<p>I'm trying to decide between these two schools, I got into Tufts, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Scripps, University of Michigan, Emory and Johns Hopkins, but I think I've pretty much narrowed it down to these two. Can anyone here comment on these schools based on the several aspects I'm considering when looking at colleges?</p>
<ol>
<li>School spirit</li>
<li>Reputation / prestige</li>
<li>Difficulty of getting grades</li>
<li>Campus (aesthetics / getting around)</li>
<li>Alumni network / grad school prospects</li>
<li>Happiness of student body</li>
<li>Attractiveness of students</li>
<li>Cafeteria food</li>
<li>Dorms</li>
</ol>
<p>Just so you don’t have to guess on my biases, I am an Emory admitted student who may be matriculating in the fall, but will likely be going elsewhere. I have a week to decide. Now to answer your concerns, based on my limited but fairly accurate knowledge.
Difficulty of getting grades- I hear Hopkins is RIDICULOUS, but Emory is supposedly pretty darn difficult as well. I saw a thread where it was cited that there were no 4.0s in last years Emory graduating class. That means not a single prodigy could maintain strait As. That’s concerning.
Campus (aesthetics / getting around)- Emory will likely destroy Hopkins here. Campus is incredibly beautiful and offers trips to Atlanta with relative ease.
Alumni network / grad school prospects- Hopkins likely wins here. Depends on the grad school program though.
Happiness of student body- Neither seem particularly happy. Emory is a little brighter.
Attractiveness of students- The class of 2016 facebook page for Emory sure isn’t enticing. Can’t speak for Hopkins. Use coll.ege.prow.ler (without the “.”)
Cafeteria food- n/a use ************** if you want
<p>I know a couple people entering their junior years with 4.0s (yes, they’re premed students who have taken tough professors).</p>
<p>Overall, I agree with Nihility on everything except campus happiness. Emory’s very happy.</p>
<p>Friend of mine transferred here from Hopkins. NBB major. She likes it here better.</p>
<p>I think Hopkins wins with the engineering and physics and math departments… But I’d rather do premed here unless I was focusing on Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>For other stuff, like liberal arts and business, Emory as well.</p>
<p>Definitely Hopkins for Math/Econ/Physics/Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>for what it’s worth (not that I personally place much value in rankings), there isn’t a single ranking in any department that Emory does better than Hopkins at, outside of business and maybe poli sci. This goes from economics to biology to chemistry to physics to english to math to history to sociology to psychology to statistics to engineering (obviously on the latter).</p>
<p>If you want balance, then go to Emory. Academically, Hopkins is heavily weighted towards science and engineering, with a few exceptions. As a result, Hopkins students are more stressed out than the average college students. Add in the fact that a ridiculous number of Hopkins students want to go to medical school, that’s a recipe for a stressful 4 years.</p>
<p>LOL at the person who said Emory wins school spirit. UM definitely wins for that; any Big Ten school wins school spirit. But, it’s mainly based on sports.</p>
<p>[my bad. I read that you had Emory v. John Hopkins, so yeah; Emory gets school spirit]</p>
<ol>
<li>School spirit: Emory </li>
<li>Reputation / prestige: John Hopkins! </li>
<li>Difficulty of getting grades: JHU is hard, and Emory is too. However, Emory professors are wonderful to work with, and if you demonstrate your work ethic, your professors inflate the grade. \o/ (Actually grade inflation is prevalent in many Emory classes). I don’t know if JHU has grade inflation.</li>
<li>Campus (aesthetics / getting around): JHU was mundane. Emory wins, for not only has a beautiful campus, but the weather is fantastic too. </li>
<li>Alumni network / grad school prospects: JHU wins this one. Strong alumni network + grad school winners dominate Emory’s alumni network. </li>
<li>Happiness of student body - Emory. Their student body is just naturally happy. </li>
<li>Attractiveness of students - I think they’re about the same. </li>
<li>Cafeteria food - Emory’s food is monotonous. IDK about JHU</li>
<li>Dorms - Oh, definitely Emory. The environmental friendly dorms are suh-weet. </li>
</ol>
<p>Note that while prestige matters, it isn’t going to get you in graduate school if you don’t work for it.</p>
<p>Hopkins lacrosse is national level and alums are attached to it long after graduation. I don’t know what sport Emory supports, but Hopkins has the full slate. As for the rest of it, I think Emory is the more “balanced” school. Hopkins is more intense academically, IMO. It’s really a personal preference thing. Hopkins being in Baltimore is more accessible with car, bus, rides, distance if you are in the Mid Atlantic or NE.</p>
<p>Both schools will work for you. Since you will living there for four years, I’d take the one that will provide the more enjoyable experience on and off campus. You did visit both, I hope?</p>
<p>I was dead set on JHU for so long… until I visited. Small, boring campus in the worst part of Baltimore. Even during my interview, the people interviewing me weren’t even excited about JHU. I have a few friends who did summer studies there, and they all said the same: it’s got the most serious vibe, much more suited for graduate school than undergrad. I knew that for my personality, a really serious college without a lot going on didn’t fit. I’d prefer a more fun atmosphere. While JHU has a slightly higher rank, Emory is still a top 20 school. In the end, I applied ED2 to Emory and I’ll be moving to Atlanta in the fall :)</p>
<p>Blah and jameson: To Blah: Often those rankings are for Ph.D programs and ones for ranking of undergrad. departments other than say business and engineering are hardly useful (and after graduating here and reflecting, I don’t believe in trickle down quality from Ph.D to undergrad. This happens to a very small extent in most depts). One would expect JHU to do better in Ph.D programs because it has been a top research university for much longer (Emory isn’t really known for it’s graduate school of arts and sciences, it’s known for professional programs). At the undergrad level, I wouldn’t expect a huge difference in humanities and social sciences other than political science where JHU should win, but Emory is still extremely solid. However, we do really well in English for example. Emory seems as if it is more friendly toward those who major in humanities and social sciences as it likely has more interdisciplinary programs and a cultural atmosphere more encouraging and interesting to students interested in such programs.<br>
Jameson: Emory is stressful in its own way. It actually has almost the exact same amount of med. school applicants as JHU, so it’s bad. We just don’t have a true weed-out atmosphere. Weeding out at Emory is just something that happens. It isn’t a process commonly emphasized. Organic chemistry here, for example, is pretty hard (as in, we have professors significantly harder than most top 20s, including the very top ones. Luckily the hard profs. are actually really solid) and will probably get much harder since there are hardly no easy profs. left to run to (they brought Soria back to the sophomores, so now there is a “big 3” instead of a “big 2”) as the easy profs. went to frosh orgo (minus Liotta, who will eventually go there). Overall, I think students are less conscious of the winnowing process and the phmo (pre-health mentoring office) is less honest, so even pre-meds in trouble end up almost too chill.</p>