<p>First let me start by saying I'm posting this for a friend. She has been accepted into both Brown and Claremont McKenna. She has been in contact with both the track coaches and plans to run track at both places, however academics have always been her first priority and she worries that at Brown she will be forced to put academics aside for athletics. She also doesn't like that meets are far away and she worries that her social life will be compromised at brown if she's gone Friday and Saturday during the long season.
At Claremont, while track is serious, the meets are closer and her breaks are not cut off. They also gave her a significant amount of money (~10,000) a year. That being said, my friend is not sure what she is interested in, and brown is obviously the place for exploration, while Cmc is a little more focused (poly Sci and Econ). I was hoping some of you could shed some light on her situation, especially if any of you run at brown/Cmc!</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>My son’s roommate/friend ran both Cross Country and Track all four years at CMC. He loved his team, loved the experience. But it did affect his social life there, too - track meets are away - whether far away or not - and you’re gone many many weekends. In addition, you get up early in the morning to train - so late nights are not the norm - which will affect social life - either at CMC or Brown.</p>
<p>There is a real misconception about the limitations of the academic options at CMC - yes, many students are econ & gov majors. However, there are also plenty of science, psychology, sociology, math, IR, literature, American Studies, Foreign Language, religion & philosophy majors. What there aren’t are the practicing arts - those have to be majored in at one of the other 5C campuses - but the huge majority of the students double major - and there’s no reason one couldn’t double major in Dance or Music, for instance, at a different campus. The impact, however, of not having the Arts available at CMC as majors is that the vast majority of the student body in the dorms will not have the arts as their main focus. That would not be the case at Brown -where she would find all types of students in her dorm.</p>
<p>The reason I’m using ‘dorms’ here - is that within the 5C community you’ll find every sort of student - probably more so than at Brown which will attract a particular type of student. Students who choose Harvey Mudd rarely consider Brown, for instance. In some ways, because each individual college in the 5C’s has a distinct personality - as a whole one gets a more complex student body than is usual in a university setting of that size.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is a serious athelete at Brown. Being an athelete at any college is a huge time committment, but the Ivy’s are pretty serious about graduating “scholar-atheletes” and even though it is D-1 sports, its not as time consuming as most D-1 programs. His freinds who went to Pac 12 schools (he turned those offers down), train way, way harder, including all summer away in training and off-season at school. The Brown atheletic committment is a joke in comparision. Bottom-line, I don’t think the difference in committment to sports is very significant between these two schools.</p>