Johns Hopkins is hard. It is not your typical undergraduate experience. The focus of the school is on graduate studies, at the expense of providing a more typical undergrad experience. Some people love it, some people hate it. As a pre-med, you’ll be in good company – 1/3 of my class started as pre-med. Unfortunately, pre-med classes are large, impersonal, and potentially demoralizing. There are exceptions to this, and people who are brilliant and research oriented can do very well there. I’m neither or these things. I majored in biology, but wasn’t a pre-med. It seemed like too much pressure to me. Many people gave up on med school. I like to joke that the only reason I’m in medical school now is because I wasn’t pre-med at Hopkins. Oh, and for the record, no one sabotaged my organic chemistry lab work. That was done completely by myself.

On the other hand, I met amazing people there – including my husband. Baltimore grew on me to the point where I miss it now. You have a vast array of resources available to you if you know how to use them. Lacrosse is a fun sport to watch. The Hopkins name has definitely opened up doors for me in terms of getting jobs, and eventually getting into medical school – though, I do have to wonder if my GPA would’ve been higher at a different school. And, I have to add a disclaimer – some of my experiences happened a decade ago. I hear that the administration has made some changes to make it a more accommodating school for undergrads, but I’ve also heard from more recent students that this really hasn’t happened as much as advertised. I really don’t know.

So, no regrets, but if I had to do it over again, I’d probably go to a small liberal arts school – it’s personally more my style.

I didn’t have this option, but visit schools if you can. Deciding where to go to college is not easy, and a lot of it is based on gut instinct. Try to make it out to Baltimore if you can! I think there’s a way to write private messages on this; I’m happy to answer any other questions you have. Good luck!

good luck!