<p>I should "fess up" here, since I work on the Homewood Campus of JHU.</p>
<p>I told both my sons they could not even apply to Yale because of this issue. Not only is it not safe, but unlike USC and JHU, they seem to go out of their way to alienate the local populations.</p>
<p>Mootmom is correct, there have been a number of security changes here at JHU lately. Of course ever since I started work here 5 years ago it has been policy that one can always call security and ask for an escort from anywhere to anywhere at any time.</p>
<p>BTW, my son at USC was offered the opportunity to teach in the LA schools as part of his minor in Peace and Conflict studies. He declined for reasons of time.</p>
<p>Both the location and the kid should be considered, IMO. If I had a daughter that had been raised in the country and was oblivious to her surroundings, I would be quite concerned about some locations. As it happens, my son is 6'2'', and spent his earlier years in an inner-ring suburb. If he is accepted at UChicago (fingers crossed) and decides to attend, I would fret a bit - but I do trust him to be reasonable in a city. As it happens, the college that we visited last year with the recent murder was Colby - certainly not someplace you would think of as dangerous.</p>
<p>lkf725,
we lived just up the hill from Case for many years. The area surrounding Case is becoming increasingly gentrified, and bought up by the Cleveland Clinic / University Hospitals and Case itself. The area is partroled by a private police force, similar to what UChicago does. Yes, it is certainly possible to walk a few blocks and end up in a neighborhood that is not upper SES, that you might not want to be in at night while you were jogging. However, if your s/d remembers that he/she is in a city and has even half of a clue as to what's where, they should be fine. The University Circle area is much nicer and livelier than when I attended grad school there 15 years ago.</p>
<p>Thanks ohio_mom! I personally liked the campus and the university circle area when we visited. It seems to be a nice blend of school, cultural venues and city amenities nearby.</p>
<p>I am surprised to hear about a murder at Colby. </p>
<p>(Not to make light of this serious topic, but there was that Sopranos episode involving Colby and the witness protection program.)</p>
<p>A serious crime can and does happen anywhere, but frequent incidents and very prominent security measures posted on the college website give me great pause -especially where many students must live off campus.</p>
<p>I agree that at some urban campuses there is probably a greater need to be alert and have street smarts. But it's important to remember that no place is absolutely safe and that one crazed person can create a tragedy and that soem degree of caution is necessary everywhere. Sometimes the location and circumstances of a crime can be very arbitrary; the murder early one morning two or three years ago of a female Colby student by a non-student who was actually supposed to be in jail hundreds of miles away is a case in point; the murder of two Dartmouth professors a couple of years ago in their home a couple of miles from campus by two apparently deranged young men from a little town in Vermont is another. Idyllic settings, awful happenings.</p>
<p>Safety is always an issue on campuses in city environments, but should not stop anyone from considering this magnificent university. The campus is inviting and its boundaries pretty well defined. It has excellent security at dorm checkpoints, and the administration is well aware of what it takes to ensure an atmosphere conducive for study at an Ivy league. The city of Philadelphia is eminently walkable during the day, interesting, historical, and Center City nightlife attracts the well heeled for dinner, theatre, and more. It is a short cab ride from University City, where Penn is located. In his sophomore year at Wharton, the one thing my son mentions is that the weather is not great and it's not NYC, but he was raised in south Florida. Overall, no complaints so far, but come visit and make up your own mind.</p>
<p>The area around Hopkins and the campus itself is very safe. The problems have always been if you move off campus. The Charles Village area has cheap, plentiful housing where many Hopkins kids live within walking distance of the campus but not in the immediate vicinity. That has always had break ins and robberies and recently been the site of 2 murders. I lived in Baltimore for several years, and love that city, but there are unsavory parts of it as there are in any major cities, that was not an issue. But I think today if I had a child who wanted to go to Hopkins, though I would not balk, I would look at the housing possibilities and costs after sophomore year. THere are expensive possiblilities north of the campus, and if they are affordable, I would go that route, as I just would not like what is happening in Charles Village which, by the way, does not feel or look any more dangerous than the Oakland student ghetto near CMU and Pitt or any number of places in the country. I would just feel more comfortable in light of the recent murders of avoiding having a kid live in that specific area, which, I repeat is not really adjacent to the college. I rarely went into that area when I lived in Baltimore as I did live on the other side of the campus and closer to the university than that particular neighborhood. The only reason to go into Charles Village is to visit other students who live there as there really isn't much there; it is residential, made up of row houses, apartments and houses made into apartments. A true student ghetto but intermingled with other low income groups. </p>
<p>An area where true caution was needed was when I lived in Hyde Park near Uof Chicago. Perhaps this has changed, but that area was pretty dangerous back in the days I lived there. Far more so than Charles Village in Baltimore. Confrontational crime of all kinds are common in that area. You can check the local police crime blotters for activities in these areas which will also tell you the time of crimes that are occuring. Until this past year, much of the issues in Charles Village were breakins to student apartments, and bicycle thefts, and unless kids have gotten far more careful about locking up things from my day, there is a lot of carelessness there. I know one apartment building called the Woodrow there where no one locked doors--a bonanza for any thieves if the place were empty on a schoolday. In Hyde Park, there was definitely a problem about just walking down the streets, as you did share them with some tough people. </p>
<p>Just because a school provides housing, is not the answer either. CMU housing is not always on site or in dorms. You can end up a mile away in an apartment building. Though the university digs are a step up from the student ghetto pickings, they are twice as expensive, at least, and you have to live in the same environment. Yes, there is a shuttle but you may have to wait for it outside. There are thousands of students since Pitt does not provide much housing for its many students, so the safety in numbers does exist. But If you walk through the streets of Oakland where many kids live if they do not get a place within a block or two of the university, it is not even as residential as Charles Village in Baltimore. I lived in the student ghetto of Oakland for many years, and am comfortable there, but the immediate area around the Pittsburgh schools are no safer than Hopkins Campus. And as you get towards the athletic facilities of Pitt, you are in the projects area.</p>
<p>Harvard and Princeton should be embarassed by the amount of students qualifying for Pell Grants.
Anybody that states these schools have diversified student bodies needs to take a course in elementary statistics.</p>
<p>My son will not apply to the University of Illinois because of the high number of vehicular/pedestrian accidents and the failure of the university to correct the problem. Traffic patterns are the worst I've seen on any campus. With one of the best civil engineering departments in the country, Illinois ought to be able to solve the problem.</p>
<p>We were uneasy about JHU too - just the fact that students were not guaranteed housing after freshman year. While there are plenty of nice neighborhoods near the Homewood campus, it didn't seem like that's where the majority of students we talked to lived. Daughter ended up choosing another school in a small town where housing is available on campus all 4 years. Ironically, she will be doing an internship in the Baltimore area this summer - so we will be looking at housing options very carefully.</p>
<p>How can colleges have over a 100% of their students receiving Pell Grants? The link shows some colleges with over 1000% of students receiving Pells. Either there is some sort of weird bureaucratic way of figuring this or the mice the bio labs are on scholarship.</p>
<p>Mootmom
I was not lumping all of Baltimore with JHU. In fact I stated how nice most of the surrounding area was. However, we did get lost, very close to the campus, and were not comfortable even asking for directions. But I understand your love for the place, if you lived there once.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, my D has applied to a few large-city schools, including JHU. There is no denying that the hazards of city schools have to be taken into consideration, especially since students are not confined within walls. Would I stop my D from going to Baltimore, NYC, Chicago or Philly? Would not dream of it.</p>
<p>Jamimom:
Hey - lay off Hyde Park :). We've been living here for over 6 years, and haven't been mugged. Yet.</p>
<p>(I remember starting to give our two D's ye olde standard lecture about being street-smart, look<em>over</em>your<em>shoulder</em>repeatedly<em>even</em>if<em>it</em>gives<em>you</em>whiplash. They gave me this weary look, and asked me if I had <em>any</em> idea how many times guys had tried to pick them up as they walked to their friends' houses, and how brushing off such pickups had become reflex action. They were right - I had no idea. Kids mature a lot faster these days...)</p>