<p>How is UCSD’s Poli Sci department? Will I be well prepared for the LSAT and a top law school as a Political Science (IR) major at Revelle? How does SD’s deparatment compare to the likes of Cal and LA?</p>
<p>Pretty much all the UCs will give you a good liberal arts/poli sci education but on the graduate level UCSD polisci is ranked pretty high up there especially for IR. Get good grades and study hard for the LSAT, that's what will get you into law school.</p>
<p>Just stumbled onto this post...</p>
<p>UCSD is incredibly good in comparative. Right now, with Gary Cox, UCSD is a powerhouse in that subfield. Overall, however, the UCSD poli sci department is very good, and it publishes like crazy.</p>
<p>how is it in public policy?</p>
<p>Which college is best for political science?</p>
<p>Nationally? Internationally? What do you mean?</p>
<p>If you check the Ph.D. depts...this is how political science goes...</p>
<p>According to U.S. News World Report 2006 Graduate School Rankings</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard University</li>
<li>Stanford University</li>
<li>University of Michigan--Ann Arbor</li>
<li>Princeton University</li>
<li>University of California--Berkeley
Yale University</li>
<li>University of California--San Diego</li>
<li>Duke University
University of Chicago
<ol>
<li>Columbia University (NY)
Massachusettes Institute of Technology
University of California--Los Angeles</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<p>Those rankings are terrible. They don't mean a thing.</p>
<p>Political science departments are not these holistic bodies where you can rank them in such a broad matter. For example, UCSD is a powerhouse in comparative politics. However, it is broadly recognized that the strength of the department rests largely in the lap of Gary Cox and a few other exceptional profs who do comparative. </p>
<p>UCLA is a powerhouse in American and comparative, but needs to develop its theory and IR a bit. </p>
<p>Harvard is good all around, but has lacked in American for a while now.</p>
<p>Berkeley's theory sucks, and that has hurt it recently in terms of dissertation quality.</p>
<p>Columbia is good, but most grad students there aren't thrilled with the program or the placements. Placements have been good, but not spectacular.</p>
<p>Stanford is a good program overall, actually.</p>
<p>That's another thing- Never underestimate the quality of a department's placements when looking at the rankings. What Duke's ranking doesn't show is that its placements are much better than its ranking. </p>
<p>Why does this matter? Good TAs and profs mean better instruction. As a political science student, you want to know who's good in what. It never hurts to have a great letter of rec. from a well-known scholar when grad school comes around.</p>
<p>Michigan is a good department if you like quantitative study. They, I think, are the best known quantitative study dept. in America. Number crunching is the thing to do out there, apparently.</p>
<p>UCLAri, I was considering doing public administration or public policy. Do you know which UC would be best for those subjects IF they have any courses on that? I'm particularly takling about all of the UCs (except UCI and UCM). Thanks.</p>
<p>P.S. Can you take graduate law courses at UCLA as an UG?</p>
<p>Public policy...hmmm....</p>
<p>Well, it depends. Most public policy degrees are master's and PhD only. The only UC I know for sure that offers undergrad public policy courses is UCLA (it's offered as a minor.) However, the program is relatively new, so I wouldn't push for it as a reason to go to UCLA (although the poli sci dept. is excellent and very well known.) Stanford is a notable exception in that it only offers a BA in public policy. Really, your best option if you want to do public policy is to just look into it for grad. </p>
<p>Trust me, it's what I'm looking into myself...</p>
<p>As far as UCLA law courses as an UG, I don't think so. I never saw any offered.</p>