Brown vs Cornell vs UCLA?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys! Brown, Cornell, and UCLA are the colleges I’m deciding between right now. They’re all really distinct but I’m still not sure what to choose and feel pretty equally about them all. Over spring break I visited them and only feel more confused. Here’s some of the factors I’ve considered. It would be great to know if you guys had any thoughts to add?

Brown:

  • seems to have a really nice, relaxed atmosphere, super liberal-artsy (my dad thinks this might be too sheltered though in terms of preparing for the “real world”)
  • I’ll probably major in English/History so most people assume this is the obvious choice
  • not sure how I feel about Providence - campus is super conveniently located, but I’m not sure I’m the city type

UCLA:

  • seems relatively more competitive because of the huge amount of people - could be stressful, or could be good preparation for the real world (my dad’s opinion)
  • most cost-effective (I’m from California)
  • same with Brown for the big city setting

Cornell:

  • sort of seems midway between Brown and UCLA? Huge, but the College of Arts and Sciences gives sort of a LAC feel
  • my brother (1 year older) goes there and doesn’t really want me to “follow” him
  • my friend got in ED so that’d be nice
  • sort of middle of nowhere but I like that haha

I’m not quite sure what I want out of college… Right now, being a high school teacher is my fallback plan, and nothing else really appeals to me yet, and in that case I don’t know if going to such expensive colleges as Brown or Cornell would be worth it. Lots of people say that college is whatever you make of it, so if that’s true and it doesn’t necessarily matter where you go, UCLA would make the most sense because of financial reasons. It would be harder to stand out to professors at UCLA, but I don’t really know if I want to “stand out”, or what the point of that is (I totally get it for people who are in say pre-med, but not sure for a humanities kid like me lol).

Anyway I’d really appreciate any additional thoughts you guys have on any of these colleges–about academics, social life, atmosphere, surrounding city, whatever–or about the importance of college in general haha.

Thank you so much for your time!

2

Oh for Cornell I should add that I was admitted as a Tanner Dean’s scholar, but I don’t know much about the program right now and I’m not sure if that’ll make a significant difference in the college experience.

3

It seems like you can rule out Cornell at this point. Brown has a nice vibe indeed and seems suited for what you want to study but if $$ is more important that’s understandable. If you change your mind about career, Brown could open a few more doors but that’s about it.

4

How much debt would each school require you to take on?

For what it is worth, most upper division English classes at UCLA are on the smaller side, while history courses seem to be mostly moderately large to very large. You can look up the schedule for class sizes: http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/schedule/schedulehome.aspx

Cornell’s schedule does not list class sizes, although some appear to be large based on the several discussions associated with a given lecture. https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA15

Brown classes seem to be smaller. In the schedule, you need to click on the title of the class in the list of classes to see enrollment and capacity: https://selfservice.brown.edu/ss/bwckschd.p_disp_dyn_sched

5

Dblazer, what’s your reasoning for ruling out Cornell?