Hi, Hopkins Forums visitor!

My name is Alexa, and I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Bethlehem, PA, a town known for producing steel, beeswax candles, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Judging by the fact that you’re currently reading this post on the forums of a college admissions website, I’m going to assume that you’re very much like I was in high school: a diligent planner. Yes, I loved planning ahead and knowing exactly which classes I would be taking, especially if it meant that I would get to keep track of everything in an excel spreadsheet. However, once high school was over and other students were announcing their prospective majors, I had to confess that I was, for the first time ever, undecided, and I’ll admit - I enjoyed it! I spent my freshmen year exploring different areas of study and finding a major that suits my interests, settling on Cognitive Science with a minor in Classics in the spring. You can read a blog about how I chose my major here.

Why Hopkins?
Johns Hopkins was the first ever college that I visited, and I loved pretty much everything about it: the beautiful campus, the lack of core curriculum, the world-class professors, and all of the amazing opportunities both on-campus and off. I visited many schools after Hopkins, but in the end, my first college visit just set the bar too high for any of the other schools to compete, and I applied to Hopkins early decision.

My Classes
Summer 2013
Introductory Organic Chemistry I & II

Spring 2013
Introductory Chemistry II
Intro Chemistry Lab II
The World of Pompeii
Foundations of the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition
The Archaeology of Death, Burial, and the Human Skeleton
Invitation to Anthropology

Intersession 2013
Do We Know What We Think We Know?

Fall 2012
Introductory Chemistry I
Intro Chemistry Lab
Molecular Biology of Aging
Expository Writing: Hitchcock
Freshman Seminar
Human Origins

AP Credits
Biology
Calculus I
Statistics

Extracurriculars
Student Admissions Advisory Board (SAAB)- SAAB is responsible for operating the Hopkins Interactive series of websites, blogs, and this forum. We also work on other admissions-related projects, including upcoming Open House events that any prospective students should definitely attend! I knew, even as a prospective student that if I had the chance to attend JHU, I definitely wanted to work with SAAB - the student and admissions blogs helped me know for sure that Hopkins was the school for me.

Relay for Life - I had a great time participating in my local Relay for Life event, and am excited to continue while at Hopkins! Since the year has just started, I don’t have a lot of  JHU Relay experience just yet, but this post by Junior (and my fellow Marketing Committee member/ person named Alexa!) Alexa M. does a great job of explaining Relay at Hopkins. Interested students should also check out the Relay for Life at JHU website here!

Alpha Phi Sorority - I went through formal recruitment at the beginning of the spring semester and was thrilled to accept an invitation to join the Alpha Phi sorority Zeta Omicron chapter!

Dorm Life
I live in a double in AMR I Willard House. Despite my initial concerns about the lack of air conditioning, I chose the AMRs as my first choice for housing, and am really glad that I did! I love having the traditional dorm experience and have a great time with my floormates. I also had a lot of fun decorating my room! You can see my freshman-year home here!

More from JHU_Alexa
Read my posts on the Class of 2016 Blog here!
Ask me questions here!
Follow me on Twitter!

Hi Sam! Thank you for your question!

One of the great things about applying to Hopkins is that you don't have to apply into a specific major (with the exception of Biomedical Engineering). When you apply, you are asked to list one or two majors that you're considering or that interest you, but you are in no way limited to these choices when you come here as a student! Because you don't apply to a specific major (again, with the exception of Biomedical Engineering), neither the majors that you list nor selecting "undecided" affects your admission in any way - for example, selecting International Relations, Biology, or Undecided will neither help nor hurt your admission decision.

As I mentioned, the one exception to this is the Biomedical Engineering major, which is the only major that accepts a limited number of applicants. If you do decide that you're interested in BME (which you can read more about HERE), you are required to list it as your first choice major, and must be admitted into Johns Hopkins AND the BME major. However, even students that are accepted into Hopkins but denied BME are still given the opportunity to study here under a different major of their choosing.

As someone that's undecided, I'd definitely recommend reading about some of our majors and minors on the Hopkins Academics blog HERE - it's a great resource and provides insight into a lot of really cool areas of study!

Human Origins is definitely one of my favorite classes! I've always been extremely interested in biological anthropology (I'm thinking about pursuing a career in pathology!), and I'm excited to be taking this class right away - it's definitely an interest that I'll be taking into consideration when I'm deciding on a major. So far, we've covered basic cell biology, genetics, and evolution, and are currently studying the structure, behavior and evolution of non-human primates. It's so interesting to study the similarities between these different primates and the human species!

I hope my answer helped - if you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

Hi Young! I'm glad to hear Hopkins is your dream school - it was mine too!

I took as many AP classes as I could fit into my high school schedule:
AP Calc AB
AP US History
AP Chemistry
AP Psychology
AP Statistics
AP Comparative Gov & Politics
AP English Lang
AP Macro
AP Biology
AP Environmental Science

Basically, Hopkins admissions wants to see that you challenged yourself with the most rigorous schedule possible while also maintaining involvement in other activities. However, don't just join things for the sake of joining! Is there something that you're passionate about? Performing arts? Writing? Research? Find something that you love and join activities based on that.

I've always been interested in science, so I was involved with my Science Olympiad team for 6 years, tutored, and taught children's classes at the local community college during the summer. I'm hoping to get involved with coaching local science Olympiad teams here at Hopkins! I was also involved with my high school's National Honor Society and wrote for the school paper.

You're still a freshman, which is great because it means you still have plenty of time to get involved with your school and community. It might be through one of these activities that you find an area you really want to study in college!

Also Alexa,
I have a huge passion for speaking languages. I was born in Germany and I came to the US in the middle of 5th grade. I'm fluent in German, Korean, and English! I am part of my German club as well! And I am constantly trying to be more involved in it.
This summer, I will be going on a Missions Trip to Mexico, - to spread the word of God & Jesus, and help out by volunteering. By the way, I'm involved with my Church's Praise team, where I sing. We sing every Sunday at worship and usually meet every Saturday.
I am part of my Key Club as well. I ran for Vice President and Treasurer this year, but sadly I did not get any of the positions. I am definitely going to be part of key club for the entire duration of my high school years.
I LOVE SCIENCE TOO! I am actually taking AP Biology next year! There isn't a high school science team at my high school. If they had one, I would most likely have joined.
I am also part of my school's band. And I played the clarinet starting from 5th grade.
Another activity I am looking forward to this summer or the coming summers is volunteering at my local hospital or hospice!

I am a really bad athlete. I always have been. But I do believe that a student doesn't have to excel at a sport if they can find other activities that actually are interesting to them.

Grade wise, as of now I'm sure that I won't become valedictorian of my class. There are about 2 of my fellow peers who are taking Pre Calc/AP stats. These are the moments when I regret not being notified back when I came up to middle school about advanced math classes. How do colleges view that? Also, considering I'm doubling up on math next year, so Honors Geometry AND Honors Algebra 2. At my school, valedictorians are based on class rank only.

This might be an ignorant question to ask you, but have you gotten any B's or C's before on your high school report card? Have you gotten B's Or C's on quizzes and tests? I read your blog and was very impressed by your life. I think it was mainly because we have so many similarities.

I'm on a pre-med path as well. There, another similarity!
You don't have to answer this, but just in case, what were your ACT and SAT scores/did you take any subject tests?

Young

Hi Young!

Thanks for asking me questions – that’s what I’m here for!

I was not involved with student government as it really wasn’t much of an entity at my high school (our National Honor Society took over most of those duties I think!). However, that was just my experience, and if student government interests you, you should definitely pursue it!

It definitely sounds like you have an interest in language! You might like to know that we have a German club at Hopkins as well - my roommate is a part of it. As a part of the Cognitive Science major, we choose two areas of the discipline to specialize in, and I’m thinking of pursuing linguistics, which sounds like something you might be interested in too!

You seem like you have a diverse range of activities. Hospital experience is definitely a great opportunity, especially if you’re interested in following a pre-medical track. I wasn’t much of an athlete either (gym was actually one of my hardest classes, oops), but remember that you don’t have to be a varsity athlete and school president and the leader of 10 different clubs – we just want to see that you’re passionate and dedicated to your interests outside of the classroom.

As far as grades and classes, try not to stress too much – it’s still your freshman year! It’s easy to get caught up in the stress of wanting perfect grades and test scores and being valedictorian (and I can definitely relate), but you still have three more years of high school, and a lot of things can change! Hopkins looks for academically strong students, so GPA and test scores are definitely very important, but don’t let it stress you out too much because it's not the only thing that matters!

At Hopkins, we use a holistic application review method, so we look at grades, scores, activities, recommendations, essays, and many other things. Because of this, knowing my GPA or test scores really won’t help much since such things vary so much from high school to high school, and there’s no numerical formula for the “ideal” Hopkins student. Having a strong GPA and test score is important, but we don’t expect you to be perfect in every aspect of your application - We want you to have time to enjoy high school, too! Hopkins isn’t just full of students who never got anything but A+s in high school; it’s full of students who are truly interested in what they study and who have demonstrated that both inside and outside of the classroom . . . and, in my opinion, that makes us a much more interesting group of people! :)
 
As far as SAT subject tests, Hopkins recommends but does not require them, which means that the scores will be considered if submitted. I took Math II, Chemistry, and Literature.

My all time favorite book is a bit strange; it’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. I first read it in 7th grade and it was one of the reasons I thought about studying medicine! Last summer I read and enjoyed Into Thin Air and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and the freshman read for JHU which was The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman!

I’m glad I can be of help, especially to someone with similar interests - If you have any more questions, feel free to ask or comment on my blog! Good luck with AP Bio – it’s a lot of material but for someone interested in science, it was probably my favorite AP class!

-Alexa

Hey Alexa,

Do you think JHU (and other colleges) are going to see that I'm the only person in my grade to go on to a language level 4? Meaning, all my other fellow peers will be taking either Spanish, German, French, or Chinese Level 3, whereas I'll be taking German 4 in my 10th grade year? (Junior year- AP german)

Thank you for answering my questions! Just out of curiosity, how many colleges did you apply to? Were they all "big name" or "prestigious" colleges?

Hi Alexa! I don't know if you are still on Hopkins Forums, but here is a question.
Did your high school offer BC Calculus? If so, did you take it?

Thanks for the info!
I'm going to be a sophomore next year and I was wondering what classes you took during your sophomore year in high school. As I mentioned before, I will be taking my first AP class next year as well. The class is AP Bio! This year I took Honors Biology which is the prerequisite for AP Bio. Along with Honors Biology, the prerequisite for AP Bio also includes Honors Chemistry. Although I have not taken Honors Chemistry, my current Honors Biology teacher recommended me to take AP Bio next year, without the additional Chemistry class. Question: Did AP Bio require a lot of knowledge on chemistry?

I'm currently planning to take Honors Chemistry and Honors Physics in my junior year and take AP Chem and AP Physics C in my senior year. Question: Did you "double up" (meaning that you took two science courses in a year) on your sciences?

Also, were you always the #1 student when it came to class rank? Or were there times when you ranked lower?

Did you take both the Act and the SAT? If so, please give me some tips and suggestions.

Thanks! :)

Hi Young! I definitely found that, regardless of the amount of studying that I did in the week leading up to the AP exam, I did best on the exams for classes that I kept up with throughout the semester. My advice for AP Bio would be to make sure you understand the material as you learn it - this means that right before the test, you won't have to focus on learning new material and instead you'll just need to review material that you already know! Make sure to take practice tests and see which areas have been emphasized in the past - it's very likely that these will come up again! Practice tests will also get you accustomed to the testing environment and the format of the test itself. Learn strategies for answering multiple choice questions, and know how AP readers "score" essays!

Hi Alexa!
I read in your info box that you are Cognitive Science Major. What are the main/core classes for cognitive science? And what kind of carriers develop from this particular major?