Political science is the study of politics, government, policy, and political behavior in the United States and beyond through the lens of scientific methods. Students who major in political science go on to careers in politics and policy through advocacy, lobbying, non-profits, think tanks, consulting, law, and more. The top political science programs in the country are also at many of the most popular and competitive colleges. Think Harvard, Georgetown, Tufts, Stanford, Williams, and the like. Getting into these schools is hard, obviously, so you have to put in the work far ahead of writing applications. That means a strong transcript, amazing SAT and ACT scores, and outstanding activities.
In this post, we’re going to dig into the activities piece of this equation by breaking down what you need to be doing as a junior to stand out by the time you press submit in, likely, less than a year from this moment. We are sure you’ve been working hard, and there isn’t time to overhaul your application, but there is time to make very precise and calculated tweaks that pay massive dividends.
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Chances are that you are already engaged in a number of activities, are committed to your academics, and feel like you don’t have a ton of time — if any at all — to give to doing more. The key, then, isn’t to do more. Rather, it is to be more strategic with the time that you have to create experiences and outcomes that result in impact for you as a person, for your community, and for your applications. Doing something just for colleges to see ends up ringing hollow, so keeps these three things in balance is truly critical.
We’ve broken the types of actions you need to be taking into four ‘buckets.’ You don’t need to do all of it, but you should do as much as you can do well. That is to say, there isn’t time to do anything by half. You must excel for these actions to benefit your application, so oversubscribing does not serve you. With that said, let’s dive in.
RELEVANT LEADERSHIP
The most important thing you need to be doing in your activities right now is attaining and thriving in a leadership position relevant to political science. If you are not a recruited athlete, being a Captain of a varsity sport is great, but it doesn’t actually help your application all that much. You aren’t studying soccer in school — you are studying political science. So, you need a leadership role that is relevant to political science. This could be related to Model UN, or to another school organization or club. Ideally, you are already on this track, too, and it’s really just a matter of being the best leader you can be.
If you are not already on track for a leadership role in a club or organization that you are part of, schedule meeting with the faculty advisor and current club leadership and ask them what you can do to get yourself on that path. It may be that there are actionable steps that you can take, or it’s simply a matter of speaking something out loud that they didn’t even realize you were hoping for.
And what if you aren’t part of a school group related to political science? Well, that’s a bit tougher. You don’t have time, except for in extraordinary circumstances, to join a group now and be a club head next year. So, you need to get creative. Maybe there is a leadership role in a club that you could link to political science in a more round-about way. For example, maybe there is something you can do as part of a service-oriented club to connect with local politicians and work towards a shared goal. By leading this initiative, you would show leadership, and it would allow you to capitalize on the time and energy you have put into a group you care about.
RESEARCH
Speaking of capitalizing on the investments you have already made, you have probably studied subjects relevant to political science while in school — even if you don’t have a political science-specific course available to you at school. Look through the writing that you have done while in high school so far, and pick something to dig into more deeply. Then, decide what you want your product to be. It could be an article or op-ed for your school paper or a publication open to high schoolers, a report for a school event, or a full-blown research paper for submission to a prestigious journal like The Concord Review. Whichever you pick, the point is to have something published that you can point at and say, “I did that.” Note, we have not suggested self-publishing. Do not do that. Whether you put it for free online or pay to have a ‘book’ on Amazon, it is not impressive. What you want is a third-party group, a publication, journal, or the like, to give your work a stamp of approval that you can spotlight in your applications.
LOCAL POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
You’re interested in political science, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you should be engaging politically in your community. How you do this is deeply personal, and hopefully you’ve been doing it already. Either way, you need to be a regular volunteer for a politician, campaign, or initiative in your local community. You can support with social media, but that cannot be your entire role. You must be working with other humans, in person, in the real world.
One critical piece of this, though, is that you need to be involved in politics, but you also need to be careful about not highlighting issues are polarizing. You are welcome to your own personal beliefs and perspectives, but you do not want to be spotlighting contentious issues in your application. You never know what beliefs your application readers hold, and you do not want to be betting on their ability to suspend judgement while reviewing your application. So, the most useful things to focus on when volunteering politically are local community issues, not national issues, focused on things like creating community spaces, supporting youth, and addressing poverty or lack.
BE A MENTOR
Another way of supporting fellow young people in your community is by becoming a mentor, and this is also something that we want to see you developing for your applications. You could be a mentor through a formal group, like a buddies program, or as a coach for something like Special Olympics. You could be tutoring someone, and support them through a tough time with a subject. You should even be a mentor to a younger sibling. What matters most is building a relationship that you can speak to as something that has helped you help others and grow yourself in the process.
As a prospective political science major, you need to show your dream schools that you are a top student, a formidable thinker, and an enthusiastic questioner of widely-held assumptions. But you can’t exist in a vacuum. You must show how you support others, contribute to your community, and engage in scholarship. If you can do all of these (and we believe in you), you will be the strongest applicant you can be when senior year rolls around.
As a junior, you need a strategy to go from unsure of what’s next to admitted by a dream school. Get yours.