Thanks- I really wish schools were required to provide specific standardized placement reports by major. Also don’t like how they lump employment with “pursuing higher education” .
I’ve come to understand the University of Arizona as ambitious with respect to political science and related fields. Its having created the School of Government and Public Policy seems enlaced with this ambition.
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Is grad school or law school an interest, if so I would give UMD an edge for government major.
GMU seems to be up and coming on strong with their poli sci program.
Consider GMU has Scalia School of Law.
IIRC, UMD has a three year finish undergrad and start Thurgood Marshall Law School in Baltimore in fourth year.
I think all your options are fine.
No single program has a lock on exceptional internships- because there are dozens of types of internships (and just plain vanilla jobs) which are great preparation for a career in government. Every member of Congress has constituent relations offices (big, populous states will have several) where the interns or part-time employees do things like helping someone who can’t access their local VA for a medical procedure, figure out how to get a constituent an emergency passport for a parent’s funeral overseas, get the proper social security payment after a spouse dies. These roles are fantastic preparation because they involve interacting with multiple agencies and learning about the “guts” of government.
Every governor maintains an operation to monitor legislation which would impact the state. So a proposed closing of a military base- that could mean thousands of jobs vanishing (not just uniformed services-- the people who cook and clean and drive; local car dealerships and grocery stores, etc.). Some of these are in DC, and some are in their own state.
Every federal agency (so Veteran’s, Interior, Treasury) has arms and legs outside of DC. Every federal property (parks, wildlife preserves, museums/monuments) has staff and professionals.
So I think you are safe making a decision based on the actual program (more statistics/math? more emphasis on foreign language fluency and capability? more econ/monetary policy or more emphasis on voter behavior?) rather than future employment. All of these are great. There are many launch pads and there’s no single path which is “the correct one”.
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You should have your child think about how much they are interested in just political science and how much in public policy. Strong in both political science and public policy is rarer. UMD, IU, OSU are strong in both. Not sure about the others. OSU has the Buckeye OOS scholarship that is somewhat widely available. Pitt is pretty good in public policy and has rolling admissions. UMN might have good public policy.
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This is a good point. He doesn’t know yet so having both programs is a plus!
With respect to public policy, note that UMD appears in this site:
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Utah is another college in a state capital with a very strong politics department and connections with DC internships.
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