Brown or other options? Please help

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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<p>I originally was trying to send this to ‘soozviet’, but not sure if that worked, so am trying this route</p>

<p>I have not participated in ths site before, so I am not sure that I am doing this correctly. Please excuse.</p>

<p>My daughter is applying to the UC system and had not even considered applying elsewhere …until she heard a rep from Brown speak at her school.</p>

<p>The experience opened up her mind to a whole different way of learning , one which suits her much more, as well as a different college lifestyle ( i.e. a residential community, where ‘community’ is meant in the best sense). </p>

<p>She is planning to apply, but knows that she is unlikley to be accepted. </p>

<p>She has an ok weighted GPA ( 3.92), but a low unweighted GPA. She had a very difficult year last year , likley due to some major family issues. Luckily,this year seems to be going very well ( As and maybe one B), so the GPA should continue to rise, possibly to reach 4.0. She has taken nearly every AP and honors class the school has to offer. Her class rank is low as they base it on the unweighted grades.</p>

<p>SAT I is 1400; SATII 710 writing, 680Math IIC and 740 Literature.</p>

<p>She is retaking SATI. Unfortunately, she is opposed to the idea of studying for the test , as she thinks that it defeats the whole purpose. Still will likely be higherjust due to experience.</p>

<p>She has recieved 3 Academic Achievement Awards and a Governor’s Scholar Award ( All based on California testing). She is also Nat’l Merit Commended, despite lack of preparation.</p>

<p>The coolest thing about her, though, is that she has spent the last ten years of her life ( by her own choice) in Girl Scouts and has spent much time on community service projects, leadership roles, commitees, etc. She earned her Silver Award, and is currently working on her Gold Award ( these are the highest honors in GS). Even when GS were viewed as
kind of ‘uncool’, she really did not care in the least, because she really likes it.</p>

<p>She has also spent the last 4 years on her high schools Forensics team. The team is nationally ranked, has been the subject of an award-winning PBS documentary, and has been featured on Oprah and on MacNeil-Lehrer.</p>

<p>The other interesting thing she has doen is particiatpe in the Academic Talent Development Program at UC Berkeley. She was astudent for 2 summers, then a volunteer TA, then a paid TA last summer.</p>

<p>(By the way, one of the reasons the success of the team is of such great interest is because we are in a non-white community, at a school of more than 4000 kids, where the police come practically every day lately to deal with the gang problems. We do have some brilliant 1600SAT students, but the other end of the spectrum as well).</p>

<p>So sorry for the long novel. In a nutshell, she is a bit quirky, really has her own way of thinking, and is much beloved by quite an unusal array of people ( i.e gang-bangers to girls scouts…ha ha)</p>

<p>The question is : since Brown is pretty-well impossible for her to get into , are there any other schools that you could recommend that operate in a similar fashion, with a similar philosophy? </p>

<p>I’d be so grateful to give her another possible option. By the way, she is interested in becoming a teacher. Likley major is English, but she wants to explore …psych, philosophy, theology…</p>

<p>Much Thanks!!</p>

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<p>don't say Brown is impossible for someone to get into... just apply, you never know.</p>

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<p>generally, i just want to tell you not to give up on brown. although gpa and exam scores are important and no doubt help considerably, brown definitively admits the widest range in the ivy league (here is a sample of the breakdown <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/profile.html#rank%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/profile.html#rank&lt;/a&gt;)
also, brown as an institution has a particular committment to civic engagement, and therefore is likely to give your daughter's community involvement a significant weight. her chance may not be as statitistically high as a 1600 4.0'er, but it is certainly not "no chance".</p>

<p>as for other similar institutions--i'm not clear on exactly what specific attributes of brown your daughter finds most appealing. usually, when people refer to institutions like brown they are looking for an open curriculum--but you mentioned something about a residential community. can you clarify?</p>

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<p>dcircle, thanks for responding. Yes, the open curriculum was the big appeal. Also, it was her understanding from the Brown rep that the students are required to live on campus for three years and the impression that my daughter got was that sense of community within those walls was a genuine one: open, supportive, prizing individuality, yet fostering the ability to work together. Must have been a good talk by the rep, huh??? It certainly made an impression on my daughter.
We never even considered her going to a private school like Brown.</p>

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<p>Thanks, iambananasfoster, for the reply. She is going to apply, just don't want her to get her hopes up unrealistically.</p>

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<p>Actually, many if not most private colleges require student's to live on campus for the first few years. There are, in fact, many schools that take fostering community one step farther with residential colleges--Brown, in truth, probably has the least formal structure this way. If you are truly looking for a tight-knit campus community, consider some of the liberal arts colleges (swarthmore, williams, middlebury, pomona, haverford, etc.)
As far as the open curriculum, Amherst comes to mind--it has a slightly higher admit rate but also tends to be much more politically conservative. There are many schools that have wide distribution requirements instead of a core curriculum, and could be the next best thing.</p>

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<p>Have her check out Oberlin College in Ohio.</p>

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<p>At Brown, like other most selective colleges and universities, there are no guaranteed admission credentials, so the best answer would be that she is the kind of person who would have a chance at Brown or any other most selective. Hopefully, she could write something about the difficult circumstances of last year to explain. Otherwise, cast a wide net and see what you catch; apply to several colleges and hope for the best.</p>

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<p>I think she has a shot, but not studying for the SAT is ridiculously silly. I had a 1350 pre studying and boosted it to as 1470 after studying for less than a month! Right now I give her a 25% chance. She might have more luck with a place like Vassar, which is similar.</p>

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<p>Kenyon is a school that might suit her very well, especially if her interest in English extends to writing. I think she'd have a good shot at it. Others have suggested Vassar and Oberlin. Within California, Pomona has gotten very selective, but she might look at some other schools in the consortium which are not as difficult to get into, like Claremont McKenna etc. And, also in Southern California, she might consider Occidental.</p>

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<p>Just thought of Haverford. Another very good school with a strong sense of community.</p>

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<p>jeunger- I did ATDP too! Which classes did your daughter take? I took Existential lit, symbolism, and Greek...</p>