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[quote=Stupefy]
@modest- one of my friends’ older sister (anecdotal evidence I know) graduated from brown undergrad and couldn’t find a job 
she said her employer looked down on brown[\quote]
I’ll behave here as if “Stupefy” is in fact 17 years old and not a middle-aged ■■■■■ from the University of Pennsylvania.
Seventeen is young and Stupefy may be forgiven the things she hasn’t yet encountered in the wide world. Including the massively connected Brown network in the job-seekers’ world.
Ten years from now, when she’s in a skyscraper on Pine Street surrounded by graduates of Brown COE (and Brown rugby players, like the brand-new CEO of Bank of America), and when she’s interviewed by media types who are Brown alumni, or supports non-profits founded by Brown alumni, or goes to plays written by Brown alumni and mounted by production companies started by Brown alumni, or dresses in fashion designed by Brown alumni, or has her loft made over by companies run by Brown alumni, or goes to the Met or other entity whose board chairwoman is a Brown alumna, et cetera – Stupefy will know just whose world she inhabits.<br>
Out in the grown-up world – and in employment categories encompassing publishing, journalism, theater, film and television, non-profit organizations, creative consultancies, fashion, writing at the Pulitzer-winning level, creating at the MacArthur-winning level – there are only a tiny handful of universities in America as impactfull as Brown.
Here is Newsweek’s (and Cornell alumna) Barbara Kantrowitz writing in Vanity Fair on Brown:
“[It has] years of graduates who have who have gravitated toward high-profile, glamorous professions in the media, publishing, show business and music. There is this network out there, and this incredible word of mouth.”
(That famous VF cover story on Brown, by Jennet Conant, granddaughter of the Harvard president, is now rather dated – Brown’s impact has only increased since Conant and Kantrowitz examined it.)
Here is Laura Linney on the network referred to: “People talk about the Brown Mafia but it’s really true.”
Most “insiders” of the power-centers of the country – New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Westport, CT (lol) – encounter Brown alumni in their work every day, but “outsiders” (including youngsters who post to CC) do not, and that’s why the “outsiders” are baffled by Brown’s decades-long power-selectivity and imperviousness to the U.S. News roller-coaster ride.
On April 1, 2010, Brown will have accepted 9 percent of its applications, which this year – the grapevine tells us – are ridiculously through the roof. The Watson Effect? Only marginally.
One hates to invoke Watson, but “insiders” will understand precisely why she chose Brown, while a school like UPenn was never even on her radar.
After all, two Hollywood studio heads are Brown alumni, two network TV creative heads are alumni, two of Watson’s co-stars in Tale of Despereaux are Brown parents (they helped persuade), several of Watson’s chief London influences are Brown alumni, the fashion-column guru of W (Watson’s fashion bible) is an alumnus, the special effects animation of Harry Potter are created by a company dominated by graduates of Brown computer graphics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera – Brown’s connectedness could be tediously extended here.<br>
I’ve just come from a CC thread in the “University of Chicago Renaissance” category (UC is another of my institutional connections), where the incisive “Cue7” has been leading a strategic conversation.
Will UC ever tap into the Brown power-pool and applicant pool, is the question. Cue7:
“Through my college years and beyond, I had the chance to become quite connected to a few other top schools … At a place like Brown, for example, I was astonished by the behind-the-scenes work of wealth and influence on campus. The students mostly came from the most coveted zip codes in the US, and the parents were oftentimes chiefs of surgery, partners at the most influential law firms, and oftentimes the sons and daughters of famous politicians or celebrities.”
Stupefy, those power-parents must know a little something about employability.
(Confining ourselves to politicians, indeed to Presidents and Presidential candidates alone – and leaving aside Hollyowood and Wall Street – Brown parents have included President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, President Jimmy Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, Governor Michael Dukakis, Senator John Kerry, Congressman Paul Tsongas, Governor Lamar Alexander, and right-wing mogul Steve Forbes.)
All of this is to say, Stupefy, that from the employment-prospects aspect alone, you’ll be fortunate not to be among the 91 percent of the liveliest applicant pool in the country who won’t get into Brown next April.</p>
Anyway, good luck to you, and I hope you get in to all your ivy league schools, if that is what really makes you happy. Toodles.</p>