Pomona College vs Johns Hopkins

nostalgicwisdom
Wed, 30 May 2018 00:52:09 +0000

Don’t you only have a few days to decide? I thought Pomona only gave students a week to commit or move on.

Just listen to your heart, honestly. As cliche as that is, you’re the only one who knows what you want out of your college experience and I’m sure you’ve confronted certain thoughts and feelings over the past few days. It seems like you’ve gotten a lot of perspective from people (I saw topics on other websites as well), though I will say a lot of it is JHU focused simply by nature of them being a much larger school. I could see a lot of misconceptions regarding Pomona with the perspectives detailed (including the one above), but at this point I don’t really find it worthwhile to “dispute” points raised. If anything, they can give you a sense for what colleagues and friends might perceive a degree from a top LAC to mean, whether or not that’s grounded in anything true. If the opinions of others is something which especially matters to you, and you want to impress others with your institution, then there is the appeal of Johns Hopkins which is widely renowned as a leading university. I will be honest with you that Pomona will not give you much in the way of immediate glamour, and not everyone can tolerate that. But as a recent graduate, I know I was able to have the best undergraduate experience there and can stand on my own accomplishments and perspectives rather than the public worth of my institution alone.

No point in overthinking this. Small LAC with the individual attention and undergrad-centered experiences, or big university with world-class professors and research? They are vastly different. Enough has been elaborated at this point regarding the pros and cons of either. One will clearly resonate with you more than the other. Good luck with your choice, and once you’ve made it, move on to imagining the excitement and possibility you’ll have as an incoming first year at either!