Is University of Washington or Johns Hopkins harder to get into?

Johns Hopkins is harder to get into in the usual admissions sense. It is a highly selective private research university with a national and international applicant pool, and admission is very competitive across most majors. The University of Washington is also selective, especially for some pathways, but overall undergraduate admission to the university is less difficult than admission to Johns Hopkins.

The main complication is that UW can feel especially hard to access for students targeting specific high-demand programs. Computer science, engineering pathways, and some other capacity-constrained majors can be much more competitive than general admission to UW itself. So a student applying to UW for a direct-to-major spot in a very popular field may face a tougher process than the school’s overall reputation suggests.

Johns Hopkins tends to attract students who are building lists around very selective private universities, especially those interested in research, pre-med, public health, biomedical engineering, and an academically intense environment from the start.

UW fits a somewhat wider range of students because there is a big difference between being admitted to the university and being admitted to a specific major. If someone is looking at UW for broad academic options, especially as an in-state applicant, the odds are typically more favorable than at Johns Hopkins. If they are fixated on one of UW’s most sought-after majors, the question becomes more nuanced, but Johns Hopkins is still the more selective school overall.