<p>International students should consider schools much larger than and having much more research focus than Brown?</p>
<p>I’m from outside of the US, and hardly anyone had ever heard of Brown before Emma Watson entered and before a celebrity’s older brother got caught having (potentially) lied that he had obtained a bachelor’s degree at Brown. </p>
<p>But a lot of people know what the Ivy League is, since “Harvard” is also “Ivy League”, and that consoles me a little, but</p>
<p>I should have applied to Cal Berk, or better, just entered Chicago where I was accepted as an economics major.</p>
<p>Nah. I’m graduating in 8 months. I’m planning to get a job, to gain money, to ultimately land at, and be able to pay for, one of the top graduate schools. But oh, the prolonged misery of work, money, and grad school! Why not just a bachelor’s degree at a research focused school?</p>
<h1>A: onlinepass, I don’t understand your posts. Are you a student here or not? You post things like “Brown’s professors are NOT second to their peers,” with no real support for your argument (basically, just planting the seed of doubt that our professors aren’t top-quality). Then you tell international students that despite this, they shouldn’t come to Brown.</h1>
<h1>B: You’re only talking about getting a master’s. If you were getting a PhD, you wouldn’t need to work to go to school (at least not in the sciences, not entirely sure about the humanities).</h1>
<h1>C: I don’t see why your experience would have been any better at Berkeley. Sure, they have more high-powered research, but that doesn’t translate into being the equivalent of a Master’s, and it doesn’t translate into getting research experience as an undergraduate. I’d bet (no stats, sorry, too lazy to look up, but as a somewhat educated guess) that we have a greater percentage of our freshmen in research positions than does Berkeley. So if you’re more likely to have a chance to be published at Brown, why would a Berkeley experience be better.</h1>
<h1>D: Your advice also would only apply to internationals who don’t need aid. While super-competitive otherwise, if accepted Brown will actually help out internationals needing aid, whereas Berkeley will not.</h1>
<h1>E: If you’re comparing to Chicago, then you have to compare for specific people. Chicago’s great, but not if you want a less competitive and more supportive environment. Or want to have some academic freedom (i.e. you’re not positive you want to be an econ major). Or if you’d rather be on the East Coast. etc. Fit really does matter, even if, as an international, you’re less likely to be able to visit schools, you should still be able to get a feel for them from afar.</h1>
<p>Even in the humanities, numerous PhD programs only admit students for which they have full or near full funding. I know it’s the case for all of the schools I’ve considered, at least.</p>
<p>onlinepass - Honestly, I’m as much at a loss for about what your deal is as the rest of the people here. Perhaps it would help to verify that you’re actually a Brown student? If you would like me to confirm for the other people on the forum that you are a Brown student, without publicly revealing your identity, PM me.</p>