<p>I’ve posted this in the Carleton forum, but feel I should post it here, too.</p>
<p>My son may be choosing between these two schools. He is a strong student across the boards (4.0, 2300’s, National Merit Scholar), with a passion for theater, English, creative writing (including comedy and plays), humor, possibly music (a capella, composition/arranging). He is very creative, somewhat distractible, hates pretentiousness, initially holds himself back, hasn’t traveled much. A real sweetheart of a guy who loves to make people laugh. He has grown up in the midwest and gone through school without breaking much of a sweat. Brown’s financial aid offer is significantly better than Carleton’s and includes no loans. He would likely graduate Carleton with some debt.</p>
<p>Did anyone here face this particular choice? If so, how did you decide and what are your thoughts about it now?</p>
<p>Now let me throw in the fact that older brother (very accomplished, but very different interests) will be a senior at Brown when younger one is a freshman. Younger son has concerns about going to the same school as his brother. (They’ve always gotten along extremely well – that is not the issue.) Does that change what you have to say? I am especially interested in hearing from any younger sibings out there, or parents of two or more with widsom to share.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>My son is also a strong student (ACT 36.0, PSAT 240, 1 in 400 class rank) who comes from the Midwest and would have gone through school without breaking much of a sweat, except that he’s finishing high school in 3 years, which required a lot of additional outside classes. He, too, hates pretentiousness, has a dry sense of humor, and initially holds himself back, often preferring to listen and only comment if he has something unusual to point out (or if everyone else is stumped). One difference: my son’s a math and science "natural’ who gets the material in one pass; yet he also has broad liberal arts interests and actually enjoys (horrors!) reading the classics.</p>
<p>My son was leaning toward one of the top LACs, Williams or Amherst, but visited Brown this week and fell in love. The instructors he met were both funny and informative, ready to engage him on any level. He somehow got involved with two girls who were interested in engineering and they wandered off to see the “cool stuff” in the science and engineering building. Professors kept popping up and actually unlocking doors to let them see the facilities, rather than shooing them away and telling them to return to the official event.</p>
<p>Apparently there are two a capella groups specifically for people who can’t sing and a third one that dressed as pirates and tried to splash rum on the pre-froshes. There’s a Scrabble Club and a puzzles club and lots of others that I can’t remember. Even the political clubs were fun: one was showing Stephen Colbert video clips and handing out free pizza.</p>
<p>I don’t think the brothers thing will be an issue, especially if they have different interests and there’s only one year of overlap. The school is large enough that they can go their separate ways most of the time; yet having family close by in case of emergency or just initial loneliness could be a strong positive.</p>