<p>phead,
This Hopkins self-selecting concept is something I’ve not heard much about except that it is heavy on Asians and heavy on pre-med. By contrast, U Chicago is renown for attracting the quirky intellectual types. Is there a self-selecting (differentiated) Hopkins applicant that I’m not aware of? </p>
<p>As for your other charges, I’m not ant-Hopkins, but I don’t like the way that they have gamed some of their reporting, eg,
- spending per student figures are inflated due to including APL as part of that calculation
- selectivity data is inflated by excluding Peabody students
- class size data is improved by including Peabody students</p>
<p>Also, while this is subjective, my personal view is that the PA score is far more reflective of the graduate school reputation of the school and not reflective of the classroom/academic experience of some students. </p>
<p>Because of this, I believe that the school is overranked. </p>
<p>My beliefs nothwithstanding, some people revel in an environment like JHU and it’s absolutely the right place for them. Same could be said about U Chicago, Cornell, and Duke. All of these are pretty excellent places and students choosing any of them for the wrong reason (like prestige!) is IMO making a mistake.</p>
<p>When I applied to colleges, JHU’s PA score was a 4.6, tied with UChicago, Columbia, and Cornell… sigh. :-(</p>
<p>PA scores, that’s something you can’t game.</p>
<p>JHU is a mecca for medicine. NSF’s decision to include APL. NSF changed the methodology in 1979. I wish JHU can include it’s Health system in it’s univeristy expenditures. It’s already a Fortune 500 company. It would be a Fortune 200 company if it included her Health system.</p>
<p>The Controller’s office has yet to get back to me about inclusion of Peabody students so that’s still up in the air.</p>
<p>Recently, Global University Rankings ranked JHU #9 in the world, THESQ #13, USNews #14, Shanghai #19, … um… yes… It’s consistently ranked among the top 20 at least in most university rankings. (Ex Forbes which #175 down from #75 tied with Duke)</p>
<p>It’s ranked in the top 10 for nearly 44 different graduate subjects. It was the first university in the nation to emphasize graduate studies and laboratory research as part of it’s core curriculumn.</p>
<p>Overall academically there are few schools that can rival JHU beyond Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford.</p>
<p>MIT/Caltech don’t count. Their are not nearly as well rounded since they are more of the science/tech side. UChicago doesn’t even have an engineering school. Cornell and Columbia come close. Overall academically, JHU is ranked among the top 10 for sure. It’s PA score has been in the top 10 for AGES… for long as USNews has existed.</p>
<p>It’s one of the few schools to be included in the top 10 club as well. I’ll stop bragging and go to sleep. snore.</p>
<p>Let’s compromise. Duke=Cornell=JHU for premed with JHU>Duke>Cornell for medical research opportunities. Atleast Duke Medical Centre is accessible from campus vs. Cornell’s NYC/Qatar medical campus. lol Duke has a nice set up in Singapore with Duke-NUS though. Wouldn’t mind going there for med school.</p>
<p>JHU overrated for undergraduate. Overall academically, it’s among the top 10. WashU is overrated period. APL exaggerates JHU’s NSF total. Exclusion of Peabody student is definitely sketch and subtle means of manipulation of SAT statistics.</p>
<p>Though Peabody is like behind Curtiss/Juilliard in terms of music conservatory prestige. But Prestige isn’t a problem when picking schools that best fit you!!! I’d toast to that Hawkette.</p>
<p>
I don’t agree simply because I can think of at least 10 schools with a stronger claim (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, and Berkeley). Along with Duke, Michigan, Brown, and Northwestern, Hopkins has a decent claim to the top 15. </p>
<p>Obviously the typical student would not notice significant differences between the quality of instruction at any of these schools. I too agree with hawkette that prestige and academic quality are not determining factors.</p>
<p>
Yes, it’s about as good as Hopkins Law. ;)</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering does not exist at UChicago. (Hopkins ranked #14 alongside Princeton and Northwestern for undergraduate engineering) Duke’s Pratt engineering is abominable at #35… MIT and Caltech have abysmal humanities departments compared to Hopkins (we have top 10 in History, English, Writing seminars, and in like a kajillion other subjects). UChicago’s strengths lie in the humanities and sciences while Hopkins has #14 engineering (behind other largest state powerhouse engineering schools UIUC, Cornell, etc…)</p>
<p>UPenn, Columbia, and Columbia have a close chance. Berkeley isn’t even top 20 in undergraduate USNews rankings.</p>
<p>Overall academically as reflected in the PA scores, Hopkins in #7 in the PA score rankings. That’s including Berkeley with like a gigantic 4.9 or whatever.</p>
<p>I’m not including Professional schools like business, law, or med. I’m solely basing my judgment on the academics of the arts and sciences and undergraduate engineering. </p>
<p>UChicago doesn’t have an engineering school for it’s undergraduates. UChicago takes the idea that academics do not want their school to become a “trade school” to the extreme… wow. Doesn’t explain the existence of Booth GSB though. ??</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Who died and made you “super moderator”???</p>
<p>Still didn’t stop you from posting multiple times since this thread has been revived, however.</p>
<p>My vote goes to Johns Hopkins if you want a well respected and rigorous pre-medical curriculum. </p>
<p>Cornell if you want Ivy prestige.</p>
<p>Duke if you want basketball and warm (but humid) weather.</p>
<p>phead,
Let me repeat that I’m not saying that JHU undergrad is overrated. I’m saying it is overranked. There is a difference.</p>
<p>As for the undefinable quality of academics/prestige question, I see the world something like this:</p>
<p>Tier 1: HYPSM. I don’t think that there is a lot of argument about this. </p>
<p>Tier 2: About 15 colleges, including Johns Hopkins, Duke and Cornell. I think that there is a lot of discussion/argument on CC about this group and which colleges actually belong. (I can list the fifteen or so colleges that I think belong in Tier 2, but this might cause some riots. 
) Regardless, I doubt that many would dispute the inclusion of JHU, Duke, & Cornell. </p>
<p>For me, it is essential that one think about UNDERGRADUATE education. The colleges that you place into Tier 2 (and probably Tier 1 as well) changes when you add in graduate programs. Those global rankings that you refer to deal with the whole university and I’m not going to waste my energy arguing about that. </p>
<p>BTW, I don’t think there is any difference between PA scores of 4.4 and 4.6. Frankly, I put very little weight into these numbers because I don’t believe that they reflect the average undergraduate’s academic experience. There are several schools ranked below 4 that I believe are grossly out of line with what undergraduates experience at these colleges (Wake Forest, William & Mary, Notre Dame, Tufts, Boston College, Tulane, etc).</p>
<p>Ok, I agree. It’s fruitful to determine random and arbitrarily defined weights in order to rank schools and assign each individual school a number.</p>
<p>Institutions are just huge conglomerates of various divisions with such enormous complexities that cannot be captured by raw data such as SAT scores or student-faculty ratios.</p>
<p>It doesn’t capture the learning involved in the classes either. (Ironic, hehe)</p>
<p>This is just a beauty pageant, I advocate what Hawkette said… a Tier based system…rather than a ranking that differentiates schools on absolute terms (ridiculous).</p>
<p>This is the epiphany I have arrived at after 1900 posts on CC forum. :sigh:</p>
<p>Edit: I have no clue why I spent the last hour here. I have an exam in 3 hrs. eff me…</p>
<p>When I hear Johns Hopkins, I think of medicine. When I hear med school, I think of Johns Hopkins. </p>
<p>Can’t go wrong with any of the three, though.</p>
<p>Welcome Phead, to the world of most of us on CC. Took a while.</p>
<p>Good luck on your exam, Phead. </p>
<p>BTW, Berkeley’s PA is not the “gigantic” 4.9 you mentioned. ;)</p>
<p>JHU - go here if u want to go to medical school. it claims that 90% of their students who have a 3.5 or above “science” GPA goes to med school</p>
<p>
BME and public health at Hopkins are the #1 programs in their fields, and Hopkins has more premeds per capita than perhaps any other university in the US. For this reason, JHU brags at length about how amazing it is for premedical preparation.</p>
<p>The reality is that most top universities do just as well, and many of them have better social scenes or locations than Hopkins.</p>
<p>Hopkins is a great school. There are many good reasons to want to attend. Selecting it because it supposedly has the best premed program is not one.</p>