Hi I am a new Hopkins parent.  My son was recently accepted via ED and is very excited.  He has been reading on the web trying to learn more about the school before fall starts.  He came across a web site called JHU Confessions the other day and he showed it to me.  I am shocked at what I see and read from that site.  It looks like Hopkins students are obessed with sex and parties, etc.  I am disgusted at the language that is used on the forum and the total disrespect that the students show towards women (the words that they used to describe the new sororities pledge class, some of the ongoing discussions about specific girl(s), etc are certainly not what we have taught our son.  It is an environment that we do not in any way want our son to be associated with.  My son is very upset and depreseed right now, as he doesn't want to be in the company of such a crowd and certainly don't want to be in a school where students are like that.  I know this may be a overly simplistic generalization of the Hopkins student population and want to seek some advice of current Hopkins parents and students.  Have you seen that site?  What are your thoughts?  Any insights will be greatly appreciated.

I totally agree with Mandy: It's a really really small majority of students.
I do occasionally visit the website and, although I do find some of the posts overly vulgar and offensive, I do find it entertaining in some degree, to be honest, because it IS totally ridiculous and I know that they are just rumors, nothing serious. And like Mandy said, a lot of them are a very strange kind of sarcasm. It is a very underground, dark website, but I think this is just a place where people can talk and joke about whatever they want behind the name of anonymity and no one has any right to ban such website unless someone actually gets hurt. I'm not a fan of this website, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's not that of a big deal. You really don't have to be worried about your son. There are tons of other people who are appropriate and respectful to others and such website is just for entertainment and stress relief from schoolwork for only a few. And if your son does not want to be involved in those kind of stuff in any way, he will certainly find his niche and hang with people he considers to be positive influence.

I must echo what Mandy and Greco have said. JHU Confessions is an absurd site that is not reflective of the way Hopkins students think. There is a very small number of people, who tend to go crazy when they have an anonymous forum and post whatever they want. Additionally there are many similar websites (just go to the front page of Collegeacb.com) for other colleges - it is not something unique to Hopkins. I believe there may have even been news stories written about some of these sites.

Truthfully, if a Hopkins student does not want anything to do with that type of language, the solution is as simple as not logging onto JHU Confessions. Your son will not have problems finding friends who share his view.

I hope the responses from the current students have answered your questions and alleviated your concerns. Personally, I find the site disgusting and I have heard similar reactions from most of the students I know. The site is not popular and most students when you bring up the topic just roll their eyes.

Rather than stating my disdain that such a site would exist and that a small handful of misguided students think that posting offensive language and remarks on an anonymous web site is humorous, I thought I would share a number of articles I found during a short Google search. The Time magazine article provides a good overview of how this issues has impacted many college campuses. The other articles are stories from a variety of other schools - this is not just a Hopkins trend.

Time Magazine article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1942971,00.html

Wesleyan
http://wesleyanargus.com/2009/02/17/freshm...legeacb-empire/

http://wesleyanargus.com/2009/02/17/it%E2%...-about-the-acb/

UVa
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2009/09/08/co...aises-concerns/

Tufts
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/popular-site-jui...ernet-1.1375337

Villanova
http://www.villanovan.com/collegeacb-threa...-boys-1.1123803

Cornell
http://blogs.kitschmag.com/watch/2009/02/0...nd-poshsociety/

Rollins College
http://media.www.thesandspur.org/media/sto...b-3866240.shtml

DePaul
http://media.www.depauliaonline.com/media/...n-3630358.shtml

To the concerned mom out there, I hope that the students posts so far have been helpful and somewhat reassuring. One of the reasons why I love Johns Hopkins is how diverse of a student body there is. On the Hopkins campus, I have a group of friends who I absolutely adore--we spend our days overly active, have way too much fun in the library, and are able to discuss serious topics. Before I went to college I had this thought that whatever college I went to would change who I was as a person, but I've realized more and more that at Hopkins I've still been able to hold onto my values and find a group that I relate to rather than have to adjust to make a group of friends. So my first point is to be reassured that your son will find a great group of mature friends out there.

Regarding JHU Confessions. Overall, it's a terrible website, I agree (although, like others have said sometimes the posts are more serious and other times are funny since they are not person or group-specific jokes). Nevertheless, it's a reflection of how powerful the freedom of speech is. Although, I read the site sometimes freshman year, I've realized that I have plenty of better things to do with my time and now don't even remember it's there. As other have said, a small minority of students read it and a much, much smaller minority actually write on it. It should not act as a representation of the student body as a whole, but unfortunately it only takes a few students to make a representation of a school.

I'm not saying that Johns Hopkins is perfect. But unfortunately when a large group of students come together there will be students with differing views of what funny is and differing views on what the point of college is and just overall different levels of maturity. For example, this past fall, Tucker Max--a comedian who writes a very female offensive blog--was financially supported by a student group to come speak at Hopkins. I was outraged by how there could be support for someone like this to speak at Hopkins. Over time though, a group of students came together to protest the event. And although it was not canceled, it brought attention to campus of the need to respect females. Surely, I lost respect for some of the students at Hopkins because of this, but at the same time, I was reassured by the outpouring of students who were in agreement that the event was offensive and I do know that it won't happen again.

No college, including Hopkins, can have a parent's picture-perfect student body, simply because of how group dynamics work. Additionally, every college has parties and theres no way to run away from a school that doesn't have parties, but yet it is definitely still possible to be a student at Hopkins who doesn't go parties. However, I still have tons of pride for Johns Hopkins and a love for the Hopkins student body that has grown the more time I've spent away from it.

I'm currently studying abroad in Switzerland right now and although I enjoy exploring a new area of the world and enjoy my classes, I constantly long for my friends back at Hopkins. Being on a study abroad program through another university and with a group of 50 students from all different schools, I've been able to realize how different and unique my college experience has been from other students and have become even more fortunate for Hopkins. Why? I've realized that Hopkins is more about academics than a lot of other schools and is a lot more accepting of each other. Additionally, the parties at Hopkins are a lot less frequent and out of hand as the parties I hear about from other students. This has just shown to be that the views expressed on JHU Confessions may actually be a smaller minority than similar views at other schools.

I hope you have found this somewhat reassuring and I know that you and your son will regain respect for Johns Hopkins after you see how many opportunities, knowledge, and friends the next four years will bring him. In the mean time, stay away from JHU Confessions, and instead read the JHU Gazette: http://gazette.jhu.edu/. Here you will read lots of great accomplishments that the staff and students of Johns Hopkins are making. If you find that biased, then check out the JHU Newsletter since it's from the students themselves: http://www.jhunewsletter.com/. And I don't know what major you're student is interested in but there are TONS of student publications put out from undergraduate research journals (HURJ, Epidemic Proportions, etc) to political newsletters (JHU Politik) that more adequately and accuretly express the great things Hopkins students are doing and the views Hopkins students have.

Thank you very much for everyone who took the time to respond to my post.  I feel better after reading all of your responses, but my son is still quite shaken.  I hope I didn't come across as a parent who is looking for a "parent-perfect" environment for my son where there is no sex, alchohol or parties.  Don't get me wrong, I know college is college, and there is no way around those temptations.  And part of what college is all about is for the students to learn and grow from these experience.  I never intend for my son to absolutely do not go to parties.  What concern me greatly, and what shook up my son, is the obsession that seems to be so apparent in those posts, the vulgar language that is used, and the total disrespect to women that these posters show.  With everything that we have heard and read about Hopkins, we expected better.  We expected a much more mature study body who is focused on learning and is passionate about the pursuit of knowledge.  We know there will always be "weirdos" in the world, but we thought with the holistic approach to admission, the likelihood of having students like those who post on that site would be minimized.  I am simply shocked at what I saw from that site.  For students to have the quality to get into Hopkins, we honestly expected better.

First, you are assuming that it is a lot of current Hopkins students who are posting on that site. In fact, it is a highly unpopular site that probably less than 5% of Hopkins student frequent, and even less probably post on the site.

Second, you are assuming that this is something that is only happening at Hopkins. Unfortunately these forums exist at every college in the country. Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale, and Brown have the same site. (I have checked out the Brown site since I am alum of the school and was disgusted.) Small liberal arts colleges and large party universities also have such a site at their schools too.

For some odd reason a percentage of this high school aged / college aged generation have grown up in a world that you can say anything you want on the Internet and be annonymous. I would say that 95% of the offensive posts on the site are posted by students who are just saying it because they are annonymous and find it funny. It is a sick type of humor, but visit any blogging / message board site on the internet and you will find the same thing happening. Check out comments to newspaper articles posted online at the NY Times and Washington Post and I know you will see similar behavior. The difference is that those companies monitor the feedback and delete the horrific posts -- this web site chooses not to because it then becomes more popular in the press (see my previous post.)

Finally, you assume that this is something the Admissions staff can prevent in the admission process. That is impossible because these horrific viewpoints are not attitudes these young people will share in public. They are doing it annonymously and to rile up other people because they want a reaction. Assuming that the racist, sexist, and horribly offensive attitudes is what defines Hopkins students is a mistake.

I'm sorry if any of this post bothers you, but it is the reality of the world we now live in with an un-checked Internet -- where the offensive language written on the bathroom walls have now become public.

Obviously, most of the other SAABers have made the vast majority of comments concerning the validity of this website; but, I wanted to echo something that Daniel and Many said.

In this day and age of the internet and anonymity, people find is excessively easy to say hurtful, rude, disgusting and surprising things wherever they see fit. The language found on JHUConfessions, while abysmal and shocking, is not unique to the website. There are people who relish in that type of environment where accountability and decency are thrown out the window.

The truth of reality, however, is that these people exist at Hopkins and at every single other college, workplace, etc. And while they represent a small minority, one must learn to deal with them in the other way possible: ignore them.

The existence of these websites and forums cannot be controlled or eliminated but your son, and everyone else, can make the choice to not frequent them and that itself is the ultimate way to remove the power from their words.