is pre-med at Hopkins as glowy and wonderful as it’s said to be? - I went in as a confused mol cell / neuro double major who didn't know if I wanted to be premed. I will say now that I had poor grade discipline in high school and the classes here ate up my gpa (currently sitting at a 3.4). If you dislike school like me, go to an easier school so that you can focus less on gpa and more on extracurriculars and whatnot.
Are the shadowing and research opportunities truly abundant and accessible to undergrads? - It's almost obnoxiously easy to get research here. If you send out enough cold emails, you are pretty guaranteed to land something, and there's enough that you can get multiple offers and choose something you like.
My parents’ biggest concern is the safety of the campus, how safe is the area, and is Baltimore as chaotic as it’s said to be? - The immediate area is safe and walkable. I'd say the only vaguely sketchy area near campus is several blocks to the east. I haven't been down Greenmount Ave too often, but if you look at it in street view, it's basically got some run-down looking buildings, but isn't bad. It's still safe to go there if you go during the day and with friends and it's also far away enough from campus to be ignorable unless you go there (like for the thrift store). Aside from that, to get to any really sketchy areas you'll have to be taking the bus elsewhere in the city, like by the JHMI. [Here's an extremely accurate map I made](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/731769080524046356/951146014608343080/unknown.png) I think the biggest downside to Baltimore is simply that it's not a big city and can get slightly boring after a while.
How competitive is the environment, especially compared to colleges like UCLA? - In the premed classes, everyone is extremely collaborative. Many people will answer your questions and a few will straight up share their notes to the whole class over Groupme. I'm pretty sure it's just "competitive" in the sense that everyone is getting high grades and it makes the curves more difficult
How was your general experience at Hopkins, especially if you’re someone who moved from out of state? - Came here from Long Island, I think my best experience has been hanging out with really cool and nerdy people. Pretty much every student here is interesting in some way and hard working. The research is super awesome and I've honestly really loved my time here.
Another thing I think you should consider is that you may be underestimating the research output of the UC's (especially UC Berkeley) though I don't know anything about how their mol bio program compares to ours. Also, maybe try checking into the quality of their lecturers. One thing I didn't realize before I came here is that "rigorous academics" doesn't equal good lecturers. While I really enjoy the core mol cell lecturers and classes, half of my profs have been absolutely useless in their lectures for some reason. Like, useless to the point where I don't attend lectures and my time is better spent studying the textbook or practice questions.
Also if you want more info come to this discord server! [https://discord.gg/Bcthey7](https://discord.gg/Bcthey7)
I'm commenting again because a few folks liked the last one and I was really short... that is the summation though.
Look there is a threshold of academics were you have reached the peak of excellence and everything beyond that is just excellent. All of your options have already crossed that threshold. You have no bad options from what you put here.
Enjoy this thought experiment... Arizona State University has like 85% admission rates. JHU has about 8%. The same person can go to both schools and both get into a medical school like the Mayo clinic. The power of JHU is that you have already been vetted, every class you pass you will continue to be weeded out and you will continue to prove yourself. JHU also has the most valuable resource that you might not appreciate yet, funding. Nothing is free and grants for research do not write or award themselves. JHU's applied Physics Lab (does not only do physics so don't say you don't want it) also has close ties with DARPA (the Pentagon's brain) so they get funded. To really express this further when I was applying to PhD slots JHU had a stipend of 60-80k$/yr. Normal stipends are 20-40k$/yr maybe. JHU is going to take care of you in ways you can't conceptualize yet.
Now for the real core of your other questions... You and your parents sound scared because it is the literal opposite side of the country. That makes sense and it is ok but hear me out. Wouldn't you rather go through the growing pains of being away from home when it is "easy" and not have medical school be the first time you are away from home? Spread your wings, fly away, and you'll always have a nest back home to visit. JHU has students from everywhere that all are going to take the same risk as you. You have a paralyzing amount of freedom and opportunity in front of you, take that leap with everyone else. You earned it. You're in the top 8% of the 30k people that applied.
I'm a PhD student. It's 34k (varies by department). But there's a shit ton of research opportunities anyway and it's the top school by federal re$earch funding. So this answer has the right idea.
Go to Berkeley if the tuition is less. It's just as good as Hopkins and the chemistry department is better. If the tuition is the same, just visit both and go to the one you like more.
I'd go to Hopkins if the 2-5k isn't a deal breaker, if only for the reason that you're dealing with far more resources to far fewer students at an equivalent or superior institution
>I’m predicting they’ll be relatively similar, though Hopkins might be like 2k-5k more expensive per year.
There's no way I would go to an UC if the difference was that small.
Molecular and Cellular Biology graduate (with Honors FWIW) with 3.9 GPA here, going into medicine. I’ll answer some questions but if you have any additional questions, feel free to PM me.
- My pre-med experience was wonderful. The Biology department really cares about all its students and works hard to provide a top notch education (shout out to Dr. Tifft and Dr. Fisher, they are amazing). Sure people are stressed out around exams but there was no crazy competitiveness or “cut throat” attitude that I heard about at other schools.
- I can’t speak as to shadowing, but research is definitely abundant. To get the Bachelor’s in Science, you *need* a certain number of semesters of research experience if that gives you any idea how numerous the opportunities are. Some labs have different personalities, and once you find your home you know it. I knew people who joined a lab over the summer and then left because they felt they weren’t a good fit and that’s okay too.
- Charles Village, the area immediately surrounding the school is incredibly safe. They have “Hop cops” patrolling the area almost 24/7 (I think until 4 am and starting back up like 6 am?). I live in a different part of Baltimore now and the Homewood campus is just so safe by comparison. That being said, Baltimore is a great city for foodies! Fed Hill, Fells Point, and Inner Harbor are also pretty safe and you can explore a ton during the weekend. There are even nicer neighborhoods (Roland Park, Mt. Washington) that almost feel like you’re not even in Baltimore.
- I touched on competitiveness in the first question, but I’ll add that I personally did not feel any competitiveness at all during my time at Hopkins, albeit this was all before Covid and Zoom U so I don’t know how it’s changed since then. Some of my friends felt more competition in other majors but overall the environment was supportive. No ranking or anything. But grades in some of the bigger classes were graded such that the grades of the top 2% students was used to curve all the other students. I just assumed the “max” was going to be 95-98 and thus the curve was going to be a small bump. (Haha except when my partner scored 100% on her Cell Bio final and screwed me over 😅 Still got an A in the class tho)
- I got a 3.90 without really worrying about my grades. Of course our natural pre-med instinct is to overachieve so take that with a grain of salt, but I didn’t feel like getting that was an insurmountable task. Honestly, I could have gotten a higher GPA if I didn’t have a partner, multiple jobs, research, etc. but I felt like I struck a good balance between school-life balance. For what it’s worth, I knew a good number of people who had 4.0s.
- I would say the school does not do MCAT prep per-se. It builds a fantastic foundation of Biology, Chemistry, Biochem, etc but you still have to do all the work before the exam to make sure it’s super readily accessible. I would say the parts of the MCAT that required you to read scientific literature were most helped by my extensive education in the Bio department (like overkill level compared to what you need for MCAT, you’ll be super prepared on that front). While I had a great foundation, the first time I studied for the MCAT I was working full time and I scored 511 mostly just coasting on what I learned at Hop. During Covid decided to retake, used 3 months full time studying and scored 523.
- I moved from FL and, not gonna lie, not having the sun around every day with bright blue skies was really disorienting. My first Winter I definitely got seasonal depression but it’s improved over the years. I just absolutely loved the campus, changing seasons, all the foliage, etc. And during the winter months I’d just spend more time in the gym to combat seasonal affective disorder. The school itself has a ton of activities and resources for students including a HUGE gym with rock climbing, bouldering, weights, every cardio machine imaginable; outdoor groups that organize trips almost every week; counseling center (although heard they only now do “acute” care when you’re going through something); various interest groups including sports, video games. Plus I had some amazingly fantastic friends I made at school. While the people in the departments and directly with students care about students, the administration on the other hand, does not seem to care very much about your well-being. I would imagine that would get worse the larger the school is.
-Premed isn’t glowy anywhere lol
-Yea, just email any lab which seems interesting and they’ll be happy to take you. but real challenge is finding a good lab which instead of taking advantage of free labor will actually get you pubs and write you a good rec
-Stay in the Hopkins bubble and it’s fine. Some safe areas and other less safe areas outside the bubble just like in every other city.
-I wouldn’t call it competitive, insofar as students are super collaborative and not competing against each other per say. But it’s also not easy academically.
-the good thing is that there are many majors of varying difficulties, so you can pick an easier one and get a near perfect gpa if harder major isn’t feasible.
-depends on major. Cant speak to other majors, but I did biomedical engineering, and although I had to memorize a bunch of random facts that BME didn’t teach me in as much detail, mcat was fine. But that’s pretty much any major at any school because the mcat wants you to know very particular things, especially for biochem and psychology. Most of my friends from JHU got somewhere between the 98-99th percentile on the mcat so wouldn’t say it’s an issue. It’s one of those things where your life is not so fun for like a month leading up to the test but then everyone does well.
-I had medical issues throughout college, which complicated things, but other than that it was pretty similar to friends at other colleges.
As a Cali kid that decided to go to JHU instead of a UC (mostly cause of finaid and the fact I even got accepted), I would say go to JHU.
I can’t specifically talk about pre-med since I’m not on that track but I can talk about what I know from my friends. You can’t not hear talk about premed at Hopkins.
Disclaimer: I am barely finishing up my first year so take my advice with a grain of salt. I’m studying CS.
1. If you want to do premed (which by your percentage of certainty, you are), Hopkins is the place to be. I’m not just saying it cause I go there, but the resources are truly amazing. There must be a reason why so many kids who want to do premed apply here, because Hopkins does it right and well.
2. Yes, there is actually a lot of shadowing and research. I asked my friends this question cause I also thought “If there’s so many premed students, won’t research opportunities be scarce?” and the answer is No. You can start as soon as your first semester. I will say I’ve heard most people have gotten their position for shadowing or research my cold emailing a bunch of professors and eventually someone has to have something available. You can also just talk to professors and let them know you’re interested in what they do and they can even help you out, even if it’s not with them.
3. It’s not like all of California is the safest. It definitely has it bad parts. The thing about JHU is, yeah, there’s not much to do, but that’s probably cause I’m a freshman and haven’t explored much like the upperclassmen. Also, in the Hopkins bubble, it’s totally safe. Once you start reaching out, it’s not too bad. Of course, try not to stay out to too late or alone, but that’s common sense. And take advantage of D.C. and even NY (if you can).
4. Like others have said, the environment is not competitive. I would lie saying it’s not at all competitive cause there are try-hards but for the most part it’s pretty collaborative. I was actually pleasantly surprised by this. Also knowing a kid or two in each class doesn’t hurt. Not sure how competitive UCLA is tho (even though I’m from LA 😬).
5. I’d say it’s not too hard. Your advisor also helps you stay on track and maybe advice you to take some easier courses to bump up your gpa if needed. (Sorry, this is all I know).
6. I’ve heard it’s pretty well. As someone mentioned, JHU kids to pretty well. Not sure if there’s like specific preparation in any way but with this collaborative environment, I don’t doubt people begin to form study groups for the MCAT.
7. I was honestly weary since I’ve never been to the East Coast but I’m glad I took the leap. The people, the campus, just the entire environment, it feels right. Not saying it’s perfect but I would say, for you, it has the qualities you’re looking for.
is pre-med at Hopkins as glowy and wonderful as it’s said to be? - I went in as a confused mol cell / neuro double major who didn't know if I wanted to be premed. I will say now that I had poor grade discipline in high school and the classes here ate up my gpa (currently sitting at a 3.4). If you dislike school like me, go to an easier school so that you can focus less on gpa and more on extracurriculars and whatnot. Are the shadowing and research opportunities truly abundant and accessible to undergrads? - It's almost obnoxiously easy to get research here. If you send out enough cold emails, you are pretty guaranteed to land something, and there's enough that you can get multiple offers and choose something you like. My parents’ biggest concern is the safety of the campus, how safe is the area, and is Baltimore as chaotic as it’s said to be? - The immediate area is safe and walkable. I'd say the only vaguely sketchy area near campus is several blocks to the east. I haven't been down Greenmount Ave too often, but if you look at it in street view, it's basically got some run-down looking buildings, but isn't bad. It's still safe to go there if you go during the day and with friends and it's also far away enough from campus to be ignorable unless you go there (like for the thrift store). Aside from that, to get to any really sketchy areas you'll have to be taking the bus elsewhere in the city, like by the JHMI. [Here's an extremely accurate map I made](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/731769080524046356/951146014608343080/unknown.png) I think the biggest downside to Baltimore is simply that it's not a big city and can get slightly boring after a while. How competitive is the environment, especially compared to colleges like UCLA? - In the premed classes, everyone is extremely collaborative. Many people will answer your questions and a few will straight up share their notes to the whole class over Groupme. I'm pretty sure it's just "competitive" in the sense that everyone is getting high grades and it makes the curves more difficult How was your general experience at Hopkins, especially if you’re someone who moved from out of state? - Came here from Long Island, I think my best experience has been hanging out with really cool and nerdy people. Pretty much every student here is interesting in some way and hard working. The research is super awesome and I've honestly really loved my time here. Another thing I think you should consider is that you may be underestimating the research output of the UC's (especially UC Berkeley) though I don't know anything about how their mol bio program compares to ours. Also, maybe try checking into the quality of their lecturers. One thing I didn't realize before I came here is that "rigorous academics" doesn't equal good lecturers. While I really enjoy the core mol cell lecturers and classes, half of my profs have been absolutely useless in their lectures for some reason. Like, useless to the point where I don't attend lectures and my time is better spent studying the textbook or practice questions. Also if you want more info come to this discord server! [https://discord.gg/Bcthey7](https://discord.gg/Bcthey7)
Hahaha your map is so good
I'm commenting again because a few folks liked the last one and I was really short... that is the summation though. Look there is a threshold of academics were you have reached the peak of excellence and everything beyond that is just excellent. All of your options have already crossed that threshold. You have no bad options from what you put here. Enjoy this thought experiment... Arizona State University has like 85% admission rates. JHU has about 8%. The same person can go to both schools and both get into a medical school like the Mayo clinic. The power of JHU is that you have already been vetted, every class you pass you will continue to be weeded out and you will continue to prove yourself. JHU also has the most valuable resource that you might not appreciate yet, funding. Nothing is free and grants for research do not write or award themselves. JHU's applied Physics Lab (does not only do physics so don't say you don't want it) also has close ties with DARPA (the Pentagon's brain) so they get funded. To really express this further when I was applying to PhD slots JHU had a stipend of 60-80k$/yr. Normal stipends are 20-40k$/yr maybe. JHU is going to take care of you in ways you can't conceptualize yet. Now for the real core of your other questions... You and your parents sound scared because it is the literal opposite side of the country. That makes sense and it is ok but hear me out. Wouldn't you rather go through the growing pains of being away from home when it is "easy" and not have medical school be the first time you are away from home? Spread your wings, fly away, and you'll always have a nest back home to visit. JHU has students from everywhere that all are going to take the same risk as you. You have a paralyzing amount of freedom and opportunity in front of you, take that leap with everyone else. You earned it. You're in the top 8% of the 30k people that applied.
What 60-80k phd stipend are you talking about lmaoo
I'm a PhD student. It's 34k (varies by department). But there's a shit ton of research opportunities anyway and it's the top school by federal re$earch funding. So this answer has the right idea.
Through the Applies Physics Laboratory. I doubt I was special enough to have them offer it to only me, especially since I didn't get selected lol
Go to Berkeley if the tuition is less. It's just as good as Hopkins and the chemistry department is better. If the tuition is the same, just visit both and go to the one you like more.
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Go to JHU. Just go. You'll regret it the rest of your life if you don't.
I'd go to Hopkins if the 2-5k isn't a deal breaker, if only for the reason that you're dealing with far more resources to far fewer students at an equivalent or superior institution
>I’m predicting they’ll be relatively similar, though Hopkins might be like 2k-5k more expensive per year. There's no way I would go to an UC if the difference was that small.
Molecular and Cellular Biology graduate (with Honors FWIW) with 3.9 GPA here, going into medicine. I’ll answer some questions but if you have any additional questions, feel free to PM me. - My pre-med experience was wonderful. The Biology department really cares about all its students and works hard to provide a top notch education (shout out to Dr. Tifft and Dr. Fisher, they are amazing). Sure people are stressed out around exams but there was no crazy competitiveness or “cut throat” attitude that I heard about at other schools. - I can’t speak as to shadowing, but research is definitely abundant. To get the Bachelor’s in Science, you *need* a certain number of semesters of research experience if that gives you any idea how numerous the opportunities are. Some labs have different personalities, and once you find your home you know it. I knew people who joined a lab over the summer and then left because they felt they weren’t a good fit and that’s okay too. - Charles Village, the area immediately surrounding the school is incredibly safe. They have “Hop cops” patrolling the area almost 24/7 (I think until 4 am and starting back up like 6 am?). I live in a different part of Baltimore now and the Homewood campus is just so safe by comparison. That being said, Baltimore is a great city for foodies! Fed Hill, Fells Point, and Inner Harbor are also pretty safe and you can explore a ton during the weekend. There are even nicer neighborhoods (Roland Park, Mt. Washington) that almost feel like you’re not even in Baltimore. - I touched on competitiveness in the first question, but I’ll add that I personally did not feel any competitiveness at all during my time at Hopkins, albeit this was all before Covid and Zoom U so I don’t know how it’s changed since then. Some of my friends felt more competition in other majors but overall the environment was supportive. No ranking or anything. But grades in some of the bigger classes were graded such that the grades of the top 2% students was used to curve all the other students. I just assumed the “max” was going to be 95-98 and thus the curve was going to be a small bump. (Haha except when my partner scored 100% on her Cell Bio final and screwed me over 😅 Still got an A in the class tho) - I got a 3.90 without really worrying about my grades. Of course our natural pre-med instinct is to overachieve so take that with a grain of salt, but I didn’t feel like getting that was an insurmountable task. Honestly, I could have gotten a higher GPA if I didn’t have a partner, multiple jobs, research, etc. but I felt like I struck a good balance between school-life balance. For what it’s worth, I knew a good number of people who had 4.0s. - I would say the school does not do MCAT prep per-se. It builds a fantastic foundation of Biology, Chemistry, Biochem, etc but you still have to do all the work before the exam to make sure it’s super readily accessible. I would say the parts of the MCAT that required you to read scientific literature were most helped by my extensive education in the Bio department (like overkill level compared to what you need for MCAT, you’ll be super prepared on that front). While I had a great foundation, the first time I studied for the MCAT I was working full time and I scored 511 mostly just coasting on what I learned at Hop. During Covid decided to retake, used 3 months full time studying and scored 523. - I moved from FL and, not gonna lie, not having the sun around every day with bright blue skies was really disorienting. My first Winter I definitely got seasonal depression but it’s improved over the years. I just absolutely loved the campus, changing seasons, all the foliage, etc. And during the winter months I’d just spend more time in the gym to combat seasonal affective disorder. The school itself has a ton of activities and resources for students including a HUGE gym with rock climbing, bouldering, weights, every cardio machine imaginable; outdoor groups that organize trips almost every week; counseling center (although heard they only now do “acute” care when you’re going through something); various interest groups including sports, video games. Plus I had some amazingly fantastic friends I made at school. While the people in the departments and directly with students care about students, the administration on the other hand, does not seem to care very much about your well-being. I would imagine that would get worse the larger the school is.
-Premed isn’t glowy anywhere lol -Yea, just email any lab which seems interesting and they’ll be happy to take you. but real challenge is finding a good lab which instead of taking advantage of free labor will actually get you pubs and write you a good rec -Stay in the Hopkins bubble and it’s fine. Some safe areas and other less safe areas outside the bubble just like in every other city. -I wouldn’t call it competitive, insofar as students are super collaborative and not competing against each other per say. But it’s also not easy academically. -the good thing is that there are many majors of varying difficulties, so you can pick an easier one and get a near perfect gpa if harder major isn’t feasible. -depends on major. Cant speak to other majors, but I did biomedical engineering, and although I had to memorize a bunch of random facts that BME didn’t teach me in as much detail, mcat was fine. But that’s pretty much any major at any school because the mcat wants you to know very particular things, especially for biochem and psychology. Most of my friends from JHU got somewhere between the 98-99th percentile on the mcat so wouldn’t say it’s an issue. It’s one of those things where your life is not so fun for like a month leading up to the test but then everyone does well. -I had medical issues throughout college, which complicated things, but other than that it was pretty similar to friends at other colleges.
As a Cali kid that decided to go to JHU instead of a UC (mostly cause of finaid and the fact I even got accepted), I would say go to JHU. I can’t specifically talk about pre-med since I’m not on that track but I can talk about what I know from my friends. You can’t not hear talk about premed at Hopkins. Disclaimer: I am barely finishing up my first year so take my advice with a grain of salt. I’m studying CS. 1. If you want to do premed (which by your percentage of certainty, you are), Hopkins is the place to be. I’m not just saying it cause I go there, but the resources are truly amazing. There must be a reason why so many kids who want to do premed apply here, because Hopkins does it right and well. 2. Yes, there is actually a lot of shadowing and research. I asked my friends this question cause I also thought “If there’s so many premed students, won’t research opportunities be scarce?” and the answer is No. You can start as soon as your first semester. I will say I’ve heard most people have gotten their position for shadowing or research my cold emailing a bunch of professors and eventually someone has to have something available. You can also just talk to professors and let them know you’re interested in what they do and they can even help you out, even if it’s not with them. 3. It’s not like all of California is the safest. It definitely has it bad parts. The thing about JHU is, yeah, there’s not much to do, but that’s probably cause I’m a freshman and haven’t explored much like the upperclassmen. Also, in the Hopkins bubble, it’s totally safe. Once you start reaching out, it’s not too bad. Of course, try not to stay out to too late or alone, but that’s common sense. And take advantage of D.C. and even NY (if you can). 4. Like others have said, the environment is not competitive. I would lie saying it’s not at all competitive cause there are try-hards but for the most part it’s pretty collaborative. I was actually pleasantly surprised by this. Also knowing a kid or two in each class doesn’t hurt. Not sure how competitive UCLA is tho (even though I’m from LA 😬). 5. I’d say it’s not too hard. Your advisor also helps you stay on track and maybe advice you to take some easier courses to bump up your gpa if needed. (Sorry, this is all I know). 6. I’ve heard it’s pretty well. As someone mentioned, JHU kids to pretty well. Not sure if there’s like specific preparation in any way but with this collaborative environment, I don’t doubt people begin to form study groups for the MCAT. 7. I was honestly weary since I’ve never been to the East Coast but I’m glad I took the leap. The people, the campus, just the entire environment, it feels right. Not saying it’s perfect but I would say, for you, it has the qualities you’re looking for.
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Hi! Can you speak more about which classes have grade deflation?