<p>Hi, I need help deciding between Cornell Arts & Sciences and JHU.</p>
<p>I'm going into college Undecided, but will probably end up leaning towards the Humanities or Social Sciences (though I guess anything is possible, since I have a lot of interests). How good are those departments at Cornell? Or more generally, would Cornell A&S be a good place to discover/explore my interests? Also, since I have no problem with living in a collegetown, and since I can probably deal with cold weather, I think that my decision will almost entirely be based on academics. Any information would be much appreciated!</p>
<p>On a side note, what are your thoughts on Cornell's ranking? I know it's dumb of me to get hung up on something that isn't necessarily important, so any advice for getting past this? (I definitely don't mean this as an insult to the school, btw!) Thanks.</p>
<p>johns hopkins is cornell without bridges</p>
<p>In terms of prestige/ranking, they are about on equal footing, though I would say Cornell is a bit more recognized. Both are strong academically, even for undecided majors. You should probably choose based on location, as that is the major difference between JHU and Cornell.</p>
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<p>Using rankings to evaluate a school like Cornell is flawed. I would love to see what any other college’s rankings would look like if they had all of the specialty majors and niche colleges that Cornell does. You don’t use SAT scores to best evaluate textile design or agricultural students.</p>
<p>The English/creative writing department at JHU is as good as Cornell’s. Otherwise, I would say that Cornell’s social science and humanities departments are a bit ahead of JHU. JHU’s best known social science department, foreign relations, isn’t even in Baltimore, it’s in D.C.</p>
<p>Hmm, thanks for the information! Just out of curiosity, how are Cornell’s humanities/social science departments relative to other colleges?</p>
<p>Cornell’s humanities programs are among the best in the country. English. Comparative literature. Romance studies. German studies. Philosophy. Classics. Most of these can be placed among most people’s top 5 or top 10 lists.</p>
<p>Cornell’s social sciences are generally strong. The don’t get as much attention as they should because they tend to be spread across many departments. For instance you can find sociologists in the sociology department, ILR, development sociology in Ag, and human development in HumEc. Same with economics and psychology.</p>
<p>Cornell government department is decent. Not Harvard or Yale or Michigan good. But decent. Our international studies programs are very strong, but they tend to be strongest when applied through the lens of other fields (e.g. natural resources, or development economics, or international labor).</p>
<p>^
Add to the above theatre, Near Eastern Studies, linguistics…the list goes on. Cornell has, for example, the largest free-standing archaeology program of any top 50 or so university except Boston U.</p>
<p>Only a small handful of colleges can give Cornell a run for its money in the humanities. Hopkins is superb in the humanities, however; many people are surprised that JHU’s true strengths lie in the humanities rather than the sciences. At the undergraduate level, differences are largely indistinguishable. </p>
<p>Don’t get hung up on rankings. If you can handle the cold, though, Cornell is an awesome place to be.</p>
<p>I’ve decided to reconsider Amherst as another one of my possible colleges - friends keep telling me that since Amherst is an LAC, it’s the “obvious” choice for someone who’s thinking of going into the Humanities. But is that really true?</p>
<p>Sorry for all the questions, and thanks for giving thorough answers! It’s really helping me :] (And I just visited Cornell a day ago, it really was very very nice!)</p>
<p>Amherst is obvious for somebody who wants a small liberal arts college. The humanities departments at Amherst are superb, but so are Cornell’s. Decide not on perceived strength of either school (they’ll be about the same), but rather the environment of bigger research oriented university vs. small LAC.</p>