Bowdoin better than Brown

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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<p>the Polar Bears rank higher and more times than the Brown Bears.</p>

<p>Princeton Reveiw: Bowdoin has 8 rankings to Brown 5 in top 20 categories including #2 Best Quality of Life, #2 Best Campus Food, #5 Happiest Students…</p>

<p>College Prowl: Bowdoin picked as School of the Year…an A+ in Academics (Brown A), A+ in Dining (Brown B-), A in Housing, A in Local Atmosphere (C+ for Brown)…</p>

<p>read the student reviews…a higher percentage of the Brown reviews are about drinking, parties and drugs </p>

<p>Bowdoin advantages: no Greek elitists clubs, focused entirely on the undergraduate, classes taught by professors not graduate students, a base curriculum for freshmen/sophomores unlike Brown’s open curriculum with no solid liberal arts foundation for underclassmen, Brunswick over Providence, more outdoor clubs/activities, better opportunity to get involved in intramurals, more compact campus and not spread out like Brown, smaller-more of a family environment, less mindless partying=drinking metality</p>

<p>Brown has the Ivy League rep…is that it compared to Bowdoin?</p>

2

<p>It’s not a great idea to use out-dated guide books to make decisions. I know you are grasping for objective pros and cons but you’re not really going to find anything in an old book. I’m guessing that’s what you’re looking at since those rankings may be out dated. More importantly, you need to understand that rankings are not the way to choose anything, those companies make money to sell you decisions based on nothing. Who decides whether Brunswick is cooler than Providence? C- to A for Maine? They’re basically saying that College Hill is border line terrible, I’m wondering if there may be some bias? Aren’t you? Considering most people love College Hill, especially compared to Brunswick, there’s just isn’t any reason to give one a low grade and another an A. Brown has been ranked at the top as Happiest Students in the Princeton Review for the last couple of years but that doesn’t mean that much other than people are generally happy. Can you really measure happiness in a survey? </p>

<p>“How happy are you?” - Hmm. 4?. Well xyz school answered 4.1 they must be happier by .1 happies! LOL</p>

<p>Idk , where you got the student review from at all. Perhaps you should read this forum some more since we’re not selling books.</p>

<p>Let’s do some more True/False</p>

<p>“no Greek elitists clubs” </p>

<p>9% of students belong to fraternities or sororities. Elitist is never something that crossed my mind with greek life. Greek life at Brown is more like geek life, it’s still Brown. The football frat is the only exception, and believe me they are not elite. </p>

<p>“classes taught by professors not graduate students,”</p>

<p>At Brown classes are taught by professors. <a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University;

<p>“focused entirely on the undergraduate,”</p>

<p>Brown is known as one of the best undergraduate institutions in the world, it just happens to have a small graduate school. </p>

<p>“unlike Brown’s open curriculum with no solid liberal arts foundation for underclassmen”</p>

<p>It sounds like you do not understand Brown’s educational philosophy. Read: [Brown</a> Admission: Our Philosophy](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)</p>

<p>Not having a required distribution doesn’t mean anything, you could take the same distributions as Brown, the difference is that you create your own path and take whichever classes you want - your responsibility.</p>

<p>“Brunswick over Providence” I don’t know that everyone, or even many, would agree with you there.</p>

<p>"more outdoor clubs/activities, better opportunity to get involved in intramurals, "</p>

<p>There may be more outdoorsy stuff at Bowdoin but Brown has over 300 student groups/clubs including BOLT ([Brown</a> Outdoor Leadership Training](<a href=“BOLT – BROWN OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP TRAINING”>BOLT – BROWN OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP TRAINING))</p>

<p>“not spread out like Brown”</p>

<p>Brown really isn’t spread out, visit Stanford…or any big state school. It’s a ~15 minute walk from the far corners of Brown’s campus. 143 acres is not that big.</p>

<p>“smaller-more of a family environment”</p>

<p>That could be true just because of size and isolation at Bowdoin.</p>

<p>“less mindless partying=drinking metality”</p>

<p>How did you get that idea? Brown is no more of a party school than any other place save Christian colleges.</p>

<p>I’m not saying you belong at one more than the other but at least get good information. Have you visited and decided which one you like better? It sounds like you haven’t. You were fortunate to be admitted to both, but even more fortunate to have been offered admission to Brown, especially this year. Congrats.</p>

3

<p>“better opportunity to get involved in intramurals”</p>

<p>Where do you get this stuff?</p>

<p>Spring [Brown</a> University Intramurals](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website) Fall [Brown</a> University Intramurals](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website)</p>

<p>Club Sports [Brown</a> University Club Sports Team Directory](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website)</p>

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<p>Besides agreeing with everything and more that wolfman has written, I thought it’d be important to add this:</p>

<p>If you want to go to Bowdoin, go there. Brown will be better for it and so will Bowdoin. You need to go to the right place for you, and quite honestly, someone who comes to your conclusions when looking at Brown (some of the most base-less and strange criticisms I’ve seen so far since you often look at Brown’s strengths and then interpret them as functioning in the opposite manner they do) clearly doesn’t want to be here.</p>

<p>Brown isn’t going to be everything to everyone and for some people it’s just a bad choice.</p>

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<p>wolfmanjack…your replies are great. on my previous post…when i asked the pros and cons between bowdoin and brown on the brown forum, i received 0 replies. i thought to provoke to get some responses…it is a bit crude but the statements i wrote in the post above came directly from various sites…mostly from student reviews at both brown and bowdoin…whether true or not.</p>

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<p>The way to get a clear answer on this page is to just ask about specific elements at Brown you’re interested in or worried about. Since there are veru few Brown students on these boards our ability to do direct comparisons between schools is rather limited-- plus we’ve only gone to Brown (in many not all cases)! This thread is easier to answer to because it makes specific claims about Brown that can be disussed independent of Bowdoin knowledge.</p>

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<p>the sad part is you could find every bit of that info already posted on here or the Brown website. initative?</p>

8

<p>wolf: you’re talking to someone who cites handholding through the freshman and sophomores as a benefit - is a lack of initiative surprising?</p>

<p>A couple things in response to zburton:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Most of the things that you’ve listed are bona fide pros of Bowdoin over Brown for some people. If you’re one of those people, and the other factors that favor Brown over Bowdoin don’t outweigh those, then Bowdoin is the better option. It’s all about fit.</p></li>
<li><p>College prowl** ratings are comically off. You’ll understand once you’re at college and you read the one about your school.</p></li>
<li><p>I’ll take the Brown Poler Bears ([Poler</a> Bears - Student Organizations @ Brown - Powered by CollegiateLink](<a href=“http://mygroups.brown.edu/Community?action=getOrgHome&orgID=867]Poler”>http://mygroups.brown.edu/Community?action=getOrgHome&orgID=867)) over the Bowdoin Polar Bears any day.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’ve cruised this forum and you really think the only thing Brown has going for it is its Ivy League rep, then you must have blinders on.</p></li>
<li><p>The experience at a small liberal arts college is quite different from the experience at a major research university. The differences in opportunities for and resources to support high-level research are vast. You also underestimate the value that a (small) graduate school adds to your undergraduate education; I really enjoyed my interactions with graduate students at Brown.</p></li>
<li><p>My friends at Brown ranged from fairly frequent drinkers to complete teetotalers, from social butterflies to very studious types. Not one of those people resented the diverse social culture there, and I think all of them were rather glad to have it around. Everyone enjoys (or should enjoy) being out of their element occasionally, and going to a frat party even though you usually spend you Saturday nights discussing politics with friends is a great way to do that. I see time and time again on these boards high schoolers who associate drinking and partying with the worst kind of people at their high school, and think that drinking and partying in college means being around those kinds of people. It doesn’t.</p></li>
<li><p>As some people have already pointed out, some things you listed are simply not correct. But you could have figured that out on your own using Google.</p></li>
<li><p>I do have to hand it to you - you did get people to respond.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I just recently accepted my offer to Brown and had to rely a great deal on online student reviews because i live half across the world and can’t visit etc. And z burton, we must be looking at completely different reviews because all the info i’ve read has been really positive. You need to focus on the positives about Brown too. It all depends on you as a person too, more outdoorsy activities at Bowdoin may be a turn off for one person and really exciting for the next. You know who you are, they’ve never met you, you must know enough about the schools if your considering them, so just go for whatever feels right and take a chance. Good luck</p>

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<p>obviously the college websites are the first source of info. then other sites. and finally, student reviews. i’ve had to rely on online info because i also live half way across the world, i’m unable to visit the colleges and i’m not familiar with the northeast. i don’t think one should discount student reviews…after all, this site itself is about reviews. and of course, brown is exceptional…that goes without saying. we’re splitting hairs between two great colleges. of course, 98% of reviews are positive. i’m trying to dig deeper, get the inner scoop. in my initial post, i’m just reciting complaints i read from students attending brown. and the purpose is to get a response…to see if there is any credibility to the complaints. so far most are more concerned with the tone of the post, rather than refuting the individual complaints. but believe me, the complaints (not a great word) came from actual brown students. once again, most were positive. of course, everyone’s experience is different. the rankings are based on student reviews and many of them…of course they’re subjective…but your opinion is also.</p>

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<p>Since you want refutation, let’s go through point by point:
Greek life is an extremely small portion of campus life and is hardly exclusive at all at Brown.
Graduate students only teach in three scenarios at Brown-- intro math, intro creative writing, and sometimes languages if they are a native speaker of that language. This means something like 98% of classes are led by professors.
If you don’t understand how the open curriculum is a successful way to have a liberal arts degree, you missed the entire point of Brown and probably shouldn’t have applied. Please check this thread:<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-brown-curriculum-university-college-explained.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-brown-curriculum-university-college-explained.html&lt;/a&gt;
Brunswick over Providence is a matter of opinion, but a strange one at that. What do you like about Brusnwick versus Providence?
There are tons of out door activities here, not even remotely limited to BOLT. Actually, so many of my friends were involved in outdoors things here that I was sorta awestruck, surprised, and felt left out because it’s not my thing. Maybe that was just my group of friends, but people do that stuff all the time.<br>
Better opportunity for intramurals? I don’t know what that means, but here’s our schedule:
[Brown</a> University Intramurals](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website)
[Brown</a> University Intramurals](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website)
[Brown</a> University Intramurals](<a href=“Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website”>Brown University Athletics - Official Athletics Website)
Brown is about 3/4s of a mile by 3/4s of a mile. If that’s spread out, you’re too lazy to graduate college.
Smaller, more family environment? I dno, not too many Bowdoin to Brown or Brown to Bowdoin transfers to really know about that.
Mindless partying? It happens here, but not like what I’ve seen many, many other places.</p>

<p>Of course we’re responding to your tone-- it’s ridiculous. The truth is you’re asking the wrong question because most of us have never stepped foot on Bowdoin’s campus and your change in tone is not going to get you any useful comparisons. Every question you asked can be answered by searching on this page or we’d gladly talk about when asked directly. It’s just hard to respond to direct school comparisons that we’re not in a position to directly compare.</p>

<p>Most reviews are written by people who are driven to say something. I’ve never written a review on a single one of those sites (because they are ridiculously low quality, IMO, and probably have just as much written by bitter people/non-matriculants/rivals as actual students. Yet I have like 5k posts on this page.</p>

<p>So please, we’re anxious to talk more about Brown, its what we know and love. But the comparison game, especially in this case, is really just too hard for any of us to do well and impossible to do when framed in a crazy way like this. That’s why your other thread died.</p>

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<p>OK, zburton: I admire you a bit for your ability to draw otu the information you want, even if by unorthodox means. However, I know I saw your original post, and I would have liked to respond, had it been specific questions, or at least then I would have known where to point you. When I see a post asking me to compare Brown to a school I have no information about, I can’t. I don’t want to act like an expert in something I have no experience with.</p>

<p>That being said, please, ask specific questions. PM me if you want to know specific classes I’ve taken, or what professors I enjoyed the most, or what you have to do to get face time with professors. But don’t ask me to make a comparison I can’t make, and please ask your questions in a tone that makes us want to help, rather than refute, you. Otherwise you seem like someone who merely wants to cause a flame war, and none of us enjoy that.</p>

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<p>fair enough. let’s talk curriculum…and Jason’s (aka modestmelody) books on the subject were most helpful…and this is what i’m talking about…the info oozing out of the woodwork. some of us don’t live on the computer (ie. wolfmanjack) so it’s not an issue of initiative, it’s speaking to experts like yourselves who can immediately direct me to the info. from what i can gather, the open curriculum of brown is more “open” than Bowdoin’s. as someone with numerous interests, with no particular concentration in mind and a firm belief in a liberal arts foundation, the open curriculum sounds ideal. the issues of avoidance, lopsided classes have been discussed on other threads. bowdoin states that a student can take over half of their credits outside his/her major. there is a core from a variety of disciplines that must be taken (choices within the disciplines). i have a schlarship based upon academic performance…and the continued upholding of that performance. even though it’s been said before…the reality on campus…what keeps me from taking easier professors, easier classes in easier disciplines especially when my financial situation is at stake? sometimes when one is “forced” to take a class in a discipline that would’ve been overlooked, sometimes one experiences an “opening” of the mind. i’ve seen conflicting posts…a variety of disciplines with the open curriculum is required at Brown?</p>

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<p>fair enough already. let’s talk college life. i’m looking to have a great time…challenging academics - yet not overbearing, passionate discussions, intense professors who are close and caring, friends for a lifetime, vibrant college scene with intramural sports and fun. i don’t think we need to belittle student reviews or the rankings on other sites (expecially for some of us who wage online wars against elitism on other threads). ok…check what i’ve read and this is a mouthful (and these are generalizations). bowdoin’s students live on campus for the 4 years because brunswick has little places to rent off-campus, the dorms are like palaces, the food is great whereas brown’s students (mostly juniors/seniors) choose to live off-campus because rent is cheaper in providence, the food is not so great (better to eat at one of the places outside the ratty), the dorms are less spacious and getting into them like a lottery. ok…so i’m thinking that most of the students have to live on campus at Bowdoin and want to…instead of the excape of off-campus housing and off-campus eateries. deduction…the quality of life better at bowdoin? ok…bring it on and don’t say it’s an individual thang.</p>

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<p>let’s talk intramurals. pleeeeze…of course i’ve seen the college websites and the intramurals advertised. brown is mostly a division 1 school vs bowdoin division 3. brown is 6 thou plus students, bowdoin under 2 thou. i like to play a lot of different sports…in other words, i’m mediocre at all and not a jock at any. i’m gong with the trickle down theory…students are going to be more competitive at brown 'cause brown is division 1 and has more students…hense more jocks participating and dominating all intramurals…hense i’m left out in the cold. it’s the smaller pond - bigger fish thing. deduction…i’d have more opportunities to get involved in intramurals at bowdoin (even though there are less in quantity) than at brown…plus more people have to participate in a smaller pond (greater percentage)…thus enhancing quality of college life. bring it on…</p>

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<p>let’s talk completely undergrad vs. undergrad & grad (and plenty has already been posted). the legend has it at bowdoin that the ivy league invited bowdoin to join but bowdoin turned the league down 'cause bowdoin wanted to remain completely focused and dedicated to the undergraduates and wanted to remain small with attention to indivdual student needs/wants. let me toss out there for ya’ll notions from the online grapevine. professors at a grad/undergrad school “look over their backs” at he latest book to be written, the latest research to be published…to remain relevant in the grad circles…whereas at a total undergrad school, the pressure is lessened and the professors focus is directly in front of them, at their undergrad students. sure, brown is topnotched in research and grad work…but i’m not a junior/senior yet. i’m a freshperson who wants close, caring professors completely focus on me…not their own side book/research work. plus…and so i’ve read…the grad students get first dibs on research projects. bring it on…</p>

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<p>Nice try to dodge the initiative jabs, you’re not fooling anyone by changing tones. Living on a computer has nothing do with actively using one for 10 minutes. You say things about using the college websites first but had previously asked questions easily found on the front pages! Then you said that most of the replies were about the tone and not refutation right after two of us posted listed refutations about your concerns, modest only mirrored what had been said already.</p>

<p>and bring it on?? huh?</p>

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<p>Wow what a load of crap. You know what? It’s clear you don’t want to go to Brown. That’s fine. I’m going to come back in this thread later (I actually have things to do and am not here at your beck and call) and answer everything you ask but I am doing it not for you, rather for other readers and future search engine people. After I answer these questions, I’m going to stop responding to you. Your attitude and tone make it clear you’re not going to listen to what I have to say and feel entitled to some response and that’s not a useful exchange to be a part of.</p>

<p>I’ll start with the grad student notion-- let me explain to you the size of the graduate school in more concrete terms. In chemistry, which easily has one of the largest graduate schools with about 80 grad students (versus about 10-15 concentrators per year of undergrads… so 40-60 at any given time though many have not identified yet), my lab had a freshman (or two) ever year. We had twice as many undergrads as grad students. None of the undergraduates were working on projects that any of the graduate students had worked on in the lab. You cannot be a productive scholar at Brown if you’re not using undergraduates who are doing their own projects, period. Faculty choose to come to Brown knowing this reality and knowing that they’ll be in the classroom and laboratory with undergraduates every semester. There is no notion of “first dibs”-- graduate students are in a lab with a professor on funding doing a specific project. Undergraduates are in that lab on funding doing a specific different project (often related, but never the same).</p>

<p>Brown has never been dominated by the graduate school and personal attention is a huge part of what we sell. If you want it, you’ll get it here. The remarkable thing at Brown is not that you’ll get to do research, but that you’ll get to do top notch research with far more productive and successful scholars than you’ll find at an LAC. Most LACs don’t even have what I would consider the minimum basic equipment I would have needed to do my chemistry research whereas at Brown I could have been using that stuff in my first semester.</p>

<p>Intramural-- Let’s mirror your attitude-- are you insane or stupid? Having more students means that many sports actually have three divisions. I’m in low division softball right now and its like your high school gym class-- 3 people can hit and throw, 6 people can kind of play, 4 people look like they’ve never held a ball before and I have a freaking blast. Having more students means greater variety and stratification of levels. Additionally, division 1 athletes almost never play intramurals. 1) They have practice which is already a huge drain on their time 2) If they were to get hurt playing intramurals it’d be devastating. It’s ridiculous to think you’re going to be playing division 1 basketball players even in the highest division of a 3 on 3 bball tournament, and we’ve got three levels of that to choose from.</p>

<p>Living off campus has been an awesome experience and parties off campus have often been BETTER in my experience. I like cooking for myself and not having to eat on campus food (which I think is fine here anyway). Separate from that, Brown students who live “off-campus” pretty much all live in an area that’s about 1 sq mile and includes all of Brown. On this map:</p>

<p>Main Street to Gano and Wickenden to about Olney
[Google</a> Maps](<a href=“Google Maps”>Google Maps)</p>

<p>That’s 1.0 by 1.2 miles. And that’s even stretching how far students go in quite a few directions. That’s actually smaller than many campuses are. You’re still at a residential college with that feel when living off campus-- I’ve been off-campus for some time and I’ve always been closer to my classes living off-campus than I ever was on campus, actually. FWIW, less than 20% of juniors go off campus and about 75% of seniors go off.</p>

<p>The curriculum thing I answered in my other thread thoroughly and doesn’t need to be addressed again fresh here. The open curriculum at Brown means 0 course requirements outside of the concentration, just to clarify.</p>

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<p>bowdoin was never invited to join the ivy league. this is patently false, as any bowdoin graduate with half a mind can tell you. also, i think it’s completely consistent to want to go to bowdoin without denigrating brown, which yearly ranks as one of the top if not the top undergraduate focused university. many of the claims made against brown are as false as those made in favor of bowdoin. what people on this board keep suggesting is that choosing a college is an individual decision. it sounds like bowdoin is right for you, maybe. at least you think it is. but if it requires unfairly criticizing another school in order for it to feel right, maybe it isn’t the right place. they’re both great. go with your gut. but don’t make your gut decision talking points for a campaign for or against a school as if the tide of popular opinion has to agree with you to legitimate your choice.</p>

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<p>go to bowdoin… please</p>