Johns Hopkins Atmsophere

This may seem a little short sighted but I was wondering if Johns Hopkins is as competitive and cutthroat as many people describe it? It’s vital to me to be able to collaborate with my classmates and I’m not sure if Hopkins offers that. I love most everything else about the school(almost enough to apply ED), so I’d appreciate if anyone could tell me if Hop is as competitive and as it’s “reputation” holds. Please don’t hold back as I am truly considering applying early.

‘Cutthroat’ comes from people not getting the grades they want in some classes but as a whole its very collaborative. In my classes I generally work with a team of my friends and most classes encourage that especially in engineering majors.

The experience of the students that I know at JHU is not that it’s especially cutthroat- but it is very academically intense and the students are very intense. Also, grade deflation is real. The current students that I know are extremely self disciplined and hard working- and every one of them had some tough moments, especially in the second half of first year, and the first half of second year, when all their hard work did not seem to be yielding results. They get through it- and all of them are very happy to be there- but don’t underestimate how hard it is.

I never saw any cutthroat activity while I was at Hopkins and I was premed taking some of the most notorious classes. From what I’ve seen, every poster on CC who attended Hopkins echoes my sentiments that Hopkins is competitive (students all work hard, study long hours, and feel compelled to study more when they see their peers slaving away) but not cutthroat. The cutthroat environment either died out long ago or was simply imagined by individuals who never attended JHU.

I was in a rather large study group at JHU and we all shared notes, studied together and helped each other out. It was a very collaborative experience for me. Many students like to study alone, which is fine, but I never saw cutthroat behaviors like lab sabotage, hiding reference materials, etc. The school curriculum encourages group projects (and is trying to integrate group projects more and more into curriculum). It is becoming more and more clear that for higher education to prepare students for the professional world team projects must be an integral part of the education.

Additionally, grade deflation policies have been slowly but surely removed from most, if not all, courses at this point. Many of these policies were in response to revelations of grade inflation occurring at many Ivy League institutions in the late '90s and early '00s and JHU was attempting to prevent that from occurring (don’t worry, grade inflation has never been a problem here, lol).

I’ll take NixonDernier’s word for it about grade deflation. Nonetheless, there is a general sense that the work here is rigorous to say the least. I’m sure there are many other factors playing into that (not understanding the material; taking on high credit loads; overloading on ECs, limiting time for studying; etc.).

As for the student dynamic, all of my classes have allowed me to either be with friends or make new friends. There may be certain classes where it’s harder to “collaborate,” but there are always opportunities for discourse and group-learning. The Brody Learning Commons, connected to the library, and some other buildings around campus, are set up to facilitate group studying. There are also organized programs devoted to group problem-solving (PILOT program), tutoring (Learning Den), and essay review (Writing Center), all moderated by other students. Even the friends with whom you don’t share classes, you’ll find yourself getting and giving a lot of moral support, lol.

When we say that Hopkins is “competitive,” we don’t mean that students have any malice towards their colleagues, or that we want others to fail. Imagine a school environment in which a large proportion of the students are perfectionists; that’s Hopkins. I would say that generally, the atmosphere seems intense because you’ll always see people studying. But when you actually get to know people, you’ll see that most people don’t take themselves so seriously.

Also, don’t think that you need to be some kind of machine to succeed here. I do not consider myself “extremely self-disciplined” (or particularly self-disciplined at all, at least not consistently). And I know many people who are even less self-disciplined, lol. Yet, we still get all our work done, get good grades, and have a pretty good work-life balance.

Honestly I’d go so far as to say that - at least in some departments - Hopkins is the exact opposite of cutthroat. Students recognize that Hopkins’ curriculum is rigorous and, in response, chose to work and study in groups. You’ll see this at every level, but it’s especially true in the upper level STEM classes where, as a general rule, collaboration is the only way problem sets get completed.
In terms of the overall environment, Hopkins students tend to be very supportive of each other as, once again, the rigorous curriculum instills a “we’re all in this together” atmosphere.

To answer on behalf of the competitive side of Hopkins. I do think that Hopkins has a side of competition, however, during my extensive visit to this university, I found that they value a lot of collaboration. This can be seen through their library and whatnot. All in all, I do not think it is something to worry about. I think it is a matter of finding your OWN way of studying. Especially since cover grades are ending at our year, I think it is going to be tough.