<p>Hey guys! I’m having a really really hard time deciding between these two universities and which one I’d want to apply early to, so can you guys gives me your opinions on why Brown is better? I’m also posting this in the Columbia forum to get opposing views. Thanks a lot!! </p>
<p>Brown: Tighter community feeling
Columbia: NYC</p>
<p>I feel you should consider which one is better for you than trying to get opinions on which is better in general. How important is the ability to shape your education exactly* how you want? Would you find that overwhelming? Would the grading system cause you to slack off or just try new things? Brown works for some people. It really doesn’t for others. I never visited Columbia but I have a friend there who’s incredibly happy there, whereas I’m happy with Brown (minus a few things that are inherent with college in general). I prefer to make my own path and study what I’m interested in from different angles (I took 5 language courses, 2 math, and 2 computer science courses this year, but I can justify each of them sharing a common theme). If you think you’d learn better with a more rigid but set core, Brown is likely not going to be a good place. People here are happy, but I’m sure that’s not exclusive to Brown. Providence is too big for some, too small for others, and just right for the rest. If you like Columbia for NYC, there are inexpensive trains into Boston (and occasional trains to NYC), but obviously there’s an extra cost, monetarily and temporally, there. Are the departments you’re interested in stronger at Brown or Columbia? How important is the community feel? What about large parties (most parties at Brown are smaller). Do you have galvanizing conservative views? Brown is fine with different view points, but when one tries to push an unpopular one on others, then it tends to not be met well.</p>
<p>Are there any more-specific areas you’d liked addressed? I feel the positives for some are negatives for others.</p>
<p>*Exactly is an exaggeration, but it’s as close as you’ll get, really.</p>
<p>Hey Uroogla:</p>
<p>I’m the type of person that likes to be pushed so I would probably take advantage of Brown’s grading system. On the other hand, it seems awesome that Brown encourages students to try new things. As of now, I don’t really have a keen interest on one particular field of study so I feel that it’d be easier to explore new things at Brown? I would definitely prefer living in a big city such as NYC, because I feel it would provide me with more chances to intern and explore the pursue the endless possibilities that match my interests (which like I’ve stated is a mystery as of now) The community feel is pretty important because I want feel like I’m part of a family. I want to be able to escape by myself when I need to but know that I have plenty of close friends to rely on whenever I need them. I would prefer larger parties, because that way, there are always new people that I can meet and get to know. The people (including the professors) at Brown generally give off a nicer aura than those at Columbia. Would I be lacking the the college experience at Columbia because to me, people are more independent there?</p>
<p>It would probably be a bit easier to try things at Brown, since you could create your own “core” of different classes to try without having to worry about if they fulfill the school’s requirements. For example, some schools have a language requirement - but you could approach it from another direction and take linguistics. At most colleges, this wouldn’t work, but since Brown doesn’t require you to take a language, you’d get to study them from a different (and possibly more interesting, depending on your point of view) perspective.</p>
<p>Brown does encourage people to try their own thing. One’s adviser can offer advise, but in the end, she can’t actually stop you from doing what you want. The decisions are yours. One <em>can</em> just take 32 courses in 1 discipline. It’s not recommended and won’t give you a variety of perspectives on he world and that issue, but it’s possible.</p>
<p>There are many chances to intern within Providence, from what I’ve heard. Likely not as numerous as within NYC, but people do it, and somewhere here there are threads talking about it.</p>
<p>I know almost nothing about Columbia, but the people at Brown are both close and nice. If you go looking, you’ll find people to be close with, as well as a large number of acquaintances. I’m also not an expert on party life (in general not my thing), but there are a couple larger parties, but I feel those aren’t the norm.</p>
<p>The term “college experience” has different connotations for many people. People are not the most vital thing to my college experience. They’re all quite nice, and I enjoy talking with them, but the two primary parts of my experience are the academics and the independence (as compared to high school). So it depends on how much you value the community and how much you can deal with Providence. Based on what you’ve written, both Brown and Columbia have elements that conflict with your ideal college experience. So I wouldn’t single out Columbia as being the place at which you’d be lacking as far as the college experience goes, as it’ll likely be true at all colleges, in some way. Brown has many great elements, from the students and faculty and their attitudes/outlooks to the New Curriculum. It also has some elements that some people dislike - Providence being the major one we’ve touched on, but even parts of the New Curriculum (with almost no “rules,” sometimes one can get lost. Not necessarily bad to explore, but if one decides one wants to complete a Bachelor of Science, it requires a large number of courses and limits exploration and enrichment later. And while it’s easy to double concentrate and not impossible to triple, as I’m finding out, it also limits one’s options greatly, both in breadth and in depth.).</p>
<p>I do have a question for you, though: is there a reason other than knowing where you’re going sooner that you want to apply early? If you’re unsure of which school to apply early to, I feel it might be better to apply regular and give yourself more time to view the pluses and minuses and put them into perspective, especially in case you should have a change of heart after deciding.</p>
<p>You sound like you want Columbia only for NYC, and not for the university in itself.</p>
<p>You can live in NYC any time after you graduate. But you only have one chance to spend 4 years at Brown :).</p>
<p>To be honest, you should really find people from your school who went to both recently and talk to them about it.</p>
<p>They’re good people to ask, not tour guides or people at CC, since we’re all a wee bit too dedicated about our colleges.</p>
<p>Last year I was pretty positive I was going to apply to Columbia Early Decision. That had been my choice for a while. Yet, when I started talking to people who went there or are there, not a single person really truly liked it; one person admitted the only reason he wasn’t going to transfer was because he knew he would get a better job out of Columbia than he would out of a school he would switch to.</p>
<p>The Brown people I talked to did like Brown fervently, which was very nice to hear.</p>
<p>Keep in mind I also had a smaller sample size for Brown.</p>
<p>And that I’m going to be a student at Brown, too.</p>
<p>Hey guys. Thanks. I guess it’s true that the only reason I wanted to apply early to Columbia is because of NYC and the numerous possibilities that surround me off-campus. Is Brown a really close-knit community and is Providence really that small? My friend visited and said she could walk across the whole town in like 20 minutes so I got kinda worried</p>
<p>No, I don’t think it’s that small. I mean, it’s good enough for me, but I don’t live in NYC (I live in one of the biggest cities in India though).</p>