Brown vs Caltech vs CMU SCS

Female from east coast. Thinking about studying CS/math right now, but I’m interested in exploring more STEM fields as well.

Brown seems a lot more like the traditional college experience than the other two, which I like, but Caltech/CMU SCS is stronger and have a better reputation for what I want to study. I’ve talked to some adults, and one feedback I keep hearing is that Brown has a more liberal arts rather than STEM vibe and isn’t as rigorous…?

CMU is really strong in CS, but the colleges seem segregated and I’m not sure about the strength of its other departments. Caltech is obvioulsy very good in STEM, but the small size and intense workload scares me a bit. I also feel like I would be missing out on the college experience and may not gain much in social skills. I was also considering Berkeley and Northwestern but probably will not go to these two over the three other choices.

I’m leaning more towards working in the industry than academia later in life, and I was also thinking about getting some sort of business background. One option I’m entertaining right now is to go to Caltech for a strong STEM foundation, and then go to a good MBA school afterwards. I have no idea if that is a good path though - thoughts?

I’ll be visiting them for the admitted student weekends later, but there isn’t much time to decide after the visits. I’m new to this whole process, and any suggestion is appreciated. Thanks!

The folks who do the hiring at apple, google, facebook, microsoft, adobe, pixar, etc beg to differ

One way to make this decision is to do some serious thinking about what type of college experience you want. Do you want to be surrounded by intense STEM people, to immerse yourself in that environment? Do you want more diversity in academic interests among your classmates?

The other way is to just go with your gut after visiting the schools. You can’t go wrong with any of them.

You can get the best of both worlds by going to Brown undergrad and then grad school at a place like CMU. Like what Randy Pausch did (look him up).

Many adults have no clue what Brown is like today. A lot of money has been, and is being, pumped into STEM. More students major in STEM here than in humanities.

@stswtbk of course Brown is not as strong at STEM and rigorous as Caltech and CMU but that doesn’t mean it is not good. far from it.

Brown is a very different school than Caltech and CMU. Very few people could be happy at both. If you select CMU or Caltech you should be prepared for a super intense world , really harsh grading and minimal social life. But on the upside you will access to stronger STEM departments and STEM-related opportunities. But it does with a price. If you are not ready for that kind of life, Brown s an excel choice with great academic quality and opportunities and also a more well-rounded undergrad experience.

You’ll get plenty of STEM research opportunities at Brown. Its students win as many of the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship grants for grad school as its peers, mainly because they have substantial research on their CVs–easy to join labs at Brown both on the undergrad campus and at the med school–as well as opportunities to do science outreach/volunteering.

https://news.brown.edu/articles/2017/04/nsf