atro.wolf

I may major in Chem Engineering, Econ, but I'm not sure yet what my major will be.

and none of those colleges gave any kind of financial aid , but

WashU and Rice may will give me something.

But nothing is certain.

which is the best college for me?

WealthOfInformation

I think Hopkins has the best overall reputation of all the schools you mentioned. That said, it doesn't mean it's the best school for you... Did you visit?

atro.wolf

I visited CMU and WashU

I loved both of schools and I will visit Hopkins this sunday

HonestDescendent

Hopkins undergraduate is over rated, in a terrible part of Baltimore (not safe just off campus), and to some extent seems to be dominated by the premed/engineering component of the school. Much of it's reputation is actually from the various professional schools. Yes, you can be involved in the professional schools to some extent but they are the reason for Hopkins, not the undergraduate. A recent visit showed a lack of interest for an accepted student by facutly advisors and professors contacted and one just plain rude admin. type. Icch!!!

Washington Univ. suffers from being in St. Louis (actually Clayton, a beautiful, safe suburb) and being in the Midwest. On recent visit people from the Coasts were stunned by what Wash.U. had to offer (in addition to saying some really dumb things like "I didn't know there was anything in the Midwest", an actual quote). In addition, the undergraduate at Wash.U. is not overshadowed by the grad/professional schools like Hopkins or for another example Univ. of Chicago. They love teaching undergraduates, promote dual majors and interdisciplinary studies, and generally are one of the better national universities currently in the USA.

Rice Univ. has a lot to offer and is somewhat similar to Wash.U. with a great undergraduate focus, excellent engineering, architecture, and Arts and Sciences. It also offers a city life that is reasonably safe and has a lot to offer. It is a bit of a regional school in reputation (which is silly) but this is not the case when you look at where the graduates go to work and to school after Rice as provided by the school on the website.

s1mplyr4nd0m

I agree. My friend absolutely hated JHU. Their undergraduate programs, in her opinion, isn't worth the money you're going to have to spend.
Washu has been rated number 1 in quality of life I believe and it is definitively a great school, as well as Rice. I believe these two schools are underrated.

AdamJaz

I'm not going to get into the quality of education at JH, but it's really not in such a bad neighborhood. Did you try watching north towards Loyola etc.? A short walk due south (or on the JHMI shuttle) through a mildly sketch area places you in Station North neighborhood which is pretty sweet.

Don't be such a prep and it's fine to walk through.

_idk_

how is hopkins overrated? care to elaborate?

in many regards, the undergrad is actually underrated. all you hear about is pre-medicine and bme, but hopkins has top departments in many fields ranging from art history to english to writing sems to IR.

if you want to go by the rankings, though we all know how much they suck, jhu is below washu but above rice in econ

it is also below rice in chemical engineering but above washu in ChemE.. all according to nrc

btw, were it not for baltimore's bad rap (which for the most part is not totally fair because there are some great parts and homewood campus is nice-looking and safe thanks to security efforts. plus it has the second largest number of colleges. second only to boston) i think the school would get the attention it deserves. imagine if hopkins was in a flashy area like some parts of dc, nyc, or near beantown or something.

i will agree that rice is probably a little underrated in some areas. washu..not so much. haha i think it is actually overrated. anyone care to enlighten me?

AdamJaz

Hopkins's secure state is not due to security efforts. In the 60s, the neighborhood was much worse, yet there were only three foot patrolling security officers who alternated shifts. Fine then, would be fine now. Parents are just helicopter neurotics who demand such security efforts.

Hop would be much better off if they cut 80% from security. I mean, segways, really? How is that better than a bicycle?

nooob

when i visited hopkins i talked to a cab driver who has lived in baltimore for over 15 years. he said about 5 years ago the crime rate was really high and things were pretty bad but since then, it's gotten a LOT better. Not sure what the numbers are now, but the city is definitely improving.

dou

Rice has really great programs in ChemE. There are ALOT of resources and opportunities for ChemE students. AICHE at Rice gets a good amount of sponsorship from Shell each year and brings in companies from all different areas to give presentations to just ChemE students.

lagunal

So how is it that you have experience at ALL THREE campuses?
Yea... I thought so. a troll

highmen

To be honest, I think all universities are safe. It all depends on the individual. If he/she isn't aware of their surroundings then anything can happen regardless of the campus safety. For JHU, engineering is best if it pertains to medical I believe and for Rice, engineering is pretty good for your subject too. Engineering has many fields and each university is great technically at a particular one.

tarkman

I say JHU is the best.They put 260 premeds into med school every year, a number greater than ALL schools in the US, including HYP. MIT gets only about 80/yr. JHU undergrad is superb, with a top writing seminars dept ( Jean McGarry, Alice McDermott, div founded by John Barth, Cynthia Macdonald...these are top writers, and Jean Mcgarry teaches a class of 10 people), strong International studies, and their Art History and African history is also top rated. They encourage their students to do research, and I know when I went there, I waltzed into Albert Lehninger's office, asked him for a research position, and he gave it to me, just like that. 16,000+ kids apply every year to the undergrad, for 1200 posititions. JHU especially excels at premed, and all of their premeds can get a letter of rec from the premed committee, whithout having to meet some minimum requirement, unlike some colleges that screen their premeds with a minimum GPA,. But the Hop gets 65% of everyone in yearly,vs. 42% for the national average, and it jumps to 90% for a GPA >3.3. Also, the quality of the medical school in that rate is not measured in that study, and I suspect it is skewed in JHU's favor. For instance,polling my friends a 3.5 and a B in Orgo gets you into NYU med. ( NYU med is top 15 )

Wash U is excellent too, but for the longest time, they were known as "Hopkins West". The world rankings for JHU ( not the USNWR rankings ) rate JHU in the top 20 in the world, with Rice U at #20, and Wash U doesn't even break the top 100 .
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~zbt/QSTopUni...esTHES2007.pdf
They rank colleges by productivity of faculty (# of citations in scientific journals) and the number of prestigious awards given to students and faculty (i.e., Nobel, MacArthur,Rhodes etc..). Note that the USNWR PEER assessment (they polled university presidents and faculty )placed JHU @ 4.6, which is #3, just behind HYMITCAltech, but Upenn was rated lower @4.5, Wash U @ 4.1,Rice @4.0

To me , how the world university leaders view JHU,WashU,Rice is more important, because these are the folks who will be reviewing your applications to their grad schools,med schools,and approving your NIH grant money...as you mature,you'll find the USNWR rankings ( JHU still did pretty well, just 1 behind WashU) don't matter as much...it's whether you get into your med/grad school, and whether you get your grant...and JHU beats WU/rice on these measures..Still, your decision is highly individual, and you couldn't go wrong with any of these great schools. Don't forget, at some point, it's going to really depend on the amount of work you put in. I just didn't want people to be wrongly turned off to JHU on the basis of anecdotal information.Research your prospective alma maters carefully, I would check the credentials of all people who give you advice.

Anyway, if you want anecdotal info, JHU got me where I wanted to go, and at med school, I found that the kids from HYP didn't measure up in the basic sciences. My ex roomie felt the same too, and he went to MSTP @ Hahavahd.

IBclass06

I'm sure the OP is quite happy at whichever university he chose, considering this was posted 6 months ago.

They're all great schools, and I hesitant to say anything lest I be attacked for seeming to criticize Hopkins, but I do take issue with a few claims.

Source? I find that assertion dubious. In 2008, for example, Hopkins produced 223 successful applicants while Berkeley and Duke produced 383 and 238, respectively (those are just two I checked -- I'm sure there's more).

In any case, that number is considerably less impressive when you realize that Hopkins simply has far more pre-meds than its peers. In terms of pre-meds per capita, it's undoubtedly one of the top 5 schools in the country.

Eh? Hopkins is a great school, but really the only school that gets shifted around is Harvard (Harvard of the South, Harvard of the Midwest, etc.)

Hopkins performs more poorly than WUStL and Rice in raw numbers, although it comes out ahead of WUStL per capita. Both WUStL and JHU perform poorly compared to peer schools.

Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, NSF, Fulbright Scholars at Private Universities

Interestingly, virtually all of the top privates produce more NSF fellows than Hopkins. So much for not measuring up in the basic sciences.

YanksDolphins

IBclass06, the fact that Berkeley had 165 more people can be explained by the fact that their class size is over 4200.