hello, I have been accepted ed to brown, but I am having some doubts…
DISCLAIMER: I am beyond grateful to have this opportunity for my future.
I am an international student who has never been to campus, and I was wondering what are the drawbacks of attending brown and if it was true that brown is considered being a hippy school with a lot of weed compared to Yale or other ivies. I know these questions may sound silly but please help the commitment deadline is soon!!
First congratulations!!
I have a kid at Brown who has thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from the schools resources and culture. He is an applied math concentrator that has enjoyed the sense of teamwork, curiosity and independence Brown is known for. If you walk the campus I don’t think you will find it to be discernibly any “hippier” or “pot smoking” then most elite schools.
That said the school is what it is. There are athletes, poets, political activists, geeks, and in many cases all of the above embodied all in one student.
My kid choose the school (among several options) because of the open curriculum and the opportunity to explore academic areas of interest he might not be able to if at a school with a more structured curriculum. He started a venture through the Nelson center for entrepreneurship sophomore year that has gained some momentum given the support of Brown staff and network. His one regret seems to be that his time on campus is fast approaching an end and he wishes he could have taken several other classes that he had to skip to pursue his start up.
In short the school lived up to its reputation as the happy Ivy, he was never driven by a sense of competition and felt fully supported and motivated to pursue academic, social and professional interests.
I hope you make the decision that works for you but I know dozens of Brown students and have not heard one who expressed regret at their decision to attend.
Happy to try and source answers if you have any specific questions.
Lastly you may want to change your user name as it makes you easily identifiable and ED was intended as binding.
If it has that reputation (and I don’t know any American who uses the word “hippy” and still expects to be taken seriously) it is only in comparison to the packaged, beauty pageant, atmospheres extant on some of the more stereotypical Ivies. So much time and money is spent on recruiting future Olympians, future hedge fund managers, future Hollywood stars, future Rhode Scholars, future Supreme Court justices - future Masters of the Universe, to use a common trope - that there’s scarcely any room for these kids to do anything but eat, drink and sleep whatever it is they were recruited to be. Brown suffers from a bit of this, but to a far lesser degree than the other Ivies, in part, thanks to the Open Curriculum. And, perhaps due to stubborn self-selection over the years.
First - congratulations. Second, some people are always looking to trash other colleges in some attempt to “prove” that their college is superior for some reason.
The Hippies are all in their 60s and 70s (or older), and their grandkids are the ones who are attending college. Weed is either legal or decriminalized in every state where there is an Ivy league school, and is no longer part of any type of “counter-culture”. Rhode Island high schoolers smoke more weed than Brown students.
You will get a top-notch education at Brown, and will be surrounded by hard working intellectual students, not by pot-smoking hippies.
PS. As a rule, though, it is better to have a weed-smoking student body than an alcoholic student body.
Our kid’s experience exactly. I had been told (including by a former partner who attended for undergrad and joked he majored in ultimate frisbee) that Brown was relaxed and nobody cared about grades. My kiddo has not found that Brown. I guess things can change, but she’s found it to be a place without one discernible and overriding demographic or characteristic other than ‘smart’.
As with my other kid’s experience at Wesleyan, a school with its own stereotypical rep that precedes it, this sort of buzz is often more about lore than reality. The only intense activism she reported during her time was the very early days of BLM (well before Floyd), which of course became a big deal most everywhere.
All I would say to the OP is, if you’re looking for a reason to not attend Brown, this doesn’t seem like the one. My kid is neither a hippy nor a recreational drug user and loves Brown, College Hill and greater Providence. So do we.
Hi OP! Congrats. It’s a big deal to be accepted and I’m sure you worked even harder to get a spot as an international applicant. My son goes to Brown and he’s the most painfully normal kid. He’s definitely not a hippy and based on roommates and friends he’s made, they’re not hippies. I’ve been there during family weekend. just walking around campus and having attended a public school that is all about Greek systems and growing up in a vey progressive state, I can tell you that students at Brown ain’t whatever they’re described as—hippies, MJ smokers, etc.
I’m sure alcohol and weed is available but you can choose not to take them. No one forces you to drink or smoke any of it. I would say it’s probably like the environment at any other school, from Berkeley to Virginia. You can request a substance-free residence hall if you wish.
These should be the least of the reasons not to attend Brown. If you have any other concerns, let us know and we will try our best to help answer your questions.