<p>When I was in high school and in the college search process, every book/magazine/website/forum/etc said that Brown was an extremely liberal, "hippy" school with lots of "off-beat" and "quirky" students. While the descriptions that I just came up with may be a combination of multiple sources, I'm sure all of you guys are well acquainted with Brown's reputation for being those things.</p>
<p>A few weekends ago I visited two of my best friends who are freshmen at Brown. What instantly struck me upon visiting was how "normal" Brown was. I say normal in the context that the students didn't strike me as particularly "hippy" or "off-beat" at all. Everyone looked like the people one would expect to get in to Brown: extremely intelligent and interesting people. The overall feel of the student body was one that I feel one could find at any "elite" place of higher education.</p>
<p>Not only that, but I was very surprised to see how "bougie" Brown was. Obviously at any sort of school that is as hard to get in to as Brown there are bound to be plenty of students from affluent backgrounds, but I felt as if a LARGE portion of the student body came from this sort of background and were very overt in their showing of it.</p>
<p>I acknoweldge that in 4 or 5 days of visiting a school one can only see a certain cross-section of the student body, but my observations were that of the overall feel of the student body that I receieved. I also talked to a friend of mine that also visited friends at Brown and he thought the EXACT same things as me.</p>
<p>Is Brown's reputation for being a "hippy" school well-deserved? Is it misguiding to people in the college search process?</p>
<p>All that said, I had a fantastic time while visiting. Everyone I met was very intelligent, amazingly interesting, and really fun.....but none struck me as particularly "off-beat" of "hippy-ish". I'm not trying to bash on Brown by any means as I thought it was a fantastic place, I'm just trying to create some discussion on the topic.</p>