Class of 2014: Freshman Blog

For the next few weeks, the Hopkins Interactive bloggers will be writing on a common theme: our college search and application processes. We know just what you’re going through right now, having gone through it ourselves not too long ago. We hope that by sharing our experiences with you, you’ll be better equipped to handle this stressful, important and exciting time in your life.

My college search began in the ninth grade when I took the PSAT for the first time. Despite the forewarnings of my sophomore friends, I checked the box indicating that I wanted the College Board to release my information, allowing any and all interested colleges to contact me. Shortly thereafter, I was buried underneath a veritable mountain of college mailings.

At first, I was excited. These institutions of higher learning wanted me! But then I realized that I was going to have to figure out what exactly it was I wanted if I was even going to be able begin to figure out which of them was right for me. So I began to think, and I made lists. I made lots of lists. From then until the second semester of my Junior year, I made a new “Top Ten” list at least once a month. I may have dipped briefly into the realm of obsession, but I was only trying to make the most important decision I had ever had to make!

There is a part of this story that I’ve got to tell for perspective’s sake. I started playing soccer in my sophomore year of high school because it wasn’t basketball. I had played basketball my entire life, I had come from a basketball family, and I had had enough. Before long, it occurred to me that I wasn’t half-bad! I spent my junior year trying to get the attention of the coaches from the colleges on my top ten list, as well as those from a multitude of others for safety’s sake.

Despite my desire to play college soccer, my list was never affected based on that alone. My position was that if I were to accept a spot on a team (should I have been offered one), it had better be at the number one school on my list. The problem was, I had no idea which school was going to end up on top.

By the summer before my Senior year, I had narrowed down my list to a “Super Six”.

Among these lucky finalists was, of course, the Johns Hopkins University, as well as schools to-be-left-unnamed in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts and New York. Here’s the thing, none of these schools were remotely similar! From mission to pedagogy to size to environment, they shared very little. Even after all that research and reflection, the only things that one could have derived about my interests were that I wanted to live on the East Coast and that I wanted to attend a university with absolutely excellent academics. But I mean, really, who doesn’t?

By now, I had done the research, I had read the material, I had reviewed and critiqued all the best Biology and Neuroscience programs (in essay form, no less), and I had very nearly memorized all of the admissions websites. But I hadn’t yet been able to do one, very important thing. It was time to visit some schools.

That summer I visited my Super Six, as well as many others, and was saved (truly) from my indecision. On my visits, it was immediately clear to me what I did and did not want. (A note: My first visit was to Hopkins, and it was on that trip that I fell in love with Homewood. I gave it the place at the very top of the list, even before I had anything to compare it to, and my confidence never wavered once.)

I found that I needed to be in a city. I knew that if I were really happy with my campus, I would rarely have much cause to leave it outside of special occasions. But I also knew that this life-long city boy would go crazy without easy access to a major metropolitan center. Baltimore fit the bill perfectly.

I found that I didn’t want to be suffocated by an officious and overbearing core curriculum. The concept that great universities have the institutional foresight and higher wisdom to prescribe best knowledge is, in modernity, functionally obsolete. It stems from the age (on the order of two centuries back and further) when a broad, liberal arts curriculum could very nearly canvas the entirety of human knowledge. That is no longer true. All I wanted from my university was the guidance to help me determine exactly what it was that I wanted to pursue, and the resources to pursue it fervently and unconditionally. I do believe, however, that the loosely interpreted point of breadth in an education is a valid one, so long as I am able to choose the manner in which I achieve it. There is no core curriculum at Hopkins. Certain prerequisite classes are required for certain majors, but even in that respect there is a huge amount of freedom. For breadth’s sake, JHU instituted the Distribution Requirements, 30 credits taken in academic areas different than that of your major. And the beauty is that if your desire is to pursue a traditional liberal arts curriculum, you are more than welcome to do so. Freedom, how sweet the sound…

Additionally, what I wanted desperately was the ability to get involved with important research early on in my undergraduate career. I was tired of textbook academia, I wanted to get my hands dirty and do some real science. At Hopkins, there are students who say, “Put us in a lab, teach us what to do, and let us loose. Stockholm, here we come.” This attitude is encouraged and fostered.

Most of all, I wanted to be part of a vibrant, electric, and lively academic community. I was told about the quality of the minds on this campus, and I was not disappointed when I arrived. Homewood is, through day and night, abuzz with the informal exchange of big ideas, marked by their profundity and great insight. These are great minds, congregated in a secular sanctuary of academic excellence. If you get to be a part of our community, you’ll be shocked at how quickly your understanding of highly complex concepts will develop. You may have never thought yourself a paragon of erudition. But when your peers expect it of you and, by their expectation and companionship, help you achieve it, you’ll find that the barriers between you and your starry-eyed aspirations will fall away at your lightest touch.

At Homewood I found everything that I wanted. I went ahead and visited all those other unnamed universities; none measured up. I’d say the rest of the trip was a waste of time, but hindsight’s 20/20, and there’s no way I could have known then that they weren’t all just as perfect as Hopkins. They’re not, by the way. But don’t let me discourage you from discovering this on your own. Make the trips, take the tours, do all the research…see for yourself.

But back to the story…I had returned from from my epic, month-long college-visit/soccer-recruiting adventure and had decided that I was going to be applying Early Decision to Hopkins, no matter what. There I was, sitting in Whataburger (the greatest fast-food ever), when I received what may have been the second best email of my life. It was from Coach Appleby offering me a spot on the team at Hopkins, pending my success in admission. The following phone conversation was along the lines of, “if you get in, we’d like you to play for us.”

In mid-December of my Senior year, I received what remains the best email of my entire life.

It began “Congratulations…”