Pomona College vs Johns Hopkins

@nostalgicwisdom thank you so much for your detailed response. Are you a cs major? I’m mainly concerned that Pomona is not well-known outside of companies and academia, if I do work internationally (coming back to Canada). My parents are worried about prestige, and I can see why. I can see it potentially coming in handy when interacting with people less acquainted with schools. My thoughts are if I go to a reputable grad school it will not matter. For the JHU facilities I’ve identified, I’m not sure I will be able to contribute as much or take part in more specialized projects until later. I do think Pomona is more than sufficient in this respect. Do you personally have experience with the clinic program at Mudd and/or research at Pomona?

@Drawcodawn I would reach out to some JHU faculty and CS majors for more data points - especially on their facebook groups, reddit, and via e-mail. You will be surprised at the response.

JHU does have more lay and professional name recognition than Pomona at the professional level which will help if you do not choose to go to grad school. It also helps that all of the FANG companies recruit on campus for JHU - not sure if the same is true for Pomona (doubtful). JHU’s comp sci major is also world renowned (especially for cyber security) and small which helps tremendously. It doesn’t help that Pomona’s CS program is not even ABET accredited let alone recognized.

To say JHU’s reputation is primarily medical is a bit shortsighted. JHU is well known in silicon valley - far more from my subjective experience versus any LAC given none of them having an engineering school save for Mudd (which is also a relative unknown). It helps that JHU’s ex-president is heavily involved in the community and Stanford (Will Brody). And it doesn’t hurt that IBM’s ex ceo and chairman of the board (Samuel J. Palmisano) is a JHU alum.

Contrary to @nostalgicwisdom Go to US News and compare JHU to Pomona:

Alumni giving rank: #6 amongst all universities (37.5%) vs Pomona (27.6%) 54th amongst all LACs.
Academic Reputation: JHU (4.6) Top 5 amongst all universities versus 4.4 for Pomona - top 20 amongst LACs.

Disclaimer: Former JHU undergrad alum and MIT grad alum working at Google now in Mountain View. I would choose JHU in a heartbeat and it also helps they wanted you first. If you tell people in the valley you majored at Comp Sci at Pomona, a non-insignificant amount would have assumed you went to Calpoly Pomona since the latter actually has an engineering school. No need to make that distinction with Hopkins.

As for the network, yes it exists. I and several other JHU grads have referred fellow JHU alums to Google. We have an SF JHU young alumni chapter that takes care of other alums for tech jobs too.

Pomona isn’t even the top ranked LAC in US News and it does not compare to Hopkins from a CS level.

Hopkins is not a better school they are both outstanding. Top of the collegiate food chain good. But like Berkeley, Johns Hopkins has a global brand that shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. But more importantly is where you will feel empowered to do your best work.

@nostalgicwisdom I’m curious to see what you think of @stevensPR opinion? Thank you everyone for giving your opinion I really appreciate it.

No, but a lot of my close friends are, and I’m part of the Facebook CS community. I was a science major in another department, so I can speak about research at Pomona.

It’s easy to get involved- you can start from the moment you arrive on campus! I started in the second semester of my first year. The intro courses do a good job connecting you with the department so you can learn about each professor’s research interests and see where you want to build experience. You mentioned an interest in AI, so here’s a perspective from a recent grad to see her CS experiences both in and outside Pomona: http://www.pomona.edu/news/2018/03/22-chinasa-okolo-%E2%80%9918-coding-more-inclusive-computer-science

During the school year, you do research as a course- in your case, either CS199RAPO (Research Assistantship) or CS199IRPO (Independent Research). I believe there are some funds available for students who need work-study money as well. These are courses you create which are advised by a professor. Grad schools love these because it shows independence and direct research involvement. There’s also a game lab at CGU: http://www.cgu.edu/center/claremont-game-lab/

Most upper-division labs at Pomona are structured to involve an independent research project. The work I did in two of my labs (required courses at Pomona!) was presented in research conferences, and one was turned into a paper.

During the summer, there are three opportunities you can use. Summer Undergrad Research Program, SURP, pays $440 per week and funds about ~200 students to engage with research with professors on-campus. An additional 30-50 projects are funded for off-campus unpaid research opportunities or independent proposals. Pomona College Summer Experience Funding (SEF) is done through the Career Development Office and funds unpaid or low-paying internships (you come up with the budget); I benefited from that to do research at a major university. Harvey Mudd sponsors a 5C summer research program in CS which sponsors 70 students for research: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/research/ This isn’t as difficult to benefit from as it sounds, since the vast majority of CS students across the colleges do an internship over the summer rather than staying on campus.

Thesis is optional for CS at Pomona, but highly encouraged if you want to go to grad school. You can do an academic thesis (with independent research) advised by a CS professor at either Pomona or Mudd- there’s an agreement between the two schools to combine professor expertise in order to manage thesis led research proposals. As seen above, Chinasa did her senior project with a Pomona professor. The alternative is Clinic, in which you are given an industry project by a company and work in teams to come up with solutions/insights. You can learn more about Clinic here (http://www.cs.hmc.edu/clinic/info) and see specific projects here (https://www.cs.hmc.edu/clinic/projects/). I counted 9 people from my class in the link for 2015-2016.

Any reason you’re not considering going to U of T or Waterloo? Both are excellent for CS, and the cost would likely be far less.

@privatebanker from an undergraduate education perspective, agreed. From a CS major perspective, there is a disparity in terms of knowledge learned given ABET accreditation exists for one and not the other. OP can also take grad level CS courses in AI, System Design, or other focus areas at JHU which helps tremendously as well.

@Drawcodawn If you’re interested in AI, just reach out to Carol Reiley (JHU alum and wife of Andrew Ng - both needless to say are well known in the field of machine learning and AI and have been known to chat with JHU CS majors).

@stevensPR I fully understand your points and thank you for the advice. Do you know Carol personally? Do I NEED to take those grad level courses as an undergrad? I’m leaning towards Pomona b/c of the environment and I think I can synthesize more of my interests.

JHU admissions folks said they have more research opportunities than they have students to fill them so research shouldn’t be a problem there either.

@Drawcodawn I’ve met Carol quite a few times around the valley - I would consider her a strong acquaintance. You absolutely do not NEED to take the grad level courses to graduate.

I implore you to reach out to other JHU and Pomona CS alums to get additional data points before making a significant decision. It shouldn’t be made just from opinions from people on this thread - who are not all well versed in CS or have not experienced what you personally will go through.

I think they are very comparable from a CS reputation viewpoint.

@stevensPR I have actually talked to people in CS at both schools. Both schools seem to have v promising grads going into the best grad schools and solid careers. I’m asking about the grad level not as a requirement, but was curious how much it be of benefit to me given I’m still scratching the top of iceberg of AI. What do you think of the atmosphere of Hopkins, in classrooms and around the city? I’ve heard admissions say “it’s not cut-throat” (obviously) and but I have heard negative experiences from current students. What is your take on this?

@Drawcodawn I would say it is a benefit. At google, it is extremely difficult to break into deep mind unless you have graduate schooling or prior AI knowledge which is just simply not provided at the undergrad level. This is not even taking account changes such as blockchain that is being introduced more at the grad level as well. So exposure in this category will deepen your expertise and will be helpful in getting you to the right group within google AI or FAIR (Facebook’s AI group) should you choose that path.

As for cutthroat competition, it is a myth and frequent rumor mill spread by people who did not get in or go tot hopkins. People study together. When you go to the library or dorms, you will frequently find study groups. They compete together against the tests and not against each other since the school does not have grade inflation. When you ask the source of these cutthroat rumors, they are time and time again by non Hopkins alums. This goes for the premeds as well. Ask current Hopkins students if it is cut throat there before passing judgement.

I personally had a blast and met my best friends at Hopkins. We had a great time partying, hanging out in fells point close to the harbor, going to DC, chilling at federal hill and around mount Vernon in Baltimore as well. My friends and I all graduated while having great social lives and are all now doing well as doctors, engineers, lawyers etc etc.

  1. Does ABET accreditation matter in CS? I don’t believe LACs without engineering are even eligible to apply, since ABET is an engineering based institution. As mentioned, the CS outcomes from Pomona are phenomenal, with students readily landing tech jobs at the top companies and graduate school destinations. If there’s some evidence that Pomona CS students are suffering in comparison to students from other schools, I’d like to see it. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Alphabet all recruit across the 5Cs, and while I don’t believe Netflix does, I just found 10 Pomona alumni who are presently working there and 7 at Mudd through LinkedIn. I could easily reach out to them. Tech recruiting is not something that the CCs are weak at. And as previously mentioned, I’ve never heard of anyone from Pomona complaining that their education did not serve them well for grad school.

  2. I was referring to this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2017/08/02/2017-grateful-grads-index-top-200-best-loved-colleges/

  3. It’s silly to discount Pomona as “isn’t even the top ranked LAC in US News”. Johns Hopkins “isn’t even the top ranked university in US News”, so don’t bother with them. Doesn’t that sound absurd? If we’re going by rankings that actually are combined, Forbes ranks Pomona 10th (including the #1 LAC) and Hopkins 30th, while Times/WSJ rates Pomona 26th and Hopkins 17th. That’s hardly any different.

I can tell you that people constantly turn down Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, U of M, and yes, Harvey Mudd, alongside other distinguished CS programs to come to Pomona. Ask the CS majors at Pomona what other schools they were considering, and you’d be surprised. There is no denying the research powerhouse strength of Johns Hopkins and its name brand, as well as the fact it has a larger, more resourced (not necessarily BETTER- in terms of quality of teaching, undergrad focus, community, etc) department. This is a classic case of small LAC vs. big university, and there are genuine reasons for picking the former without resulting in anything significant to one’s potential outcomes. LinkedIn Career Insights lists the six most similar schools to Pomona as Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Brown, Yale, and UChicago. It may not have the same name brand as Hopkins, but at least in the USA, the people who recruit and read applications hold it to high esteem. For graduate school, it has a track record of sending students to distinguished programs. I can’t speak about the Bay, but I have experience with the east coast and found Pomona to be largely recognized.

The advice about connecting with students and alumni directly is good, though. It would be good to get some perspective from undergrads at either schools to better understand the strength and weaknesses of each program, as well as alumni about how their school prepared them.

@nostalgicwisdom why should we trust a ranking (aka Forbes) that had Pomona as #1 just 3 years ago and JHU around #60 last year? I didn’t know schools could deteriorate or improve so much tremendously in such a short time frame relative to others. It is more absurd to treat the Forbes ranking as grounded in any semblance of truth.

You can do a comparison of per capita CS alumni using LinkedIn at FANG for Jhu CS versus Pomona CS. It should be a telling insight.

@stevensPR what do you mean by at FANG? And for alums would contacting people on Linkedin work?

@Drawcodawn I could be cheeky and say google it, but i won’t…;). FANG is a term coined by Jim Cramer to refer to the best performing public tech stocks (aka Facebook, amazon, Netflix, google). These are frequently offhandedly seen as the most desirable public tech firms to work for save for Amazon probably. Collectively this acronym has taken on a respect equivalency to MBB for consulting, M7 for MBA or T14 for law schools. You can probably expand FANG to include Airbnb, Uber, Snapchat, Apple as other desirable tech firms as well.

I like Baltimore, so I’d go to Hopkins. It is easy to get around the city or to DC. For D1 sports it has lacrosse, but if you enjoy college sports there are several other schools in the area that are D1 (Towson, Loyola, Navy) and you could follow those teams. There are also the professional teams in both Baltimore and DC. Pomona is not far from Anaheim and you’d have the Angels and the Ducks, but everything else is in LA.

I didn’t understand if you are from Toronto or just plan to live there in the future. Hopkins is a lot closer if it is your home.

@pomonathrowaway looks like I hit a nerve. I didn’t know my posts show a complete bias against LACs. Seriously, grow thicker skin. Come to the valley and we can survey these tech companies and alum success first hand.

@pomonathrowaway awesome job. I’m sure you included undergrad CS majors in your analysis only. Doubtful, but one can hope.