<p>***** says that Brown and Columbia are "similar schools" to UChicago. Do you agree? Why? </p>
<p>The similarities that jump out at me:
- Each are consistently ranked in top 10 of college rankings
- Each are often ranked in "happiest students" lists
- UChicago and Columbia are in big cities </p>
<p><a href="http://www.*****.com/university_of_chicago/%5B/url%5D">http://www.*****.com/university_of_chicago/</a></p>
<p>I’m referencing u<em>n</em>i<em>g</em>o…</p>
<p>Brown has little in common with Chicago. Columbia and Chicago are indeed very similar.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Columbia and Chicago are both located in very large cities. Brown is not.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia and Chicago are both major research universities, leading the world in the number of Nobel Prize winning faculty and scholars. Brown is not. Just to understand the scope, Chicago has had 87 laureates affiliated to them, second to only Cambridge. Columbia is third with 82 Laureates. Brown had 7 laureates in total. </p></li>
<li><p>Columbia and Chicago have far more graduate students than undergraduate students. Brown does not. In fact, at Columbia, graduate students outnumber undergrads 3:1 and at Chicago 2:1. At Brown, it is undergrads who outnumber graduate students 2:1. </p></li>
<li><p>Columbia and Chicago have very strong professional programs in Business, Law and Medicine. Brown does not, although it does have a solid medical school.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia and Chicago have very well defined core curriculums. Brown has not core whatsoever. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The only similarity between those three universities is that they are all excellent. Beyond that, Brown shares little with the other two.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Columbia but I have an older brother at UChicago who applied early to Brown <a href=“deferred”>PLME</a>. UChicago and Brown have good medical programs, although Columbia’s is better than Brown’s, as far as I’m concerned. Plus, Brown is pretty good for neuroscience, which was what my bro was interested in.</p>
<p>In terms of environment, Columbia is fairly different from UChicago; Columbia is smack in the middle of NYC whereas UChicago is about a 15 minute train ride from the Loop, so it has a much quieter and less of a “city college” feel. When I visited Brown 2 years ago, I felt that the environment more closely resembled that of UChicago, so don’t be fooled by the whole “city college” tag.</p>
<p>All schools are great. Notably UChicago is becoming extremely prestigious. UChicago was ranked #5 this year and had an acceptance rate of 8.8% which is lower than 4 of the 8 ivy league schools</p>
<p>Brown’s curriculum is exactly opposite to Chicago/Columbia. On the other hand, the students have certain characteristics in common - earnest and intellectual, although Brown’s are noticeably more liberal and no one is as hardworking as UChicago.</p>
<p>They’re very different, but it wouldn’t be crazy for one person to be interested in both of them. They do produce very different kinds of graduates, though.</p>
<p>
To those whose opinions about prestige matter, Chicago has long been held in extremely high regard, regardless of wherever it’s ranked on the USNews scale.</p>