Chance Me

Please chance me. I toured/met with a professor and fell in love with JHU. If this isnt detailed enough, let me know and I’d be happy to add more info.

I have a 3.9UW and 1490 SAT,

-many EC and leadership including 2 season varsity athletic (captain for 1)

-NHS officer

-Band section leader and officer

  • student leader of 2 comm service organizations

-did a spanish exchange program

-12 Honors/AP Classes, dropped lunch to take more courses

59/720 rank

SATII 690 Chem, 780 Math II

Full year Job,

Camp counselor and instructor one week a year in one of my sports

Wrote the “extra information” about taking a summer course to accelerate my math education

Good recs, great i believe from honors chem teacher

What’s your intended major? I heard JHU admits by major. SAT II Chem and your class rank are a little low for them, but if you have a non-stem major I wouldn’t worry too much. I think you have a good shot as a non-stem applicant if your essays are really good.

Johns Hopkins does NOT admit by major unless you apply for Biomedical Engineering (BME) - and even then they admit you into the university as a whole before evaluating you for the BME program.

All and all, your objective stats are solid, ECs are fine but not outstanding. You have as good a shot as any at this point. Good Luck!

So, they don’t look at major when making decisions? I understand the student has time to change their major once matriculated, but how does the school get enough people with various interests to go into all their different programs? Not arguing, just wondering since you know how everything works there in the admissions office. Just seems like they’d get way too many people in the hard sciences and STEM areas (being that it’s Johns Hopkins) if they didn’t look at the field of interest put down on the application somewhat. If they don’t consider majors when we apply, how do they find enough English/Political Science/French/History/Film majors? How does that work? Just wondering.

I can’t speak for admissions, but based on data from the JHU registrar’s office I imagine the major distributions work out statistically.

I’d imagine they get a statistically higher group of potential applicants interested in STEM at this particular school, just like MIT does, and that they need to balance that out in some way during the admissions process? If they don’t, they won’t have enough students participating in all the various majors and schools JHU has. It makes perfect sense. If they don’t look at major and evenly distribute that in some way, then their admitted class of students might run the risk of all looking the same (on paper) as well.

Well if you look at the data, the major enrollment is not evenly distributed. The Bio department has ~100 students / class whereas Near Eastern Studies has ~2 students / class.

That’s not really what I’m indicating. I’m talking about the admissions process itself. It would seem that a school like Hopkins would get a significantly higher amount of students applying to, say, the biological sciences area, than, say, Near Eastern Studies or any of the other humanities areas for that matter. If you have, for example, many applications (let’s just say the first 50) as an admissions officer indicating that the students want to study major STEM areas at Hopkins and you have one out of all those who meets the academic criteria of being able to do the work there, and that lone applicant wants to study Near Eastern Studies, then it seems to me that this might give that Near Eastern Studies person an edge over a “mostly” stem-focused applicant pool, even more than at several of the other highly competitive schools, simply because schools like, say, Yale, are getting a larger number humanities people on average than Hopkins. For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when most people think “Hopkins” is STEM, although, yes, I’m aware that JHU has many other amazing departments and programs outside the STEM areas. As a side note, yes, I’m aware that no school is going to have a plethora of Near Eastern Studies applicants, but I was just wondering that since Hopkins probably gets an even wider group of STEM people applying than some of the other highly selective schools, then that might give a Near Eastern Studies (or any other humanities) person an even better shot at that particular school than some of the other highly selective programs out there that get higher numbers of humanities applicants applying. Hope this is clearer so we don’t move off topic. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough before. Thanks for your input!

And I just wanted to add, I’ve applied to JHU as a STEM applicant, but my guidance counselor advised me not to do that for the reasons I indicated above. She said it would give me a greater edge if I didn’t. I did it anyway.

Your counselor may know something we don’t, or they may be guessing. I don’t have data on admission rates based on intended major so at this point we’re just speculating. If you indicate a more obscure major and back that up with essays and/or ECs relating to that major then maybe that would tip the scales in your favor, but that doesn’t usually apply to the generic applicant trying to boost their chances. So in the end I would stick with the mantra that “Hopkins doesn’t admit by major (except BME)”.

Thanks! I feel better since I did what I wanted anyway. Hahaha! You’re cool!

everything looks good except the 690 on the Subject test. Your ECs are a little lacking on quality though. If you had some national or state level awards it would elevate you