<p>if anything HMC does not belong in that group.</p>
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<p>LOL, so Harvey Mudd isn’t even a peer of JHU?</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd is entirely different from JHU, so it’s difficult to compare. Thus it become difficult to call them peers.</p>
<p>If Harvey Mudd doesn’t belong in that group because it’s “entirely different” then why doesn’t blah2009 say places like Macalester, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Trinity, CMC, Williams, Amherst, Haverford, Oberlin, Smith, Carleton, Middlebury, Wellesley also don’t belong? Let’s be consistent.</p>
<p>Lets not get into a debate about this. HMC is way too specialized to be compared to universities such as JHU. Hell, is it the only liberal arts college that focuses on somewhat legit engineering? (swarthmore doesn’t count).</p>
<p>“Hell, is it the only liberal arts college that focuses on somewhat legit engineering? (swarthmore doesn’t count).”</p>
<p>How many people go to JHU to study history, art or language? I think the answer is pretty similar at HMC. While there may be a few JHU and HMC are science-oriented institutions. Given the similarity in orientation and comperable accomplishments per capita, I’d say that HMC is at least JHU’s peer.</p>
<p>HMC isn’t as specialized as you may think. Its engineering program plays a similar role that med/premed may play at JHU. While the engineering (or medical) devisions are quite strong, there is other very awesome stuff going on as well. For instance, Mudd has very strong math/computer science deal while JHU has strong physics…and can been seen through its involvement with the Applied Physics Laboratory.</p>
<p>I really don’t know much about Harvey Mudd (other than one of my friends there loves it), but I disagree that “JHU and HMC are science-oriented institutions.” The biggest major at Hopkins is International Studies and there are a lot of non-science majors and top-ranked humanities and social science programs. Hopkins tends to have its strongest reputation in two areas, medicine and international relations, depending on who you talk to, but there are strong programs across all different academic fields. So I can’t really comment on HMC, but Hopkins is definitely not just a science-oriented school.</p>
<p>posterx might wind up there when he fails to get into Yale</p>
<p>Don’t generalize Hopkins as a school solely strong in the sciences. Hopkins has top 10 english, political theory, history deparments among others (and writing seminars). Certainly Hopkins has great strength in the sciences, but it’s humanities and social science departments are not under-enrolled or looked down upon.</p>
<p>“Certainly Hopkins has great strength in the sciences, but it’s humanities and social science departments are not under-enrolled or looked down upon.”</p>
<p>This works both ways. Don’t generalize Mudd as a narrow-minded place as well. While ~98% of students at Mudd major in the sciences, all are required to take a substantial humanities/social science curriculum (12 classes) and many have interests outside of science as well. Many are musicians, artists, writers…and more.</p>
<p>The 5C’s balance Mudd out. In terms of courses. In all, the 5C’s have over 2500 courses offered each semester… for a total of 6000 students. Now that is something worth taking into consideration.</p>
<p>Wow. If you look through this thread, you can see I didn’t generalize HMC at all. I can make know judgments about it, because, in fact I know very little about it. Further I didn’t call Amherst, Haverford, Williams, and Bowdoin peers of Hopkins, not because of prestige or revealed preference, but solely on the grounds that these schools are liberal arts schools and Johns Hopkins is one of the largest research universities in the nation. I’m not saying the academics are better at one or the other. However, the culture at these schools, as well as the academics have to be different. This is why I wouldn’t call many, if any, LACs peers of Hopkins or a peer of any other large university. There’s a reason why they aren’t ranked together and there’s a reason why each draws its own type of students. If you want to talk about peer schools, talk about peer schools by department. Then you can assess across school types.</p>
<p>erm, i would place
georgetown, wustl, cornell, upenn, northwestern, carnegie mellon, brown, duke, dartmouth in the same league as jhu
each have their clear strengths and weaknesses but are all overall very similar in academic strength</p>
<p>Coolguyusa123 wrote:</p>
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<p>Yes, but the thing that none of you are getting is that NESCAC + Swat are the last remaining legacy of the core of the Ivy League, i.e., the American liberal arts college, the oldest of which is Harvard College. Cornell is the only member of the Ivy League that did not begin humbly in a stand-alone building serving as chapel, lecture hall and dormitory. Every NESCAC college - though several today grant advanced degrees and all have state of the art science facilities- shares that tradition and in that sense have far more in common with HYP than JHU, Chicago, WUSTL, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Duke or any other research institution sprung fully grown from the hip pocket of a nineteenth century robber baron.</p>
<p>Cornell, UChicago, Columbia, Brown</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put WUStL up there.</p>
<p>I agree with Johnwesley, in terms of the cultural peers of such institutions. There’s nothing like a school with a real liberal arts tradition and college at its center. But on the level of which schools provide the brute force resources, I’d say that Chicago, JHU, Rice and Northwestern et al give those LACs and lesser Ivies a run for their money, at least.</p>
<p>in response to to coolguyusa123 comment on top 10 programs, hopkins has top 20 programs in the Graduate division of the school, I don’t know if they rank undergrad. In the first ever undergraduate ranking of IR programs, hopkins ranked 19, although I am sure that someone will dispute this (seems like a favorite pastime at hopkins), it is the only objective ranking done so far.</p>
<p>Also, about 2/3 of hopkins students major in science of one kind or another, 1/3 in engineering, and 1/3 in natural sciences</p>
<p>I see no reason to dispute the study but really, how can you call it objective when it’s a ranking of how often the program is mentioned? That’s like me touting Hopkins’ rank of 4 in Economics by professor productivity. I’m not about to say Hopkins’ has the 4th best Economics program in the country, but this ranking has no bearing on quality of teaching, etc, just like the Foreign Policy Magazine ranking.</p>
<p>And with your breakdown of courses of study, they don’t really add up and in fact, it’s much more evenly distributed in that 1/3 majors in the sciences, 1/3 in Humanities and Social Science, and 1/3 in engineering.</p>
<p>“scholars were also asked to identify the best places to study international relations as an undergraduate,” hardly empirical but I am just stating that is what it was ranked.</p>
<p>I am not sure how your 1/3 science, 1/3 humanities and 1/3 engineering is different from what I said, which is what I heard from the tour guides</p>
<p>Another problem with the undergraduate rankings is that the people who were surveyed were mostly graduate school IR professors who have little to no knowledge of general undergrad IR programs. Some of the schools that were ranked pretty high (IE: Columbia) do not even have an international relations major.</p>
<p>With that being said, undergraduate program rankings, especially in the social sciences and humanities, generally mean very little. If you really want to become involved in IR / pursue and IR career you have to get a masters, where the rankings are much more accurate and the reputations of various schools are much more renowned.</p>
<p>you will soon see hopkins jump. i have heard from a high ranking official at a peer school of hopkins, that their school wouldn’t hold a flame to JHU, if JHU could just figure out the amenities aspect of college. I think this is true, and I think with all the gentrification and renovation of the JHU campus area (food/housing/buildings etc.), JHU is beginning to figure it out. If you look at the most respected education publications (NOT the US news report), you will see that hopkins has many top ranked programs. Based on these numbers, hopkins essentially matches up with ANY other university in the nation on a purely academic level. </p>
<p>also on a prestige level- when you tell someone who doesn’t know that much about colleges, or is not an american, they will recognize the hopkins name before that of wash u, or bowdoin, or carnegie mellon, or harvey mudd or even upenn.</p>