Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland · Founded 1876

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Testing policy

SAT / ACT required

Johns Hopkins requires the SAT or the ACT of first-year applicants - it is one of the schools that brought the requirement back. It asks for two SAT sections (Math and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing) or three ACT sections (Math, Reading and English), superscores across test dates, and accepts self-reported scores until you enroll. The optional ACT Science and Writing sections are not required and are left out of the superscore. Transfer applicants do not need a score at all. Source: apply.jhu.edu Standardized Testing (verified September 2026).

About

Hopkins was the first American university built on the idea that teaching and research belong together, and that is still what shapes it. Undergraduates in any major can join a lab or project in their first semester, and about four in five do research at some point. There is no core curriculum: you assemble your own program across the humanities, natural sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and quantitative and mathematical sciences, and crossing departments is the norm rather than the exception.

History

Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore merchant and railroad investor, left $7 million in his will to found a hospital and a university - the largest philanthropic bequest in the United States at the time. The university opened in 1876 under Daniel Coit Gilman, whose inaugural address set out the model of the American research university that is now copied around the world. The university's own Hopkins Retrospective project has since published census records showing that enslaved people lived and worked in the founder's household, correcting an earlier account of him as an abolitionist.

What stands out

The first research university in the United States, opened in 1876
Research from the first semester on: about 80% of undergraduates do it
No core curriculum - you build your own across five academic areas
The leading recipient of federal research funding every year since 1979
Two years of on-campus housing, required and guaranteed

Popular majors

Molecular and Cellular BiologyComputer ScienceNeurosciencePublic Health StudiesBiomedical EngineeringChemical EngineeringInternational StudiesMechanical EngineeringMathematicsEconomics

Campus life

Homewood is red brick and green lawn - the one in front of Gilman Hall is called the Beach, and students spread out on it between classes. There are more than 350 registered student organizations and 24 varsity teams, and 83% of students belong to at least one organization. The city starts at the edge of campus: the Baltimore Museum of Art is next door, and the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards are a short ride south.