Brown v. Stanford

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
1

<p>I was recently accepted to Brown and Stanford for undergrad, and I’m having a difficult time choosing. I’ll be visiting both of them next week but, until then, I want to figure out which school would make the most sense for me to attend.</p>

<p><em>I’m a multiracial (Native, African, Caucasian) female coming from a low-income background.
*Throughout high school, I’ve been heavily involved in things regarding music, volunteer service (tutoring, mentoring, et cetera), LGBTQ rights, and reading/writing.
*Naturally, I’m a much stronger humanities student than STEM student (math is probably my worst subject), but I want to major in STEM (computer science, physics, chemistry, neuroscience, cognitive science, environmental science… I know the first two are mostly math, but math does make sense to me when used in a scientific context- just not when it’s used by itself) because science is my favorite subject (and best after English), and it captures my attention much more easily other subjects do.
*</em>I realize that I’ll have to work harder than many to attain a degree in STEM, which is fine with me; however, if I actually can’t do it, I’ll probably go into something English-related.
*I don’t care about being rich; I just want a job post-graduation. I care more about learning and being happy than having a surplus of money; if I did happen to make over >50-60k, I’d donate most of it.</p>

<p>Reasons for Brown over Stanford:</p>

<p><em>Quirky, eccentric, almost-too-progressive/liberal reputation
*</em>More diversity?
<em>I have a lot of interests and like to try/learn about new things, but also get bored easily when I’m not pursuing something that I enjoy, so I’d definitely take advantage of the open curriculum
*</em>Taking classes with people who actually want to be in those classes is extremely important to me, which is another plus for the open curriculum
*Seems to have a stronger focus on undergraduates
*I love Rhode Island, and I wouldn’t be 3000 miles away from everything I’ve ever known (I’m from Connecticut)
*Smaller student body than Stanford
*I want to be happy, and the fact that “everyone” seems to love Brown is one of the main reasons that I originally fell in love with it four years ago.
*New England weather (I love the rain, snow, et cetera, and don’t really like heat)</p>

<p>Reasons for Stanford over Brown:</p>

<p><em>Stanford’s FA package is 2x (25k versus 52k total across the 4 years) better than Stanford’s. I sent in an appeal to Brown, and am still waiting to hear back.
*Stanford trumps Brown academically in virtually every area
*</em>Computer science/STEM in general… not much else to say for this one</p>

<p>So, basically, Stanford is better for the “hard” factors (price, academics), and Brown is better for the “soft” factors (fit, atmosphere, location). </p>

<p>Any and all advice is appreciated… thanks for reading my wall of text, haha.</p>

2

<p>I see this is one of those difficult decisions. Seems your heart is with Brown or am I misreading that? I hope you shared with Brown your Stanford offer?</p>

<p>Hum so many points to make. I sort of want to beg you to go to Brown for your own good, but I don’t really like to do that to people. And there is the money issue. That’s a lot of money for low income. See what they say, but how would you get that difference. Are you saying your parents are able to pay 25k COA and what, you would take a loan for the rest? My daughter was on a lot of aid at Brown and was able to be frugal with used books, and moving off campus, just a couple of blocks to save quite a bit on room and board Jr and Sr year. But your costs are pretty set freshman and sophomore year.</p>

<p>I think you can be very successful in fulfilling your goals at Brown. It is challenging but there is wiggle room in the ABC grading, p/f, late withdraw, and all sorts of ways to try things and even fail and pick yourself right up. Yes Stanford CS is so famous, but Brown has a truly great intimate CS dept, with really distinguished older and younger faculty who work with both grad students and undergrad in teaching and research. It is a very supportive department from my daughter’s point of view she was enormously successful and had tremendous opportunities and went right into a top 10 PhD track program. She had job offers from Brown CS alumni in startups and has been well prepared for her career. If you did a CS internship Jr year you would make a sizable chunk of money to pay loans. Of course same at Stanford but you would get to bank it.</p>

<p>The open curriculum really allowed her to cruise through some of the STEM areas and find her niche. She didn’t envision a CS major but it sort of became evident after CS 17/18. If anything she should have taken classes on the humanities side more than she did, but she took Mandarin, fiction writing…</p>

<p>There is something to be said for exploring the other coast…</p>

<p>I have to run now, so I will try to give you more comments later. Don’t mean to so pushy…</p>

3

<p>undoubtedly, my heart is with brown- I’m just trying to figure out if my mind is okay with it too, haha</p>

<p>all of your insight has been really helpful, thank you! you’re not being pushy… any more information would be great :)</p>

4

<p>…but Brown seems so perfect for you. Now Stanford has wonderful opportunities and you can feel if it right for you when you visit. Just don’t worry that you will give up academics or opportunities at Brown, they are there. Trust yourself and you’ll do what you need for yourself either way. Ok gotta run for real…</p>

5

<p>Stanford is the school if you’re really interested in STEM. At the same time though, the classes there are really really intensive and hard from what I’ve heard. If you hate math, you may want to reconsider your career path.</p>

6

<p>@BrownOrStan. First congratulations on both schools! It seems you may have some limited information on Stanford…looking at what you wrote. If I were you…I would post this same question under College Search and Selection and the Stanford thread to get more input from the other school as well as non-partisans…</p>

<p>…and I would definitely attend AdmitWeekend at both schools…then, I have a feeling you will have a much better idea and appreciation of which school you want to spend the next 4 years…</p>

<p>Best wishes!</p>

7

<p>Brown increased my aid package. The difference between Stanford and Brown is now less than $10k. At this point, I’m going to visit the two campuses and leave the decision up to fit.</p>

<p>Thank you for the input!</p>

8

<p>^Sounds like a very good plan.</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity: Less than 10k per year or less than 10k total?</p>

9

<p>10k total :)</p>

10

<p>So, this was the college decision I had to make and it was the toughest ever. For me, going to Adoch and Admit Weekend was really informative, because I saw straight up that Stanford is HUGE (and with the church and the fountains so, so beautiful.). I learned that because Palo Alto is so expensive, almost all grad students live on campus, so it really felt like a 20,000 school, if not more do to its incredibly expansive size. I decided Stanford is arguably the ideal school if you know exactly what you want to do and want a school that can provide immense resources and the networking to achieve it - it’s a start-up incubator, as they told us, as people go in knowing they want a start-up and Stanford provides everything you would need to hone that skill set. But I didn’t feel the school provided much support - you very much had to know what you want and be proactive about getting it. For me, that was a major turnoff - I wanted the undergraduate liberal arts experience, and Stanford wasn’t geared for that to the extent Brown was. The students I met at Brown were every bit as capable academically as Stanford, so I came to the conclusion that the difference in academics will be negligible (the Brown students I met seemed much more willing to have intellectual discussions than those I met at Stanford, though that very much could have been personal experience; I was in Flo Mo for Admit Weekend…). I’ll be off to do a Fulbright next year, and I can honestly say that would not have been even almost possible were it not for the advising and relationships I developed at Brown. Ultimately, I think this decision comes down alot more to you and what you want - you will get a great education at either. Let me know if I can be any more help! Good luck!</p>

11

<p>I think Mahogany has a very insightful post. I am a Stanford grad and had one kid at Brown and one at Stanford. Although I loved Stanford and my older son had a great experience, I have really been impressed with my younger son’s experience at Brown. My older one knew what he wanted and Stanford helped him on that path. My younger son really had more intellectual curiosity, which Brown satisfied very well. As has been noted before, you can’t go wrong with either school. You should get a good feel from admit weekend. I will say that I think Stanford generally has more money and more resources (you can tell the difference at Parent’s Weekend). That being said, my son at Brown received funding for his research from freshman year on, which is not the case at many schools. Good luck with your decision and I am sure you will have a great experience at either school</p>

12

<p>Oh man, I so know how you feel… except I’m having an incredibly difficult time deciding between Brown and Berkeley for CS rather than Stanford. I feel like I’m a better fit for Brown, but at the same time… Cal seems better for the “hard” factors as you put it. </p>

<p>Like others have said, I think if you’re really set on CS for sure, Stanford’s great. If not, Brown’s great too… and since a lot of Brown CS students end up going to SV for internships (according to both BrownParent as well as a document a current CS student there showed me today) it won’t make a huge difference. Anyways, you’ll probably be able to make a more informed decision once you visit, so that’s great. Let us know what you choose!</p>

13

<p>Sorry guys- completely forgot about this thread. I chose Brown, for the exact reasons that @Mahogany stated, and I’m positive that I made the best choice (for me). </p>

<p>@Truust What did you choose?</p>

14

<p>That’s great! I feel like you made the right choice.</p>

<p>I ended up choosing Cal last minute. It was really, really tough to go through with it (I imagine giving up Stanford probably wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for you either) and I regret it sometimes, but I guess I would feel the same thing choosing Brown too. (I actually ended up enrolling in Cal initially, then I decided I wanted to go to Brown, so I enrolled there… then I impulsively decided to go to Cal basically right before May 1st, so I withdrew from Brown… it was just a mess.)</p>

15

<p>@Truust Oh jeez :/. Yeah, giving up Stanford was a struggle, but I knew that it was for the best. I did (do?) regret it sometimes when I remember that I had the possibility to graduate with a degree from /Stanford/, but then I also remember that hating my life for four years isn’t worth any degree, no matter how shiny (not to mention, Brown isn’t exactly nothing lmao) Plus, I just love the Brown kids a lot more; Stanford’s a little too traditionally academic for my tastes, lol.</p>

<p>Good luck at Cal- I’m sure you’ll make the most of it =)</p>