Rank these schools by their Political Science programs

juillet
Mon, 28 Dec 2015 19:20:39 +0000

^Well, yes and no.

Graduate program ranking may be a little relevant to undergrad program ranking. The professors in the department, the grant money coming into the department, the quality of the research, the opinions of outsiders - all of that is the same regardless of whether you are there as a grad student or an undergrad.

However, graduate programs are ranked on factors that are irrelevant to undergrads - and may even be detrimental to undergrad education. For example, professors. The best professors may work at the top political science programs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be teaching undergrad classes. In fact, the “best” professors are usually ranked based on how much research money they bring into the school and how well-recognized they are for that research. Well, one of the ways they have TIME for all that high-profile research is to minimize their commitment to teaching, primarily undergrad teaching. So if they get grants they buy out their time and the money is used to pay adjuncts or lecturers to do the teaching instead. If you go to a top-flight department of political sciences, chances are pretty good that your intro classes in your first year or two will be taught by adjuncts or lecturers, and even your junior-level elective classes are more likely to be taught by junior professors in the department (who don’t yet have the money to buy out course time) than the senior top researchers.

Also, grant money may not be specifically relevant to undergrads if the money doesn’t fund things they are allowed to use. A professor may get a $2.5 million grant to do a political science study, but much of the money may go to paying his graduate students, lecturers to teach your classes while he’s busy with his study, equipment for his research group, and conference travel. Conversely, a small school like Amherst or Swarthmore (which aren’t on your list, but still) may only get a $100,000 grant, but they use that $100K to fund some special summer research program for undergrads.

Here’s my take. You are not going to a “political science undergraduate program.” You are going to an undergraduate college, where you may take a major course of study in political science. It’s not like a graduate program, where you wil take all of your courses in one department and your whole scholarly life will likely take place in that department. You’ll take about 1/3 of your classes there; the majority of your coursework will be in other departments, and you may even decide to change your major. Lots of politicians have majored in something other than political science.

All of these are excellent universities with great political science departments, and you would get an excellent education in poli sci regardless of which one you chose. So don’t choose on the basis of an absolute ranking - choose based on other factors.