It took Zoe Rammelkamp, of Wyman Park, 45 minutes to get the key to her dormitory room and her J-card, an access and identification card for students at Johns Hopkins University.

The problem with being a freshman, observed Rammelkamp, was "getting organized."

"My biggest fear was that I wouldn't get my J-card -- that there would be something wrong with the form I filled out," the 18-year-old said as she moved into her dorm on the Homewood campus Aug. 28. "Actually, the girl in front of me (in line) didn't get hers. She was sent to Gilman Hall."

But now, Rammelkamp was outside her dorm.

"Now, I just have to wait for my stuff -- oh, there's my parents' car," she exclaimed.

Rammelkamp is one of 14 incoming freshmen in Hopkins' coveted Baltimore Scholars program for students who live in Baltimore City, attended a public city high school for at least three years and meet the academic requirements for admission to one of the top universities in the nation.

The program aims to lure students from the city as well as from around the country and the world to Hopkins. Students in the program receive a full tuition scholarship.

"It's hard to get into Hopkins," Rammelkamp said, "and being from Baltimore doesn't give you an advantage."

Unless you get in, that is.

"It's definitely nice financially," said Rammelkamp, who graduated from City College High School with a 4.0 grade point average.

"Hopkins is a really great school -- and I want to be a doctor."

Six of the 14 new Baltimore Scholars are from north Baltimore -- and they hail from the moderate to high-income neighborhoods of Guilford, Tuscany-Canterbury, Wyman Park, Homeland and Mt. Washington.

The high proportion is at odds with a stereotype of Baltimore Scholars as a program aimed at inner city minorities. It's a stereotype Hopkins officials say they understand.

Bill Conley, dean of enrollment and academic services at Hopkins, said he thinks there is an assumption by the public that because the program is for graduates of Baltimore City schools who are residents of a city with a large black population, "ergo, this must be a minority program."

Nearly 70 percent of the 75 students who are in the program, now in its fifth year, are minorities from under-represented areas of the city, Conley said.

But the percentage for the freshmen class in the program is much more evenly split, and Conley said, "If some majority students qualify, that's good, too."

Rammelkamp certainly did, and she's looking forward to it.

"I'm a very hard-working person, and very motivated, and I feel like most people here are," she said.

Some people would say -- and have -- that she has the best of both worlds because although it's mandatory for her to live in a dorm, her parents live nearby.

"People keep telling me I'm lucky I can walk home," she said. "To tell you the truth, I wish I was farther away. I think college is a time to be independent."

She's treating Hopkins that way, and is grateful to have an assigned roommate, from Montgomery County, who is bringing a refrigerator for their room.

"It's a guarantee that you'll know at least one person" on campus, Rammelkamp said.

Who's bringing the TV?

"No TV," Rammelkamp said firmly. "Serious students."

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