally, and its Economics department among the top 15 nationally, in concert with Michigan's history of innovation in interdisciplinary and inter-departmental cooperation, this program should be truly exceptional.
Here’s another interesting link. Like I said, Georgetown is tough to beat, but Michigan isn’t too shabby either.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/03/top-twenty-five-schools-international-relations/
One comment made by espenser that is completely incorrect is that it is easier to establish connections with faculty at Georgetown. That’s because his comment about class size is only partially correct ; for the most part, only classes at the intro-level at Michigan will be larger. Classes at the intermediate and advanced levels will generally be the same size at virtually all major research university. That is because Michigan’s much larger undergraduate student population is scattered evenly across far more academic disciplines. In many instances (like Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics etc…), Michigan will actually have smaller classes than at many private universities. In popular premed and prelaw majors, classes at Michigan can indeed be larger that at some of its peers (schools like Columbia, Northwestern, Penn and Stanford), but insignificantly so. And since connections with faculty at typically forged in intermediate to advanced level classes, Michigan students are not at any disadvantage when it comes to making those valuable connections and securing research/publishing opportunities, if so inclined. If one wants small classes across the board, and unlimited access to faculty, Georgetown’s SFS, with its hotshot faculty who roam the hallways of Capitol Hill and the State Department, is not the way to go…nor are most elite research universities with their Nobel Prize-seeking faculties. No, in such cases, away to a LAC you go, lest you wish to be left wanting.