<p>I heard that Johns Hopkins is less selective, but I know that they're both pretty tough to get into. I'm thinking of doing premed but that may change so I want a school that also has other good majors such as ones in business. I know brown doesnt have a core curriculum and the people there are pretty laid back but I think i'm a pretty competitive person, but who's kind of unsure of what I want. I'm afraid if I go to brown, i'll start slacking or choose the wrong classes. Help!</p>
<p>bumpity bump BUMPERS</p>
<p>If you’re pre med, there is no better place on Earth than Johns Hopkins. I think the only advantage at Brown is probably more laid back peers, if that’s what you’re into. Have no worries, Johns Hopkins is very strong in business (check out the Carey Business school page from carey.jhu.edu and look at some of the insanely awesome opps). Also, the business program is apparently getting lots more money so it’s getting better and better every year (correct me if I’m wrong on the grants for the Business school, I read it in an article). Though Hopkins requires distribution credits, it also does not have a “core”
curriculum and allows for students to take a wide variety of classes. </p>
<p>Selectivity is a topic that you really can’t compare the two schools for. Brown, carrying the Ivy league name has a lot of applicants, i.e, a lot of really unqualified students apply, deflating the acceptance rate, but nevertheless, it is still very very selective. Johns Hopkins’ applicants are what cc’ers call self selective in that they generally apply because they have good scores and they know that they will like the school and do not choose it based on its rank (which went up one this year :D), and even so they have a grueling 20% acceptance rate with over 18000 applicants (apply.jhu.edu). I thin you couldn’t go wrong with either school, but they are very different in terms of rigor and college feel, and you will do the best at the one that you fit in most, so ask yourself what you want to do, and choose on that (sorry for the cliche…), but personally, I thnk that if you enjoy hard work and are dead set on medical school or business and entrepreneurial education, then Johns Hopkins is perfect for you :)</p>
<p>Just a bit of clarification - as an undergraduate student at Hopkins, you wouldn’t be involved with the Carey Business School at all - the business school only has a bachelors program for transfer students and a number of graduate programs. In that sense, Hopkins doesn’t have an official business major. However, they do have strong programs in Economics (both a major or minor) and Financial Economics (minor) as well as an awesome program in Entrepreneurship and Management (a minor, which is often referred to as the business minor).</p>
<p>I don’t have time at the moment to talk more about Brown vs Hopkins, but suffice it to say, they’ve very different environments and schools (based on my experience at Hopkins and talking to Brown alums). If you’re interested in both, I would really recommend trying to visit both schools before you apply. If you can’t make a trip before you apply, then you definitely need to visit whichever schools you get into to see if it’s the right campus environment for you. You can read dozens of threads here on CC comparing the schools, but you’re not really going to know what’s best for you until you visit and see for yourself.</p>
<p>Both are great schools. Their cultures are different in that Hopkins’ students pride themselves on the academic rigor of the place, while Brown students are equally proud of their “laid back” culture. In both cases, these are stereotypes. The truth is that Brown students and Hopkins students are pretty similar. The faculties are pretty similar as well. I think that Hopkins’ physical facilities are better, but that does vary somewhat depending upon department.</p>
<p>Other differences are that Brown has only a few really outstanding departments (computer science, applied math, and geology come to mind) while Hopkins has many more top rated departments (biomedical engineering, biology, geology, physics and astronomy, english, writing seminars, history, etc.) Hopkins is also a much more diverse university with many top rated schools (medicine, public heath, nursing, international studies, business, education, music, engineering, etc.) besides arts & sciences. Brown is just arts and sciences and medicine. It is closer, in many ways, to a liberal arts college (although much larger).</p>
<p>There is much, much more research going on at Hopkins than Brown. Hopkins has been #1 in funded research for over 30 years. Brown is way down the list–somewhere in the middle of the pack of research universities.</p>
<p>So I think that Hopkins offers more opportunities to the academically oriented student. But Brown is certainly not a bad choice.</p>
<p>I’ll also offer a couple of anectodes for what they are worth. I know a student at Brown who was accepted into its program (I’ve forgotten the acronym) which guarantees acceptance into the medical school at Brown. While an undergraduate, she was able to attend Hopkins for one semester as a visiting student. She reported that the science courses at Hopkins were much more challenging than at Brown but she felt she got a great deal out of them. She added that the two best professors she had in college were at Hopkins. She actually thought about transferring but ultimately didn’t want to give up her guaranteed acceptance. She is currently at Brown Med. </p>
<p>I know another student who transferred after his freshman year from Hopkins to Brown. He said at the time that, while he made a lot of friends at Hopkins, that he felt that the atmosphere was too “serious” and the laid back reputation of Brown was enticing. After transferring, I spoke to him and he said that while he didn’t necessarily regret transferring because he really loved Brown, that he realized that his earlier dissatisfaction was more the result of his own immaturity and “the grass is greener across the street” syndrome than any real difference. He added that if he had to do it over again, he would not have transferred.</p>
<p>Needless to say, these are not scientific surveys.</p>
<p>@tanman: thanks for the clarification, I still don’t know much at all about the Carey Business school :)</p>
<p>@bonanza: the Brown program is called the Program in Liberal Medical Education, or PLME. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I actually applied to Brown ED a few years ago and I still don’t regret it. I really liked Brown, mainly because of the atmosphere. It is a really laid-back atmosphere and the campus is very nice. Something that bonanza wrote caught my eye: I thought Brown had the nicest grass (it’s a really rich and vibrant green!) and quads of any campus I’ve ever been on and I still feel that way. That said, Hopkins is really nice as well. If you’re looking at pre-med though, I would choose Hopkins.</p>
<p>This puts everything in perspective! Thanks everyone for the opinions!</p>
<p>Why would you get laid back if you’re competetive by nature? Brown in no way could be a top school if its kids are such slackers…</p>
<p>Polobear you are using the logical fallacy of agumentum ad popularium. Just because a school is popular and highly ranked does not mean that their programs are of the utmost quality. For example, MIT is known by the average Joe to have STEM programs, but after sitting in on intro electricity and magnetism at Hopkins and watching MIT’s intro electromagnetism course online, I realized that the Hopkins physics majors were all required to be exposed to much more advanced material in their first year both math-wise and physics-wise. At that time I was on the waitlist for Harvard, MIT, and CalTech, and that convinced me to stop pursuing MIT.</p>
<p>If you want to receive a rigorous quality education, I’d suggest a school like Hopkins or UChicago; they are highly ranked, have excellent programs of study across the board, and they have lots of research going on if you are into that (the difference between the two is that one is more flexible ie Hopkins and one has many more requirements to fulfill ie Chicago).</p>