Choice between UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins

[Anonymous]

My DS is having a difficult in committing between UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. He is accepted to EECS major in UCB and general engineering in JHU. He is set on pursuing a CS career. More interest in going to big techs and promising start ups than academia. We visited both and both are acceptable with usual pros and cons. The difficult for him is to know how it is like to study in these schools. He likes to have a collaborative exploration with smart and focused students. He does not mind challenging courses and projects but would like to close working relationships with other students not just pure competition. For UCB, he is concerned that there would be too fierce competition, and the environment is just sink or swim because of the class size. For JHU, the concern is that there would be not many dedicated CS major students, and most are from former pre-med students.

We are looking through various forums and have some general ideas, but it will be great to hear perspectives from parents of students in these two schools to know which one might be a better fit for my DS. The advice we got from adults in STEM areas are almost entirely go to UCB because of the location and strong reputation. However, his friends mostly like JHU much more. It seems like that the cold practical calculation is UCB for sure but qualitative quality of life may be better with JHU. We are really conflicted and welcome any advices.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids at JHU both engineering majors. They have been absolutely loving their time there. Made a lot of friends in their dorm and have study groups for every class The kids seem to be very collaborative and truly want to see each other succeed. My current junior was saying how kids are still sending out internship and research opportunities in order to help their classmates find something. They also really enjoy Baltimore. Easy to get to O's games and there are some fun neighborhoods with bars and restaurants.

[Anonymous]

If your kid really wants to work in tech, it’s hard to not pick UCB.

Don’t underestimate the advantage of being physically in the epicenter of tech and the ability to get internships during the school year.

Seems like the distance (I assume you are on the East Coast) and other factors are probably coming into play. Why are your sons’ friends so pro JHU?

[Anonymous]

OP here, he is attending a private high school and most of his friends prefer private schools because it seems comfortable for them. Also, it does not hurt that many have applied to JHU and he is the only one who got in.

[Anonymous]

We went on a tour at JHU. I liked it. Seemed very well resourced.

I asked our tour guide who was an engineering major in her second year about career services, what sorts of summer job opportunities she and her friends were exploring, etc.

She looked kind of confused and was like, "I'm just a sophomore so I'm not really thinking about that yet. I have heard some of my friends who are doubling in Econ are applying for jobs."

I thought it was odd. I went to a SLAC and I was applying for internship both freshman and sophomore year.

It seemed very academia focused. It was almost like she was so focused on research, she looked down on non research jobs?

I don't know. Of course that was just one person.

But I thought it was a great campus.

[Anonymous]

Normally I'd say Hopkins without question but Berkeley's proximity to tech is a huge point in its favor, if that's what your kid really wants.

[Anonymous]

Hopkins

[Anonymous]

Tech=UCB

I hear your point about DS’ friends wanting him to go because he was the one who got in out of so many of them but he can’t feel pressured to live out their Hopkins dreams for them.

[Anonymous]

UCB x a million. I work in tech with lots of startups and big tech and UCB beats JHU across the board. I frankly haven’t even met a JHU grad in tech or heard it mentioned by professional recruiters so I’d really question the network plus DC is not a tech town at all vs Bay Area or even New York. It’s not an East coast issue - Princeton is way more represented than JHU for example.

[Anonymous]

UCB hands down unless you have concerns about whether he can handle very large school with tons of really smart public kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS is having a difficult in committing between UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. He is accepted to EECS major in UCB and general engineering in JHU. He is set on pursuing a CS career. More interest in going to big techs and promising start ups than academia. We visited both and both are acceptable with usual pros and cons. The difficult for him is to know how it is like to study in these schools. He likes to have a collaborative exploration with smart and focused students. He does not mind challenging courses and projects but would like to close working relationships with other students not just pure competition. For UCB, he is concerned that there would be too fierce competition, and the environment is just sink or swim because of the class size. For JHU, the concern is that there would be not many dedicated CS major students, and most are from former pre-med students.

We are looking through various forums and have some general ideas, but it will be great to hear perspectives from parents of students in these two schools to know which one might be a better fit for my DS. The advice we got from adults in STEM areas are almost entirely go to UCB because of the location and strong reputation. However, his friends mostly like JHU much more. It seems like that the cold practical calculation is UCB for sure but qualitative quality of life may be better with JHU. We are really conflicted and welcome any advices.

Congrats on the acceptances. UCB CS is an especially tough admit. Your analysis looks pretty much spot on. I would normally say JHU vs UCB for virtually anything but CS is different.

You are correct about the environment at UCB. It will be highly competitive, the courses will be huge and grading will be very hard because it is curved.

Intro to CS will have 12oo kids, be taught in a ballroom and your kid will be encouraged to not attend but rather watch it streamed online. Classes will be huge for at least the first two years and almost always large. But your son will be in the heart of it all with some of the smartest CS kids anywhere. If he is up to the challenge of the environment UCB is probably the better choice.

In my group at a FAANG I have UCB, CIT, MIT, Waterloo. But I also have UCSC, NC State, UCF, Missouri S&T, RIT, and several SJSU. Your kid can make it from everywhere but being in the heart of it all really helps.

YOu would neve hear it on DCUM but SJSU (and Santa Clara) are the ultimate sleeper schools for CS. You can go any where and get any internship with some networking because of their numbers in the valley.

[Anonymous]

Your child will have a Mich better resourced experience at Hopkins for basically the same cost. I’d go with Hopkins.

[Anonymous]

If there’s one thing I underestimated with college it’s the extent to which proximity and geography matter. If he wants to work in tech there is no question Cal is better. Baltimore is a city where JHU is basically the largest employer—beyond that, not a lot of exciting tech options. Would Hopkins be a better undergrad experience? Maybe. Will his job options be better out of cal? I think 100%. I went to JHU for grad school fwiw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS is having a difficult in committing between UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. He is accepted to EECS major in UCB and general engineering in JHU. He is set on pursuing a CS career. More interest in going to big techs and promising start ups than academia. We visited both and both are acceptable with usual pros and cons. The difficult for him is to know how it is like to study in these schools. He likes to have a collaborative exploration with smart and focused students. He does not mind challenging courses and projects but would like to close working relationships with other students not just pure competition. For UCB, he is concerned that there would be too fierce competition, and the environment is just sink or swim because of the class size. For JHU, the concern is that there would be not many dedicated CS major students, and most are from former pre-med students.

We are looking through various forums and have some general ideas, but it will be great to hear perspectives from parents of students in these two schools to know which one might be a better fit for my DS. The advice we got from adults in STEM areas are almost entirely go to UCB because of the location and strong reputation. However, his friends mostly like JHU much more. It seems like that the cold practical calculation is UCB for sure but qualitative quality of life may be better with JHU. We are really conflicted and welcome any advices.

Congrats on the acceptances. UCB CS is an especially tough admit. Your analysis looks pretty much spot on. I would normally say JHU vs UCB for virtually anything but CS is different.

You are correct about the environment at UCB. It will be highly competitive, the courses will be huge and grading will be very hard because it is curved.

Intro to CS will have 12oo kids, be taught in a ballroom and your kid will be encouraged to not attend but rather watch it streamed online. Classes will be huge for at least the first two years and almost always large. But your son will be in the heart of it all with some of the smartest CS kids anywhere. If he is up to the challenge of the environment UCB is probably the better choice.

In my group at a FAANG I have UCB, CIT, MIT, Waterloo. But I also have UCSC, NC State, UCF, Missouri S&T, RIT, and several SJSU. Your kid can make it from everywhere but being in the heart of it all really helps.

YOu would neve hear it on DCUM but SJSU (and Santa Clara) are the ultimate sleeper schools for CS. You can go any where and get any internship with some networking because of their numbers in the valley.

OP here, Thank you for your explanation. Since I never attended a private school, it is difficult to know how much better the college experience will be. So far, the personal attention JHU is giving to my son is a lot and jokingly, he told me that definitely, JHU has the money. Regarding the tech placement, I assume that attending JHU will not prevent him getting a job at big tech companies. How much advantage UCB will have is the critical question. For my field of science, nobody cares about undergrad schools and I rarely met people from top private or public schools. But most prominent people are from top graduate schools. I understand the tech industry does not require a graduate degree but I also heard that it is very meritocratic. Will this mean that the importance of the school name may not mean much compared to individual abilities?

[Anonymous]

Berkeley for career. The power of its CS brand and proximity to Silicon Valley cannot be overstated. See other comments on the power of geographic proximity.

JH for general intellectual development. The day-to-day reality is Berkeley is a big school and a bit of a diploma factory.