Math or Statistics major for Political Science grad school?

[alaink]

So I either want to major in Math/Econ or Stats/Econ. I'm not sure yet, but in the future I may consider applying to graduate political science programs. I still need to take more stats courses to get a feel of what I'm more interested in, but in terms of grad poli sci, which major is more useful?

 

The thing is, the school I plan on transferring to has a great math program but the stats program is so-so. But in terms of my interests if I don't go to grad poli sci school, I think the applied focus of the school's stat major may be more useful to me and saves me the trouble of suffering through difficult math courses I don't need.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice. 

Edited August 16, 2013 by alaink

[Penelope Higgins]

Either one will be fine. While having some math under your belt is useful for improving your application to some types of poli sci grad programs, the field is nothing like econ (yet!) in terms of the amount of math classes required. A major in either math or stats will give you linear algebra and some of the other math behind the standard statistical models we use in political science. Your challenge will be to convince admissions committees that despite your lack of a poli sci background, you've identified questions of interest to you that fit into the discipline of political science. Beyond that, you should major in whatever interests you more.

[AmericanQuant]

And even if you don't major in polisci, you should at least take enough polisci classes to know what you're getting into.

[studentized]

Yes, both math and stats would be useful for your application and beyond. The same goes for economics.