Poli Sci Major — I need your help deciding! [between Duke, UCLA, Georgetown, Dartmouth]

College Search & Lists
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Hi everyone! I first want to say thank you so much for reading and being willing to help me decide. I obviously am so grateful for my options as well as everyone’s opinions and advice.

The dilemma at hand: I got into college. And now I have to choose! I have a lot of great options, but my top 4 at this point are Duke, UCLA, Georgetown, and Dartmouth. I am pretty sure I’d like to be a Political Science major (that’s what I applied for), but I also have lots of diverse interests, so it’s fair to say it could change down the line or turn into some kind of double-major situation. Right now, I’m considering possibly adding a double major in Data Science or Chemistry, and I know I definitely want to minor in Spanish. The goal is to go to law school after college.

Some things about me and what I want in a college. First, I’m lucky enough to say that money isn’t really an issue at hand in the decision, so it shouldn’t factor in here. My dream school was Princeton (unfortunately that didn’t work out), but maybe that helps in envisioning what kind of college I was looking for? I’m a really hardworking student who loves a campus with lots of school spirit. I like a tight-knit environment (I also loved William and Mary when I toured), but I don’t want to feel too too isolated. However, I’m okay with being in a college town situation where the only thing in the town is the college; like Williamsburg or Princeton if that makes sense. My entire life I have gone to really small private schools.

Here are my pros and cons for each of these schools to give an idea of what I’m thinking about:
UCLA
Pros:
-it’s a very fun city with a great food scene
-very spirited and happy campus
-great academics without overcompetitiveness
Cons:
-on the other side of the country (for me)
-a HUGE change size-wise from what I’m used to

Georgetown
Pros:
-kind of perfect for studying political science
-internship opportunities and food in DC is amazing and I know the area well
-in love with the campus and student spirit
Cons:
-lowest ranked school
-not sure how I feel about the Jesuit education piece (I’m not religious)
-worried about how it would be if I chose to change my major

Duke
Pros:
-I live in the area so it would be very comfortable
-I have friends that go there
-I love the school spirit and academics
Cons:
-my dad works there so I could literally go eat lunch with him every day
-it feels like I’m not challenging myself if I go to the school where I’ve basically been growing up the past 18 years?

Dartmouth
Pros:
-it’s pretty cool to say I’m an ivy league student!
-this used to be my dream school before my mom convinced me that the woods were scary HAHA
-since it’s a rich school, there’s many opportunities for research
-super tight knit and spirited
Cons:
-super isolated and hard to leave/get to
-I don’t know how to ski and because of my mom I am now minorly scared of the woods
-not sure how the academics compare to Duke?

Please provide any insight you can! I’d love to hear your advice :slight_smile:

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My personal choice here would be Georgetown, although I’m biased as I did an MA there :wink:

In my opinion, don’t worry about the Jesuit thing. I’m an atheist and did both undergrad and grad at Jesuit schools and had an amazing time at both. There is no religious pressure at all and quite a bit of diversity. And Georgetown, in my opinion, has a lot more of a secular feel to it than some other Jesuit schools. And really the Jesuit educational philosophy based on educating and caring for the whole person is a pretty cool thing, whether you are religious or not. Ranking shouldn’t be a factor, imo. It’s a great school that will give you a solid education and the location is ideal for poli sci. So, to me, it’s Georgetown ftw.

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Data science may be a more useful major at the bachelor’s degree level if you do not go to law school. No specific undergraduate major is required to go to law school. Chemistry or another science may be useful if you want to go into patent law.

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Yes, totally agree! I’m 99% sure that I want to do political science so the other options are probably just add-on majors that will happen if and only if I’ve met the majority of the requirements before senior year :slight_smile:

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Data science and chemistry have sequences of prerequisites that need to be started early. Waiting until senior year in college to start taking the courses for them will not allow completing them without needing extra semesters.

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Yeah, I will likely just stick with political science. I brought up data science and chemistry just to say I have pretty diverse interests and I’m fairly academically driven. It kind of goes with one of my Georgetown worries which is that I love the school for its political science program, but I don’t know much about their other programs… which, if I decide down the line to change my major, might be an issue. I’m not really sure how to weigh this in the decision process though.

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I don’t think there’s a wrong choice here - and it’s a poli sci degree at four leading schools - so I wouldn’t say “GT is the lowest rank.” Some would say it’s the best for poli sci.

What I want to point out is some things you said to think about:

UCLA - on the other side of the country and a HUGE change size wise.

Duke - I live in the area so it would be very comfortable

So reading what you wrote - Gtown wins - although I would ensure comfortability with the Jesuit education for which you have concern. See the requirements. But lowest ranked - doesn’t really apply - it’s a poli sci degree and it’s in the political capital as you note.

But I will say - college is about growth, learning, and more - and that’s why I put the UCLA and Duke notes up there.

One might consider escaping their shell, their comfort level - vs. doing what they already know. It’s a temporary experience - so you might consider that when choosing vs. taking the “safe” approach.

Here’s the other thing - if you don’t go to school in DC, most every school (including these) has a DC program where you can go for a term or semester and get an internship. Mine did that through her school - and it’s a great experience.

These are four different schools - and in the end you’ll have to decide.

But I don’t see a wrong answer here!! You win no matter which you choose quite honestly.

Congrats on your success.

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Princeton retains an aspect of southern zeitgeist that would be even stronger at Duke. However, Dartmouth comes closer to replicating Princeton’s relative focus on undergraduates. Alternatively, for political science, Georgetown may surpass Princeton.

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You sound most enthused about GU.

If you didn’t spend the last 18 years around Duke, and your dad working there then I bet you’d have more of an itch towards Duke. (What’s not to love!)

But IMO, college is just not about academics, but also personal growth, challenge and opportunities.

For those reasons, and bc of how you described GU, I think you may be living in DC next year and experiencing significant academic and personal fulfillment.

(Disclosure: I have a S who is a junior at GW; and DC is just such a special place to live and learn.)

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Agree re Georgetown. Duke would not be real college away experience. Dartmouth is isolated and far. UCLA is too different from what you know and very far from family. Georgetown and DC are perfect. None of the other schools is better than Georgetown at Poli Sci or pre-law.

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For what it’s worth, when I read this and I saw your list of schools, I immediately put Dartmouth and Duke ahead of Georgetown and UCLA - and then when you mentioned that you live by Duke, I thought Dartmouth made a lot of sense. The culture feels just right, and you would get a great political science education there (and anywhere - yes Georgetown provides a whole different kind of access, but the campus experience is very much not the same, and if your plan is law school, the access to DC pols isn’t as important). It is challenging to get to, which means students are very focused on their life and community there. It certainly feels more like Princeton (the city) than the surroundings at any of the other places you’re looking at. I can’t really help with your mom’s fear of the woods :slight_smile: but not everyone at Dartmouth skis (before they attend), and I definitely know committed urbanites who enjoyed their four years there with limited time wandering around root glens.

Bigger picture - all four schools would provide you a tremendous education with substantive rigor, and so I would put the ratings out of your mind. Who knows how they will be “rated” four or ten or twenty years from now.

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What’s a root glen?

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I was going to say Duke until you explained the special circumstances in your case.

So it seems to me Georgetown is the obvious next choice given all you described, really a great fit in fact. And in fact given what you described, I wouldn’t consider UCLA and Dartmouth to be particularly close competitors.

For the record, in the real world of working professionals, virtually no one who actually matters cares about the Ivy League per se (and for the record, I went to one for college). The individual colleges are very good colleges, but I don’t actually think being in that sports conference really gives their graduates anything of value their otherwise peer colleges, sometimes known as the “Ivy+” category (which is still overemphasizing the Ivies, I might note), can give.

And for Political Science and law stuff in particular, Georgetown is easily in the “Ivy+” category. So is Duke. So I would not put the slightest finger on the scale in favor of Dartmouth, and while it is a great college for some, for you I am not seeing the fit I am seeing with Georgetown.

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Unsurprisingly, all of your potential choices appear in this site:

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A bucolic walk through a shady forest, like this one - though honestly I thought there were more of them when I used it as an example :).

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Thanks for your response. For the curious, the link connects to Root Glen, which was named after the Root family, of whom statesman and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elihu Root was a prominent member.

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Congratulations on having great options!

Based on what you said, Duke, while fantastic, isn’t maybe enough of a new experience for you. Lunch every day with your Dad did go in the Cons column, after all. :wink:

Georgetown obviously hits the mark in a number of ways if you stay with political science – exciting to have this as a choice!

If law school remains on the radar, the two lists here (one for total and the other adjusted for size of undergrad school) may be of interest – all 4 schools are on the first list, and 3 of the 4 are on the second.

Since I know the most about Dartmouth, I thought I’d share some info that may be relevant but with which you may not be entirely familiar -

1)Location –
To me, it fits what you describe in terms of a college town. Of course there is easy access to the outdoors if you want it, but I know current Dartmouth students who have an actual aversion to the woods, :rofl:, yet love it there. “The Woods” can be a big part of your experience if you choose (Outing Club etc.) or no part of your experience at all (outside of a freshman trip experience during Orientation which is not mandatory but recommended).

Most things happen on campus and in town and, as @movingtothebeach said, the location contributes to the tight-knit nature of the community which does have school spirit even if not mostly based on sports. I wonder if you have visited campus…walking to class, to events, to a café in town, to the dorm does not involve going through woods…it’s paved paths, roads, sidewalks, etc. It just feels like a college campus attached to a town. If you want to get out on The River in a canoe (or swim in it), you can walk down a path through the woods to access it, but on a daily basis, if what interests you outside of class is not the river but a visiting speaker, a performance or film, a study session in the library, or a party, you won’t be at one with “the woods” at all.

You can get off campus to surrounding towns via free bus/friends/zipcars or make use of a bus service (Dartmouth Coach) that is not free but picks up right in the center of campus and gets you to Boston or NYC. The Boston one leaves from the center of campus (and drops there) about a dozen times a day. Nobody is using it every week, but people do use it to spend a day in the city, go to a concert, etc. It’s a handful-a-times-each-year kind of proposition and also makes it straightforward for students to get to campus after flying into the Boston airport. (It has two stops in Boston - one at the airport and one at South Station downtown).

2)Political Science/Law – (many links included below)
Clearly, HanoverNH isn’t D.C. However, Government (what they call the Political Science Major at Dartmouth) is one of the most popular majors at Dartmouth and a strength. They also have a Public Policy Minor. Both of these departments are associated with the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy on campus which is the hub for political and policy related internships, research, funding, speakers, etc.

There are possibly some benefits related to the D-Plan calendar (which allows you to seek an internship in a less-competitive term than summer) and to the fact that Dartmouth enjoys a prominence in its surrounding area that allows it to place well in NH/VT politics/policy internships for undergrads (you aren’t competing with as many people for positions as you might be in D.C. )? For example,

  • The college has a strong relationship with the NH Supreme Court (multiple alums) and places interns there during multiple terms of the year (D-plan again).
  • A current sophomore who did the First Year Fellows program (see below) is now Chief of Staff for a Vermont State Rep. And so on.

Specifically, some of what is offered -

  • Public Policy Minor
  • First Year Fellows: a program (with an application/selection process) for ~20-24 students to have a mentored (by an alum) internship in DC the summer after freshman year; includes a week of “Civic Skills” training, housing with your cohort, professional development events, a living stipend; you are matched with the internship and don’t need to find it yourself
  • Policy Research Shop: an apprenticeship program that provides experience being engaged in NH and VT policy (learning to write briefs, etc). A student begins by taking an Intro to Public Policy Research class and then can continue involvement with The Policy Research Shop (“a student-staffed, faculty-mentored research enterprise that allows students to engage directly in the public policymaking processes in Vermont and New Hampshire by providing valuable, non-partisan research to state legislative committees, statewide commissions, and executive agencies on critical issues facing each state.”)
  • Funding for Research, Conferences, and Unpaid/Partially Paid Internships
  • Speakers/Events/”Path to the Presidency” – Dartmouth is a hub for this in the Upper New England area. Presidential candidates commonly come to campus, and just in the last 10 week term, speakers on campus included Jamie Raskin, Liz Cheney, and, Neal Katyal. In the coming 10-week term, Tim Mulvey (communications director for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol) will be one of the speakers on campus.
  • And more – several structured Leadership Programs (check out Management Leadership Development, Global Leadership Development, Leadership Fellows), a DC Semester, a London Foreign Study Program focused on government, and an exchange with Oxford

Essentially, Dartmouth is more isolated than other schools but also embedded in a college town and, I think, well positioned to give you access to tremendous opportunities and experiences in Politics and Public Policy. And not entirely in the woods. :wink:

Enjoy the research and the final stage of your search!

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If your parents have an extra $125K they’d like to donate to the UC college system in OOS tuition then as a CA resident I thank them for their gift.

But I can’t think of any compelling reason to go to a large public with the options you have and money you are able to pay. In majors like poli sci IMO a lot of what you’re going to get out of your education are the class discussions with other smart kids and the prof, as well as having the prof give advice on and grade your papers. Small is better, small is not UCLA. Look at the schedule of classes at Schedule of Classes | UCLA Registrar’s Office hit “Expand all Classes” and you’ll see that not only are lower-division classes (numbered 99 and below) large, almost all upper-division poli sci classes enroll 120 or more. So you’re going to be listening to lectures, not participating, except for the 1x/wk discussion section with a grad student.

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Duke…

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“In majors like poli sci IMO a lot of what you’re going to get out of your education are the class discussions with other smart kids and the prof, as well as having the prof give advice on and grade your papers.”

This post reeks of elitism, there are a lot of smart kids at UCLA, even in poly sci! And I have been to UCLA, Dartmouth and Georgetown, and really UCLA’s culture is probably better, since the social activities at Dartmouth depend on the Greek system. I think the DC location is the best of the three, my only concern with Georgetown is as other’s have mentioned, if the OP changes to say a STEM major. And UCLA’s programs are pretty strong across the board, even if the programs are taken by a bunch of dummies :slight_smile:

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