Some of the best postings on Brown threads were posted when the class of 2022 was in elementary school. I would like to draw your attention to this one (http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-the-brown-curriculum-and-university-college-explained-p1.html). Let’s skip the long Open Curriculum part and focus on the concept of University-College. As @modestmelody explained –
"Brown is a university only as a function to improve its undergraduate college. There is a distinct difference between an institution with a small graduate program and an institution which designs its graduate school to better its undergraduate offerings. Brown is the latter. This is what lies at the heart of the university-college…
Brown is a university-college, and has been for many years (President Wriston or Wayland in the early 20th century wrote a lot about this idea
I cant remember which at the moment). The university-college exists to ensure the small liberal arts college advantage for undergraduate education with the backing of a full-fledged, world-class research institution. "
If you have not had your interview yet, I am pretty sure knowing university-college concept will get you extra points … maybe that would be the deciding factor on the final committee table if you have everything else in place.
According to Wiki’s ballpark figures, Harvard has 14,500 postgraduates and 6,700 undergraduates while Brown has 6,580 undergraduates and 2,255 postgraduates. If you really must talk about rankings, Brown has consistently ranked near the top of National Universities Best Undergraduate Teaching. As USNWR itself puts it – “Many colleges have a strong commitment to teaching undergraduates instead of conducting graduate-level research. In a survey conducted in spring 2017, the schools on these lists received the most votes from top college administrators for putting a particular focus on undergraduate teaching.” Just remember you are NOT going to a graduate school now.
Speaking of rankings, it is really a big joke how many colleges are going to extreme trying to manipulate the data. For entertainments, you could read
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/
and
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-college-rankings-0828-story.html