<p>My son was accepted at both and we took the Johns Hopkins tour today and came away so disappointed. We thought it would be an easy choice but we came away with the impression that their is little college spirit, our tour guide said the spring fair (one weekend) and Lacross are about it. No football, no homecoming, not much else but studying. My daughter goes to an ivy, so we were expecting great academics and more. We are a bit in shock with a big decision to make soon, so we are wondering if our tour guide was accurate or not. So, for a computer science major who would like to have a life away from the computer, how would any of you with experience compare the two? any help would be very appreciated.</p>
<p>I am not too fond of open houses or formal college tours so that’s isn’t how I made my decision. I spent four days on campus to experience it from my own perspective. I’m a concurrent enrollment student at UMD and took CMSC131 and was also accepted to the honor program. The thing I didn’t like about UMD is that it’s huge, and doesn’t have the resources to serve every student. With that said, the electrical engineering department at JHU is small, but focused. There’s plenty of materials (laptops, ocillirators, etc…) to go around. The classes are small, and the school is better as a whole. I chose Hopkins over a lot of other schools with higher ranked engineering programs. (CMU, Cornell, UVA, Vtech, UMD) Theres more research opportunities at Hopkins, and they have the resources and alumni network to set up for med school, or grad school.</p>
<p>You’ll get WAY more attention at JHU, and Hopkins is a fun place in the city. </p>
<p>Undergrads @JHU: 4,400
Undergrads @ UMD: 24,000</p>
<p>I mean this is a huge difference. </p>
<p>I think JHU offers you a community of top-notch scholars, academics as well as a great social outlet in the city. UMD is a general public school education along with the 23,999 others - it’s not good or bad, it’s just pretty general - it’s the corn flakes of education. </p>
<p>Hopkins will give you pretty much all classes taught by faculty, lots of resources, small classes and a great environment.</p>
<p>I think you just got the wrong impression. I would try a revisit NOT on the open house.</p>
<p>GL</p>
<p>We looked at JH a few years ago for my oldest daughter. My dad (God rest his soul) earned his masters in engineering there years ago. I remembered what a nice part of town that was, but not anymore. In fact, I think it is a really bad neighborhood. For that reason, we crossed JH off our list, along with Catholic U and Duke for the same reasons. I’m not sure if this helps you make your decision, but its just my opinion.</p>
<p>^ If you think JHU is in a bad neighborhood, you don’t know Baltimore. In fact, one of the richest neighborhoods in Baltimore is right next door. It <em>is</em> in a city, so you have to take certain precautions (as you would in any city), but holy cow, it’s not like gangs are roaming the streets at night. In this part of Baltimore anyway.</p>
<p>I think a better comparison would be to comparing the engineering school at UMD with the engineering school at JHU. I think UMD’s is about 4000 students, at it is among this group that you will spend most of your time. The other 20,000 just make for great parties and lots of school spirit.</p>
<p>If “school spirit” in the macro sense is really important, JHU will not measure up well. It’s not a big sports school other than lacrosse (and sports seem to drive a lot of what people consider to be “school spirit”), and it’s filled with highly competitive uber-nerds who study a lot. But remember that school is largely what you make of it. If you want to spend all your time studying, you can. But you can also decide to join a bunch of clubs, get involved in concerts or performing arts, take advantage of the city, cultivate your own group of spirited friends, etc. You don’t need the “school” to make it a fun experience.</p>
<p>Depending on when you do the tour, the campus can seem dead because everyone is in class. And 4000 kids spread over a big campus makes for a pretty low density of kids, which can also contribute to an appearance of lack of school spirit.</p>
<p>I came away liking the school (although the guy who did the presentation was almost obnoxiously pretentious), and if we could afford it my S would probably be going there.</p>
<p>All of your replies are really helping, thanks so much and if you think of anything else, please do pass it on. We’re giving it until Tuesday to decide. Thaks again.</p>