<p>Soon I will have to choose one. They both emphasize undergrad education with very differnt characteristics. Do you have any insights/advice? (Liberal arts/Science, maybe scientific research or medical later.)
I posted the same request on Brown site.</p>
<p>I had the same choice +MIT, Will, Amherst. </p>
<p>I chose Dartmouth. It's very personal at this point. I don't think anybody can give you YOUR good reasons to go to one or the other.</p>
<p>GO GREEN!</p>
<p>I had the same decision and chose dartmouth. I literally didn't even know when I went to Kinko's to fax a written signed response. On the way I ended up at a grocery store (in the middle of Ohio) and there was a Dartmouth Hat in one of the stuffed animal "claw" machines. I got it and that's how I decided. So its a hard choice. </p>
<p>Here's my opinion, I have hung out at Brown a lot and I talked to many people when making this decision.</p>
<p>Location: </p>
<p>Dartmouth: If you love nature, the outdoors, and playing outside Dartmouth is sweet. Snowball fights, parties in the river (tubestock), running around the bonfire in the fall etc, not just hiking. The "middle of nowhere" thing isnt exactly true. The upper valley has eveything you need and Boston is only a couple hours away. Its really beautiful. The town is fun, but its grown up. </p>
<p>Brown: Thayer street is great. Its young, has a ton of food, and providence is a really nice little city. I love its atmosphere, and the clubs/ bars are fun. The campus is more incorporated into the city as opposed to Dartmouth' pure campus.</p>
<p>Community: </p>
<p>Dartmouth: Smaller and much more tight, a huge selling point, especially if you are a person who likes to really know a lot of people. Its really cool and by the time you are a senior you get to know many people. Everyone is incredibly friendly and open to meeting each other. The alumni network is incredibly strong and there is an awesome spirit to the place.</p>
<p>Brown: Less community focused and more "groupy/ cliquey." Its not to say there isn't Brown pride, there is, its just not as strong as it is at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Student Body:</p>
<p>Dartmouth: Fun loving, playful, middle of the road/ liberal, cool, friendly.</p>
<p>Brown: More strong international presence, liberal, less friendly but not by much.</p>
<p>Academics: </p>
<p>Dartmouth: Dartmouth is awesome about handing out grants, giving individual attention, having great advising, etc. Awesome study abroad programs. Great grad school feeder.</p>
<p>Brown: Similar without the study abroad and less overall grants (brown is poorer). Similar grad school feeder.</p>
<p>Hope this helps! Dartmouth was great, but I am sure Brown would be too.</p>
<p>Be sure to take into account also Brown's grading system (or lack thereof, if you like). Oftentimes, schools without core curriculum or standard grading systems have trouble placing students in grad school because of the lack of structure in their undergraduate education.</p>
<p>luckily, brown</p>
<p>1) has a grading system</p>
<p>2) has no trouble placing students into grad school</p>
<p>Dcircle, I agree. Both are awesome.</p>
<p>I was just saying you can choose to take a lot of things pass/fail and therefore can have relatively few grades on your transcript. Furthermore, I was just commenting on less-structured schools in general, not on Brown specifically. It is a wonderful institution.</p>
<p>If you're shortsighted enough to take the majority of your classes S/NC while preparing for grad school, you probably aren't the kind of person the open curriculum was designed for.</p>
<p>Slipper, nice/fair/insightful/helpful compare-and-contrast there.</p>
<p>Curiously (really), </p>
<p>What is the point of even making many of the classes, or for that matter, some of the classes pass/fail, and why does the literature from and about Brown stress this option to such a degree?</p>
<p>What is the philosophy behind it--is it a market niche Brown has discovered, or is it thought that students will learn the material in a more satisfactory fashion in this--the customer is always right--manner?</p>
<p>Should this option be offered to seniors in high school, like AP/IB classes alread are? </p>
<p>Are there certain things that we believe all college grads should have been exposed to, especially from elite schools like Brown?</p>
<p>Of course, if </p>
<p>1) most of the students matriculating to Brown have the wisdom of Socrates and the discipline of an Olympic athlete or a Trappist monk, I agree that an open curriculum and pass/fail would be a positive educational environment to navigate; wherein a 18-21 year old will be the sole captain of their own ship sailing to destinations they have only heard of and not experienced let alone charted. If on the other hand,
2) they simply don't like to be told what to do...or how to do it...or where to go
or if they have or have not done what they are doing well, I don't know that they are being completely served by this unmapped environment. However, I realize this is probably a bigger issue to experienced and caring parents than it is to their bright and highly praised children.</p>
<p>Which kind of student do you think, on the whole, will find this option most appealing?</p>
<p>Im guessing a little of both #1 & #2 (to the degree that it is a factor) with the majority belonging to category #2. Im sure most students just want to go to Brown because it is a well respected-prestigious-quirky school, irregardless of the fact that it has an undefined curriculum or a universal pass/fail option.</p>
<p>woodwork, </p>
<p>1) in a recent student survery, the freedom to design your own education was the most influential reason people decided to matriculate--the open curriculum (as opposed to the "undefined" curriculum) has more or less come to define brown</p>
<p>2) the pass/fail option exists to encourage this sense of freedom. it allows a physics major to take an upper level comparitive literature seminar on European intellectual history, because it is interesting to him--without facing repurcussions for being in a class with folks that know Kant inside and out. it allows an ambitious religious studies major to take urdu as a fifth class so that they can master a language. does that help?</p>
<p>3) i know it's obnoxious when people respond to the content of posts with grammar suggestions but this one is a pet peeve of mine--"irregardless" is not a word</p>
<p>hi dcircle,</p>
<p>thanks for the tip, but I'm pretty sure irregardless is a word!</p>
<p>ir·re·gard·less ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-gärdls)
adv. Nonstandard
Regardless.</p>
<p>Well, look at the word "Nonstandard" in your definition. It may be a word, but 'irregardless' is still a usage faux pas.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
[/quote]
-dictionary.com.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>3) i know it's obnoxious when people respond to the content of posts with grammar suggestions but this one is a pet peeve of mine--"irregardless" is not a word </p>
<p>dcircle,
I admire your spunk, knowing its obnoxious and still having the courage to say it anyhow. Fortunately for the both of us, punctuation is not a pet-peeve of mine.
Still, I tend to enjoy your perspectives.</p>
<p>Would you think your #2 represents a covert form of grade inflation?</p>
<p>dcircle-
--"irregardless" is not a word
Fountain-
sure irregardless is a word
Jprenice-
It may be a word</p>
<p>me-
Its a word alright, non-standard or otherwise.
I always find the people who correct other peoples grammar to be the most sexy and fascinating people to be around, don't you.</p>
<p>Which is worse - "irregardless" or "I could care less?"</p>
<p>on another note i just saved 1500 dollars on car insurance by switching to geico</p>
<p>too funny, and so very Dartmouth appropriate</p>
<p>d-dad "I could care less" is definitely worse lol</p>
<p>Woodwork - some of the Brown tour guides seemed to stress that the pass/fail system was very beneficial for the following scenario: say you're an chem major, but next semester there will be a visiting philosophy professor who is extremely famous, and you would like to take advantage of his/her presence. But! You don't know anything about philosophy and may not understand it at all. Taking it pass/fail lets you take the class for the sake of taking and enjoying the class, without having to worry about whether or not you will mesh with the material.</p>
<br>
<p>d-dad "I could care less" is definitely worse lol</p>
<br>
<p>I'm going to go lay down and think about that.</p>