Political Science Major, BA – Five-Year BA/MPPA Program

For qualified students, the Department of Political Science offers a Five-Year BA-MPPA program with a BA major in Political Science and a non-thesis MPPA major in Public Policy and Administration. The primary component of the program is that a qualified student may take up to 9 hours of approved graduate courses for their senior undergraduate electives and have them count toward both the BA degree and the MPPA degree. Students are typically considered for conditional admission to the program during, or immediately following, their third year of undergraduate study at UT.

To be considered for conditional admission to the program:

A student must be a declared Political Science major with a minimum GPA of 3.4, must have completed at least 15 hours of credit in Political Science, and must have completed at least 90 hours of the 120 hours of coursework required for the BA degree with a major in Political Science. A student must provide three letters of recommendation and complete a personal interview with the Department of Political Science.
Applicants are strongly encouraged, but not required, to have completed ECON 201* (or ECON 207*), POLS 301 and POLS 240. The Department may consider other relevant factors such as an applicant’s work experience and potential for academic success before conditionally admitting a student to the BA-MPPA program.
Conditional admission of a student into the Five-Year BA-MPPA program must be obtained before taking a graduate course that is to be used to satisfy the requirements of both the BA degree and the MPPA degree. Students will be informed of the outcome of their application for conditional admission prior to the beginning of their fourth year of undergraduate study.

A student who is conditionally admitted to the BA-MPPA program may, during his or her fourth year of undergraduate study, complete up to 9 hours of graduate credit that count towards the BA and towards the MPPA requirements, provided that these graduate credit hours were approved both by the Department head (or designee) and by the Graduate School prior to satisfying all requirements for the BA degree.

Conditional admission into the BA-MPPA program does not guarantee acceptance into either the Graduate School or the MPPA program. Students who have been conditionally admitted to the BA-MPPA program must apply for admission to the Graduate School and to the MPPA program during their fourth year of undergraduate study, following the standard application procedure. A GRE score must be submitted as part of the application for admission into any graduate program in the Department of Political Science. Students will be fully admitted to the BA-MPPA program after they have been accepted both by the Graduate School and by the MPPA program.

Once fully admitted to the MPPA program, BA-MPPA students are required to complete the standard curriculum for the MPPA program.

A student will not be eligible for a graduate assistantship until the student has satisfied all of the requirements for the BA degree.