@blah2008… Let me give you some facts and not opinion! JHU is a very post graduate focused college. Does not mean that it is not a good undergraduate institution. But it is better known for post graduate studies. Why ? Here are the facts… e…g. Rice Undergraduate enrollment: 3950, Graduate enrollment around 2000. JHU … Undergraduate class 6500, Post Graduate: 15,000.
Rice and JHU are within a few in terms of undergraduate rankings (no matter which you look at … US News, Niche, etc.) but in terms of Graduate school Rice is far behind JHU in all rankings. Following are examples.
http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html
Notice schools like Rice, Brown, Dartmouth are way behind some of the other elite private schools and some of the elite public schools like UT, Michigan, Berkeley etc. Why? Because Rice, Brown, Dartmouth type schools are very much a Undergraduate focused schools! I graduated from Carnegie and have many professors that I am friends with and the focus of these graduate schools is very much on Research and publishing research (and since you are a Phd you should be very familiar with that). Rice type schools are very undergraduate friendly and their whole existence is based on providing an unparalleled undergrad education.
My son goes to Rice. I serve on Carnegie Mellon admission council. I would hope I know a bit more than an average person commenting on this site about colleges as I am involved in recruiting and evaluating both undergraduate and graduate level students. I by no means am saying that JHU is not a great institution. But having said that, Rice is a undergraduate focused school. That is Rice’s priority and that is not the case with JHU. That is a fact based on the evidence I sighted above. Does that make Rice experience better? That is for Rice and JHU alumni to debate, not me.