JHU vs. Georgetown: Which school offers better access to Washington, D.C. internships?

The biggest practical tradeoff is location: Georgetown students live in Washington, D.C., while most Johns Hopkins undergraduates are based at the Homewood campus in Baltimore. That makes it much easier at Georgetown to interview, attend networking events, and work part-time at a federal agency, congressional office, think tank, advocacy group, or nonprofit during a normal academic week. Georgetown’s political science and public policy-related communities are also embedded in the city, so D.C. employers routinely recruit and connect with its students.

Johns Hopkins still offers meaningful routes into D.C. policy work, particularly through its strong research culture and Washington-based institutional presence. But a Baltimore-to-D.C. commute requires real planning, typically involving train travel and local transit, and can make a two- or three-day weekly internship harder to sustain alongside classes. Hopkins students may find summer D.C. internships or occasional in-person commitments more manageable than a frequent academic-year placement.

For the specific goal of securing and participating in D.C. internships during the academic year, Georgetown offers the clearer practical advantage. Johns Hopkins can be an excellent choice if its academic strengths are a better match overall, but Georgetown removes the transportation barrier and places political science students much closer to the day-to-day internship ecosystem.