<p>Highly regarded by top students who want to go to the best school possible, since that is the OP's query:</p>
<p>"...but no one I know of goes to Johns Hopkins. Maybe this is just my school...it seems to be rather inconspicuous, any one else feel the same way?"</p>
<p>I don't think that necessarily implies that top students don't regard JHU highly. I know of no one from my high school who went to Columbia, but we all (top students) regarded Columbia highly.</p>
<p>The OP never said JHU wasn't highly regarded, unless inconspicuous (i.e. lack of mass mailings) means disregarded.</p>
<p>My D and I visited Johns Hopkins last winter, and we both really liked it. She's interested in International Relations, and Hopkins has a highly regarded program. But she also wants to be somewhere that has science students, as many of her best friends are interested math/science.</p>
<p>The campus itself is beautiful, and we walked on campus and in a 3 block perimeter fairly late ~11, and felt safe. Certainly when we were taking buses, we saw some areas that looked questionable.</p>
<p>She really like the research focus, which was emphasized in the presentations, and we saw lots of students engaged in energetic discussions about projects and research. </p>
<p>It wasn't a lively social campus, more a groups of people hanging out (from what we could see).</p>
<p>It's still on her list, and it's definitely not a school that a lot of folks from her school apply to.</p>
<p>Also, Wealth of Information: I think you are assuming you know a great deal about other colleges but you might be shortchanging many of them when comparing to JHU. </p>
<p>A student with more in-depth knowledge at each individual school could contend every point you make. I go to Duke so I know a lot about it, and here's my side-by-side with your criteria against JHU (stronger student body aside):</p>
<ol>
<li>Intellectually-engaged student body as a whole </li>
<li><p>You said that Duke lacks this, but JHU does not. However, Duke has more Rhodes, Fulbright, Truman, and Marshall scholars than JHU. Its students score higher on the SATs, include more National Merit Scholars, and is more diverse. I'm not sure why you think JHU is more intellectual. Just because?</p></li>
<li><p>National Championship DIV. I Athletic Team = HUGE school spirit</p></li>
<li><p>You say both Duke and JHU have this, I agree.</p></li>
<li><p>Cohesive, architecturally-consistent & green city campus</p></li>
<li><p>You say Duke lacks this, and JHU has one. Not sure why you think Duke's campus is any worse than JHU since its widely regarded as one of the best. </p></li>
<li><p>Small entering freshman class (1200)</p></li>
<li><p>Check, both Duke and JHU have this.</p></li>
<li><p>80% of undergraduates do research (!!!)</p></li>
<li><p>At Duke, there are tons of research opportunities. So many that stats like this don't matter. If you want to do research, you can. Its a requirement to graduate with honors. I have no idea what % do research, could be anywhere from 20 to 80. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, my point is, you assume you have a great deal of knowledge about the schools I mentioned, but I have in-depth knowledge about just one and can illustrate why your assertions are off.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess---It is true that all top 20 universities offer research opportunities--but some have a lot more opportunities to offer than others. Because Hopkins has more than twice the funded research than its nearest competitor--there simply are more opportunities to do research. And although APL has a separate campus--there are many opportunities for both undergraduates and graduate students to do research there. Obviously, due to the nature of APL's work, most of the research is engineering oriented.</p>
<p>I agree that there is no way to measure fun--it is entirely subjective. Most students I know enjoy JHU immensely. I don't know what your source of information is that JHU is less fun than other places. For sure, there are students at Hopkins who are unhappy--just as there are at every other school. Hopkins does have a higher course load than many other places. Hopkins' students must average 5 course a semester to graduate--and many take 6. Students at most Ivy's (I believe Yale may be an exception) take only 4 courses per semester. That means that Hopkins students graduate with the equivilent of an extra year of education. At current private school tuition rates--that's nothing to sneeze at.</p>
<p>My son visited several top universities for their prospective student or admitted student sessions-- including a couple of ivies. He sat in on classes at most of them. Of all of the classes he visited, he commented that "there seems to be more brainpower at work in the classroom at Hopkins than anywhere else I have visited."</p>
<p>That's why he chose Hopkins.</p>
<p>Duke---Isn't that the team that Hopkins beat in the National Championship game in two of the last three years? :)</p>
<p>thoughtprocess, Duke also has more scholars than Chicago, MIT and many other schools, however, knowing many Duke graduates and having friends there currently (and at Chicago, MIT), I'm not about to say Duke is more "intellectual" than Chicago or MIT. I'm not saying Duke is less intellectual than Hopkins, I'm only saying it is difficult to ascertain from a few numbers. Intellectualism is qualitative, we all know that.</p>
<p>EDIT: There are intellectual circles everywhere. Perhaps the diameter of that circle is dependent upon the school.</p>
<p>Coolguy:
I agree. you can't measure intellectualism. I was just trying to see what Wealth of Information's response would be to his assertion that JHU is more intellectual. </p>
<p>Bonanza,</p>
<p>JHU has a reputation for having a bad social life. I'm searching for retention rates and graduation rates to confirm a predicted high rate of transfer, but can't seem to find them (don't have US News premium). </p>
<p>Also, I don't like when people say a school is more "intellectual" than others because it makes it seem as if "intellectual" means something. It doesn't. </p>
<p>And yeah, the Duke-JHU game was awesome, I might actually start watching Lax now.</p>
<p>The JHU retention rate is 95%. Basically the same as Chicago (96), Cornell (96), Rice (96), Emory (94) Vanderbilt (95), CMU (94), Michigan (96), USC (95), Tufts (96). I included +/- 1% because the ranking, interestingly enough doesn't have many 95%s.</p>
<p>The highest is a 98, the lowest (i could find), 78.</p>
<p>Here's the full info. The columns of interest are 4, Average Freshman Retention; 5, 2005 Predicted Graduation Rate; 6, 2005 Actual graduation rate. Starting from overall score, not rank.</p>
<p>Be wary about graduation rates though, because they don't take into account students doing multiple bachelors or BA/MA. And many Hopkins students stick around for an extra year (see heavy work load).</p>
<p>1 Princeton University(NJ) 100 4.9 2 98 94 97<br>
2 Harvard University(MA) 99 4.9 1 97 94 98
3 Yale University(CT) 98 4.9 3 98 95 96<br>
4 California Institute of Tech 94 4.7 20 96 96 90
4 Stanford University(CA) 94 4.9 7 98 93 94<br>
4 Massachusetts Inst. of Tech 94 4.9 8 98 95 94
7 University of Pennsylvania 93 4.5 8 98 94 94<br>
8 Duke University(NC) 92 4.5 8 97 93 93<br>
9 University of Chicago 89 4.7 20 96 91 91<br>
9 Dartmouth College(NH) 89 4.4 6 97 93 93<br>
9 Columbia University(NY) 89 4.6 8 98 93 94<br>
12 Washington University 87 4.1 17 97 90 91
12 Cornell University(NY) 87 4.6 15 96 90 92<br>
14 Northwestern University(IL) 86 4.4 8 97 91 93<br>
15 Brown University(RI) 85 4.4 3 97 93 95
16 Johns Hopkins University 84 4.6 20 95 89 90
17 Rice University(TX) 81 4.1 15 96 93 90<br>
18 Emory University(GA) 80 4 25 94 93 89
18 Vanderbilt University(TN) 80 4.1 30 95 85 88
20 University of Notre Dame(I 78 3.9 3 98 90 95
21 UC BERKELEY 77 4.7 25 97 90 87
21 Carnegie Mellon University 77 4.2 32 94 88 86
23 Georgetown University(DC) 76 4.1 8 97 90 93<br>
23 University of Michigan 75 4.5 28 96 77 86
24 University of Virginia 75 4.3 14 97 86 93<br>
26 Univ. of California—LA 74 4.3 24 97 88 87
27 Univ. of Southern California 72 3.9 36 95 85 83<br>
27 Tufts University(MA) 72 3.7 19 96 87 90<br>
</p>
<p>Sorry for the formatting.</p>
<p>Sam Lee,</p>
<p>Interesting post about the Applied Physics Lab accounting for almost 700M of Hopkins 1.2 B research budget.</p>
<p>Lawrence Livermore Lab is run by UC Berkeley and by itself has a budget of 1.6B. That alone would vault Berkeley to the top of any research list. I wonder why this is not included in Berkeley's total but APL is counted for Hopkins?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/about/%5B/url%5D">http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/about/</a></p>
<p>Interesting Russ, but it appears as though it is not run by Berkeley itself, but rather managed by the whole UC system, and the budget is not equivalent to research expenditures.</p>
<p>APL is actually an academic branch of Hopkins.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Weskid...In fact, Hopkins provides tremendous support for its undergrads, and a phenomenal education.
[/quote]
I know it provides a phenomenal education, but I have a hard time believing it provides "tremendous" support for its undergrads—I say this as the child of a professor there. I know the profs (at least some) are very dedicated to their students, but my mother knows far too many kids who were allowed to slip through the cracks for me to believe the school itself is very supportive (especially in areas outside of academics). I'm glad your son had a good experience, and I'm sure that many students do, but others really do not. (This is especially true of the kids they recruit from Baltimore city public schools…they bring them in, but they don't help them catch up from what is sometimes a rather poor high school education. A fair number of those kids drop out).</p>
<p>I mean, my mother was rather hesitant to recommend Hopkins undergrad to my friends because she doesn't think it's a great undergrad environment, so that's where I'm coming from on this.</p>
<p>That's not to undercut the other benifits of Hopkins, of course. It is a fantastic school in many ways, and the kids are really smart.</p>
<p>Weskid--actually, kids accepted from Baltimore public schools go to Hopkins for free and recieve extra remedial support through the Baltimore Scholars Program. Who does more than that?</p>
<p>I know they go for free. Do they receive remedial support? I suppose that's true, I forgot about that. But still, many end up struggling with the academics/pressure, and Hopkins (from my mother's accounts, and remember, she teaches these kids) does very little to figure out which kids are struggling and offer them support. I'm not undercutting the value of that program, I'm just saying that the follow through could be better. </p>
<p>Again, I don't go there, I can't claim to know everything. I'm not saying it's a bad school, because it's not. I'm just throwing in the perspective I have gathered from a professor there. She doesn't speak for every student, but, seein git from the inside, she's HIGHLY critical of the way the school handles (or doesn't) undergrads who arent together enough to do well and find their way on their own.</p>
<p>It's interesting how all the websites of government affiliated research facilities like APL and Lawrence Livermore are the same. They basically say "we use your tax dollars for important things, but we're not telling you what they are" Sounds like the Bush administration to me ...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/about/%5B/url%5D">http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/about/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.jhuapl.edu/aboutapl/%5B/url%5D">http://www.jhuapl.edu/aboutapl/</a></p>
<p>Enough of my digression, back to the fight about how prestigious Hopkins is ...</p>
<p>Russ456 and coolguyusa123,</p>
<p>Livermore National Laboratory is "run" (operated) by U of Cal but is technically under DOE. That's probably why that 1.6 billion doesn't go to UC. But the more I read about APL, the more similar the two are and I really doubt there are many opporunties available for undergrad research at APL, just like the situation at Livermore NL. There's summer internship available at APL but it's open to all college students to apply. By the way, APL is NOT an academic division of JHU. I can get a job at APL without a PhD (56% of the technical staff have master and 22% have only bachelor as their highest degree) but that doesn't make me a faculty or even researcher at JHU.</p>
<p>Weskid--I don't doubt that kids who went to less than stellar high schools are at a considerable disadvantage when they arrive at Hopkins, nor am I surprised to hear that Hopkins could do more to help these kids. But there is a limit to what a research university can and should do to remediate the problems caused by poor public schools. Certainly, LAC's tend to do much more hand holding of students than places like JHU. All I am saying is that if there is a top research university that does more to help its local students, I am not aware of it. I live in Providence. I can assure you that Brown (which I consider a very good school) does not offer free rides to all accepted graduates of Providence Public Schools in the manner that Hopkins does.</p>
<p>SamLee--you are correct that APL is a non-academic division of JHU--but it is owned and operated by Hopkins. Livermore is a National Laboratory that is owned by the US Government and managed under contract to U of C.</p>
<p>Hopkins students can and do perform research at APL--although typically they do not work on defense projects which require a security clearance. But APL does a great deal of non-classified work that students can work on--everything from medical devices to NASA projects. While many people know that Hopkins is the largest recipient of federal research funds from NIH---far fewer are aware that Hopkins is also the largest university recipient of research funds from NASA.</p>