Genghis Kid is a junior in High School, and he’s starting to look at colleges. Based on his PSAT scores, we’ve been inundated with brochures and e-mails from colleges all over. They all look great, but we’re trying to target his attention.
He wants to go into Political Science. He became very politically aware during the recent election; he watched every debate, the whole thing each time (better than I could manage). What he wants is to become Josh Lymon from The West Wing.
So: Political Science, with perhaps International Relations thrown in. He’s a very bright kid, gets great grades (top 3% of his class, not that I’m bragging), so let’s assume he could handle the load wherever he goes.
We live in the metropolitan Detroit area, and we’d like to keep him within a five hour drive. Dopers, what schools in the central midwest havve really good Political Science/Political Theory programs? We’ve visited James Madison College at Michigan State, and we’re scheduled to visit Kalamazoo College. We’ll probably visit the University of Michigan too.
Are there any other really good programs we don’t know about? Any hidden gems? Dopers, speak out!
Well, I got my Political Science degree from Indiana University in Bloomington, which is perhaps just a little more than a five hour drive from Detroit. I was pretty happy with the Poli Sci department there. I liked the variety of courses offered within the major, and the professors were quite good. Class sizes were smallish, after the first semester or two of intro courses. I could pop right into the department head’s office whenever I felt like it, and other faculty were similarly accessible.
It’s a great campus, and the cost of living is fairly reasonable, so he won’t bankrupt you when he decides to live off-campus. I liked the town so much I stuck around for four years after college.
I have a Government & International Relations degree from the University of Notre Dame, and my professors were excellent with very few exceptions. I don’t think I could ever *not * recommend becoming a Domer. If you or your son have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them. Feel free to e-mail me - it’s in my profile.
Earlham College in Indiana (I have no idea if it’s within your radius or not) has a really strong political program. I almost ended up in their Peace and Global Studies program. Very politically active campus.
On a personal note, not to criticize or anything, but I hugely think that you ought to let him look further than five hours from home. It’s ridiculous to limit someone’s higher education based on where they live.
Thanks for the input so far - it’s all good, and we’ll look into the programs you guys have mentioned
Ninjachick, I appreciate your concern that we’ll arbitrarily limit our son’s options, but the fact is that we’re going to place all sorts of limitations on him. Limits will be based on our financial resources vs. the cost of a particular school, and the fact that he has a younger sister who’ll want a college education as well; limits will be based on the expense of travel (this is a kid who, at least in the beginning, will want to come home for holidays); limits may be based on the size of the school and/or program - we have a good sense for the kind of learning environment in which he’ll thrive. Some of the limits are imposed on us (the financial ones), some are based on our judgement. In the end, the choice of school will be a consensus decision.
If you draw a five-hour “circle” around the Detroit area, you encompass a huge piece of North America, which contains literally thousands of schools. That’s one reason for this thread - almost every school has a Political Science program, but we want the “best” one we can find in which he’ll be successful and happy. I’m guessing that there are enough “premier” programs within our radius that he won’t mind if he doesn’t end up at the Numero Uno program in the country.
Just like with anything else, it’s an economic decision; you balance time, money, happiness, and all the rest, and decide how much “goodness” you’re willing and able to pay for.
(Sorry for the diatribe; I just don’t want you to think we’re acting capriciously with respect to his decisions).
I think he should look at the College of William & Mary (williamsburg, VA)
Ok, for sure its a 12 hour drive from Ann Arbor (I’ve lived both places). I can understand wanting to stay within the UM system But, once you leave the UM system you are looking at fairly high tuition… but W&M is one of the cheapest, most selective schools, & its department of Government (they’re too old timey to call it poli sci) and the Jefferson School for Public Policy are both very well regarded. Not that it matters to an undergrad, but there is also a well-respected law school that specializies in Constitutional law.
Please seriously consider it. Particularly if he thinks he would me more comfortable at a mid-sized school than a large Big 10-type institution.
Tuition and fees + room & board at Notre Dame for 2005: gulp ~$36,000
Out of State Tuition and Fees + room & board at W&M for 2005: ~$27,000
In fact that’s cheaper than:
Tuition and fees + room & board at Kalamazoo College 2005: $30,960
Your kid will come home a couple times a year. That’s like, $400 if you don’t catch good deals. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of his education. I know, you have your reasons. I’m just saying. http://www.wm.edu/prospective/index.php
Apologies if I came across as confrontational - I didn’t mean to sound like I was challenging your parenting skills or anything. I know of several people who found their ‘dream school’ in, say, California or somewhere (growing in in NJ), and their parents refused to let them even apply, because it was too far away. As someone who’s at school very far away from home, I can definitely say there are advantages to being close to home (eg, short breaks such as thanksgiving are FAR more pleasant if you don’t spend two of those days flying cross-country).
Well, I was a Poly Sci minor at Penn State (for a while, but that is a different story), and I would recommend PSU to everyone. It is about 6-7 hours from Detroit, but it is a great campus (that has just made lots of improvements), great school, and tons of fun. And it is relatively inexpensive (at least it was when I was there).
Penn State also has a good honors college. I wasn’t in it, but my wife was and she loved it: http://www.scholars.psu.edu/
But unless I’m a worse geographer than I thought, no Harvard, no Princeton, no Cornell, no Columbia, no Berkley, no Georgetown. The cost of a Greyhound ticket from Detriot to Cambridge can’t be that much more than one from Detroit to South Bend. You’ll find few Poli Sci/IR programs as good as these schools and none much better. The extra time is small and the extra money is de minimus. Don’t be one of those parents.
I’d suggest a civics project, in addition to this great resource. Have your son write or email to the honchos currently in office and ask them what path they took and what path they’d suggest. They’ll probably be flattered by the attention (at a Deputy CoS level, although maybe Scooter would respond, too) and at worst you’ll get a nice form reply. At best maybe he’ll get lucky and make some connections. Let him do it, if he’s going to be a mover and shaker he needs to learn not to be intimidate by anyone.
Have you thought of just having him go to in state school. You may be better off putting the $50k or so you’d spend in extra tuition at an ivy league school and putting it in a trust fund for him. What may be important to his success in life is if he is dedicated and competent enough to get into out of state high end schools, not that he actually attends them. http://www.csis.gvsu.edu/~mcguire/worth_college_leagues.html
I hate to say it, but I have a friend with an undergraduate degree in Poly Sci, and he works for the Union Pacific Railroad – and not in government relations or anything like that.
My advice, send him to Ann Arbor, save your pennies and hope he does well enough to get into a really good graduate program.
I am aware, but he also mentions schools within a 5 hour drive, meaning some out of state schools. And as the article says, its not the school you go to that causes success its being ambitious and competent enough to get into a good school that causes success.
Just out of personal bias I will suggest my own school of Ohio Wesleyan University. I don’t really know all that much about the political science program (called Politics and Government here), but I have taken a number of courses in it and it seems decent. I just have no idea how it compares to any other place. This place is expensive, but it sounds like your son is probably the type of person to whom they’ll give big bucks, if my own experience is any indication.
Anyway, there’s not too much I can really say to sell this school, but I thought I’d just throw it out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already received some kind of brochure in the mail.
One thing that would help–does he have a set preference as to whether he wants to go to a big school or a small one? I knew I wanted to go to a huge university.
If he digs the liberal vibe of Josh Lyman, perhaps the UW-Madison? Incidentally, Bradley Whitford is from Madison (though he didn’t go to school there) and his wife is an alum. Unfortunately, Wisconsin and Michigan don’t have a tuition reciprocity agreement (like Wisconsin and Minnesota). I went there and knew tons of poly sci or international relations (or both) majors. Plus, the state capital is in Madison, so perhaps he could clerk or intern for one of the state legislators to gain some political experience.
Why don’t you pick up the Fiske guide to colleges? It’s full of college goodness, including each colleges’ strongest majors and all the other stuff you look at when considering what schools to apply to. Also, does your kid have a college counselor at his school? They started sending us to our college counselors to pick out colleges halfway through junior year, but it might be different at his school.
