JHU vs. WUSTL

Hope2getrice
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:08:59 +0000

Humboldt, JHU’s prestige isn’t an “in-the-moment” thing. JHU has been prestigious for well over one hundred years now. Just as Brown might be ranked lower than some schools in USNWR, it is still one heck of a more prestigious school than WashU, Duke, etc…the same applies for Johns Hopkins. In most academic circles, Johns Hopkins’ name exceeds the reputations of WashU, Northwestern, Duke, and sometimes Penn/Brown/Dartmouth depending on who you ask and for what subject.

The “prestige” issue is not something that can be “overcome” simply with endowment or “a great medical school” etc. Johns Hopkins is reputed as stronger and has known to have been a stronger academic powerhouse than just about most of the academic institutions in this nation besides HYPSMC, Berkeley, and Chicago/Columbia/Cornell which it often shares a spotlight with. It will take WashU at least one to two more decades to climb up to the level of national recognition that Hopkins enjoys today.

Endowment has little to no REAL value in this argument, and if you knew more about how schools spend their money and where that money comes from, you would understand that as well. Even so, Hopkins has raised the second highest sum EVER in higher education with a whopping $3.74 Billion dollars over the span of 7+ years in their “Knowledge for the World” Campaign. The money is going towards building new facilities, endowing new professorships and deanships, financial aid, scholarships, and new programs/courses.

Overall, WashU is only very well known for its Medical School and possibly architecture in some circles with excellent, but not renowned programs in everything else.

Hopkins, however, is an academic powerhouse with top 10 programs in History, English, Writing (#1 arguably), International Studies (top 2 arguably), etc along with its number one programs in BME, Public Health, Medicine, Medical-Research, etc.

Academic rigor and reputation is not something that WashU’s large endowment can just buy. Top quality professors and researchers are still more attracted to the Hopkins name than the WashU name, and arguably, Hopkins has one of the best hard science and medical science attractive names next to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and Wisc.

Anyways, the point of my post was not to say Hopkins >>>>>>>WashU.
The point of my post was to refute some of the ludicrous statements of some of the posters here who believe WashU somehow trumps Hopkins very badly.
In all reality, they are peer schools. Pick where you are more comfortable.
FYI: The “Cut-Throat” stereotype is 100% not true about Hopkins and also, I have heard the same stereotype about WashU students as well: also not true :)