<p>How does the Woodrow Wilson School compare to political science/public policy departments at other schools? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Toto, the Woodrow Wilson Schools primary distinguishing characteristic is its policy conference and its task force work group exercises. These classes are organized on a think-tank model. An important and difficult public policy question is identified and presented to a small group of students. The students, with the guidance of the professor leading the class, identify the salient issues, decide on organizational hierarchies, divide responsibility for researching the separate issues and then go to work. Individual researchers conduct interviews, dig into public data repositories and sometimes perform field research in preparation for writing papers analyzing their portion of the public policy problem. (Task forces and policy conferences have often traveled overseas at Princetons expense to research these issues.) </p>
<p>When the papers have been completed, they are individually presented to the group and then distributed for discussion. The next step involves hours of group debate. Now that each of the students has become knowledgeable about the details of the issues, intelligent and lengthy discussions are carried on as the group tries to arrive at consensus (or at least a majority opinion) regarding the primary public policy question. </p>
<p>Finally, a group paper or statement is drafted expressing the findings and providing public policy recommendations. These papers often have real world implications. On numerous occasions, Woodrow Wilson School papers have been distributed to members of Congress, representatives at the United Nations and other policymaking bodies and these papers and their recommendations have shown up in debates (and sometimes even decisions) made by these bodies. </p>
<p>The exercise is exciting and collaborative. The prestige of the Wilson School opens doors in Washington D.C. and elsewhere allowing access to government officials at the highest levels. Even former U.S. Presidents have made private presentations to Wilson School undergraduates in these exercises. Other undergraduate public affairs programs may have something similar to this but, if so, Im not aware of them.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. If you check the archives of the Daily Princetonian and Princetons website, you should find a great deal of information about the undergraduate program.</p>
<p>USNews ranks schools of public policy.</p>
<p>Its latest rankings have Syracuse #1, Harvard (JFK School) #2, and Princeton (Woodrow Wilson School) #5.</p>
<p>USNews also ranks Political Science programs. Here are the top 10:</p>
<ol>
<li> Harvard University (MA) 5.0</li>
<li> Stanford University (CA) 4.9</li>
<li> University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.8</li>
<li> Princeton University (NJ) 4.7</li>
<li> University of California–Berkeley 4.6
Yale University (CT) 4.6</li>
<li> University of California–San Diego 4.4</li>
<li> Duke University (NC) 4.3
University of Chicago 4.3</li>
<li> Columbia University (NY) 4.2
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.2</li>
</ol>
<p>Interesting…I thought Yale would be higher.</p>
<p>By the way, are those undergrad rankings?</p>
<p>There <em>are</em> no “undergraduate rankings” - just departmental rankings.</p>
<p>Ah, Byerly. I see youre hard at work again. </p>
<p>The Maxwell School at Syracuse is a great place. So is the Kennedy School at Harvard. Unfortunately, both of them are only for graduate students. There is no undergraduate public policy program associated with either.</p>
<p>In response to the question about the rankings, yes, since most of public policy schools are graduate programs, the rankings dont tell you much about undergraduate programs which arent being compared.</p>
<p>You are wrong. Many Harvard undergrads participate in programs at the Kennedy School which is not - as you assert - “only for graduate students”. </p>
<p>Check out THIS link: <a href=“http://www.iop.harvard.edu/students_get_involved.html[/url]”>http://www.iop.harvard.edu/students_get_involved.html</a></p>
<p>And I note that you do not take issue with the top ranking accorded to the Harvard political science department, about which the OP also enquired.</p>
<p>“participate in programs at” or “get involved at” =/= major, minor, or even “concentrate” in.</p>
<p>of course it does.</p>
<p>After all (if the Robertson family is to be believed) its not as if anybody “graduating” from thw WW school is going into public service or anything so uncool.</p>
<p>scottie: if a kid wants to get a “public policy” job (and generally they’d get a grad degree first), I doubt anybody who’s concentrated in Government at Harvard and hung out at the Kennedy School (perhaps getting one of the many internships) would take a back seat in the hiring process to a “Woodrow Wilson” kid.</p>
<p>you “get treal”: can you or can you not concentrate in the kennedy school as an undergrad?</p>
<p>As I recall the OP’s question, it was:</p>
<p>“How does the Woodrow Wilson School compare to political science/public policy departments at other schools?”</p>
<p>I’d say my answer is pretty relevant, dispite your pathetic efforts to obscure the issue.</p>
<p>how about you answer my question? the OP is a high schooler, and is most likely interested in the quality of politics and policy programs at the undergraduate level. citing graduate rankings to show that harvard’s kennedy school is better than princeton’s wilson school, when the kennedy school doesn’t even <em>have</em> an undergraduate component for the OP, is pretty “silly,” even “pathetic.” as ptongrad wrote, “since most of public policy schools are graduate programs, the rankings don’t tell you much about undergraduate programs which aren’t being compared.” so again, i ask, can you or can you not concentrate in the kennedy school as an undergrad?</p>
<p>You are simply wrong about the lack of “an undergrad component” at the Kennedy school, and moreover you dodge, once more, Harvard’s clear lead in the rankings of “political science” programs.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if the OP wants to know “How … the Woodrow Wilson School compare(s) to political science/public policy departments at other schools?” … then my answer is, Princeton may be top 5, but Harvard is #1. </p>
<p>An honest answer to the question.</p>
<p>so, can you or can you not concentrate in the kennedy school as an undergrad?</p>
<p>Are you or are you not trying to answer a question that the OP didn’t ask?</p>
<p>what i’m trying to do is to put into perspective the <em>graduate</em> policy rankings you posted, in a sly effort to convince the OP and others that the kennedy school is a top <em>undergrad</em> program.</p>
<p>now, you answer <em>my</em> question.</p>
<p>No you’re not … you’re trying to avoid answering the question asked by the OP, which was (pardon me for repeating):</p>
<p>“How does the Woodrow Wilson School compare to political science/public policy departments at other schools?”</p>
<p>I’ll just cut past all the propaganda and dick-measuring and get straight to the point.</p>
<p>The WWS program at Princeton is very good if you take advantage of its strong points. As PtonGrad2000 pointed out, the WWS major offers policy task forces during an undergraduate’s junior year - something that no other concentration does. </p>
<p>This year I will be participating in a policy task force on National Security and Iraq. The professor leading this has had extensive real-life experience with national security issues and has chaired positions on the 9/11 commission ad well as worked within the State Department. </p>
<p>After talking to a student who had him last year, I’ve come to see why WWS is special. Instead of just having students write a junior paper with support from a professor, instead up to 10 students talk with him in weekly seminars. Students than select aspects of the topic to write a policy paper. With this specific professor, he invites top experts in their fields at the end of the year to grill students on their policy recommendations, essentially simulating a Congressional hearing.</p>
<p>In another task force last year, a professor took his students down to Langley, VA, where they met CIA director George Tenet and gave presentations on their policy papers to top CIA officials. </p>
<p>One of the most famous task forces involved a professor taking his students into the Congo to interview actual warlords. The students then wrote policy papers examining human rights and international law.</p>
<p>As an actual undergraduate concentration, you’ll notice certain things about the Wilson School. First, Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter cares intensely about the undergraduate program. She knows the undergraduate majors, teaches a freshman seminar, and tries very hard to make sure the undergraduate program runs smoothly. She’s no doubt concerned with the Robertson feud, which is why Princeton is starting up a new scholarship program next fall intending to put more students in the public service field. Will you find the same at Harvard? I don’t know, but to me it’s unlikely that the dean of a grad school is this involved in the undergraduate program at Harvard.</p>
<p>Looking at departamental rankings says crap about which departments are actually better. As far as I know, anything in the top 10 is good. If you’re applying to graduate school, it’s probably better to see the selection of professors that your school offers, since you may want to work with a certain professor who is an expert in a certain field.</p>
<p>I understand Harvard allows their students to become invovled in the Kennedy school, but I don’t think the level of involvement extends to anything the WWS undergraduate program offers. Of course, WWS definitely has its own weaknesses. I find that the course requirements tend to be a bit lax, which means that students who complete only the mininum requirements may come out learning less than most people would expect. Tom Christensen, a famous China scholar, is currently taking two years off to work in the State Department, which deprives potential China-oriented senior theses of a very good advisor until he returns.</p>
<p>However, examining US news rankings means nothing. The only true comparison you get will be from someone who has done an MPA at both the Kennedy and the Wilson School - and you won’t find that. Nor will you find an undergrad who has “participated” in Kennedy school programs and majored in the Wilson School as well.</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned, they’re both good, but you’ll find nothing else like a policy task force.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.iop.harvard.edu/students_policy_program.html[/url]”>http://www.iop.harvard.edu/students_policy_program.html</a></p>
<p>It’s nice to see Harvard students participating in policy task forces, but what they do simply isn’t as established as what the Wilson program offers. First, I’m not aware that there are professors leading these. Wilson School task forces have both a professor and one or more Senior Commissioners (past students of the professor) leading discussions and guiding debate. Second, it doesn’t appear that the individual students each write their own report addressing a specific area of the policy topic.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it is nice to see Harvard providing the resources for students with their own initiative.</p>