brown vs harvard vs princeton vs upenn vs columbia vs amherst

College Search & Selection
41

<p>Some thoughts:</p>

<p>1) Hats off to you for not caring about prestige, being clear about what you want, and recognizing that this is an important decision that should be made fully by you, for you.</p>

<p>2) Penn - It sounds like it would be an excellent choice for you based on personality. It’s a very urban (perhaps too urban depending on your tastes) location, the “Social Ivy,” yet still offers a fairly traditional college experience. As other posters have said, though, it does have extensive graduate programs. At Penn, you are part of a university that includes many graduate programs and a plethora of undergraduate options. An equal part, but still just a part, whereas at Amherst, or even Brown, undergraduate education is pretty much the only show in town.</p>

<p>2) Harvard - Obviously it is very hard to turn down Harvard, not just because of the reputation, but because of all its location and the climate on campus offer you. I would be worried about the proliferation of TAs, though.</p>

<p>3) Amherst - My only concern is that it could be a bit rural for you, but if you felt that the location wasn’t an issue when you visited, then I think it 100% meets your criteria.</p>

<p>4) Brown - Again, like Amherst, I think it totally fits with what you are looking for, but has the added plus of a smaller city being at your fingertips, with easy access to Boston as well.</p>

<p>5) This probably has not been that helpful. Honestly, I think any one of those 4 schools offers you most, if not all, of what you are looking for, and if I were in your shoes I would make my decision after all of my visits based on where I felt that the people were most in line with who I would want to spend the next 4 years with, since that seems to be the only point of difference between the schools that matters to you.</p>

42

<p>@modestmelody</p>

<p>“That being said, your schools are so different and all strong enough in enough fields that you should be thinking about where you are going to be set up for your greatest success.”</p>

<p>I’ve never thought it about it that way. but do you think the success factor will be that different academically at any of these institutions?
Or…I guess you are talking about the environment of each school and whether its conducive to my personality?</p>

<p>But anyway. I will definitely visit these schools and keep that in mind.
&& Brown doesnt have a TA presence? At least as much as Harvard.</p>

<p>&& I’m still scrutinizing Amherst. I loved it, but I can see how 4 years of ruralness may not be for me.
UPenn has its ups and downs for me. Hopefully visiting will clarify everything.</p>

43

<p>

</p>

<p>I mean conducive to your personality and interests so that you will thrive inside and outside of the classroom.</p>

<p>Brown doesn’t use TAs even remotely in the same way Harvard does-- remember, minus the medical school there are about 1,200-1,300 graduate students and 6k undergrads here. Your experience with grad students will be limited to: Intro to Fiction/Poetry/Screenwriting, which is often taught by third year MFA students; the Intro Calculus classes, which always have sections taught by a professor that are typically easy to get into (but sometimes I preferred the graduate student); and introductory language courses which are sometimes taught by native language-speaking graduate students. In all cases these grad students are used to maintain class sizes of 18 or less (or 25 or less in math) and still having many students access these classes. Outside of these classes, you will always find a professor teaching you. There are some departments where professors will teach a lecture portion of the class and TAs will help to lead break out sections, but these are rare outside of the few 100 student classes we have. Over 75% of our classes are under 20 students.</p>

44

<p>Although it looks like you may have ruled out Princeton, I should point out that Princeton has only 5,000 undergraduates and no professional graduate schools. No courses are taught by TAs, although in larger, introductory courses, professors will lecture and smaller break-out sessions are led by TAs. At Princeton, approximately 75% of the classes are composed of less than 20 students and the university is known for its concentration on undergraduate education and the access students have to professors.</p>

45

<p>“I would be worried about the proliferation of TAs, though.”</p>

<p>You’re recommending Penn, but you’re worried about the role of TAs at Harvard? Are you even trying to be consistent?</p>

46

<p>IMO, TAs aren’t necessarily bad.
D1 attended an LAC, in one math class went to the prof for help in a particular area she was having trouble with, and he made a point of putting a big question on this exact area he knew she was having trouble with on the test! In one of the bigger classes at that LAC, the Prof assigned less written work than I would have imagined for that type of class, probably because he/she would have to grade it all himself. The assignments would have been more comprehensive at a leading university, because he would have had graders to leverage his time.</p>

<p>TAs doing recitation sections, helping with problems, is ok, to me. They are closer to the point of learning this stuff for the first time than the prof. is, can better remember what was hard for them to learn initially and how they learned it. And they are less bored with the intro material than the prof. is.</p>

<p>If you’re going to have them, what is important is to have really smart TAs. IMO the better ranked grad programs in a particular field will tend to attract better qualified TAs. There’s nothing worse than being graded by an idiot.
I’ve read on CC that some LAcs use [clearly less qualified] UNDERGRADS !!!
as TAS, or TA-equivalents, eg graders, in some of their larger intro classes.
I specifically read this about Williams, don’t know if Amherst does it too.</p>

47

<p>To me it seems like you would best be served by attending Amherst, Princeton or Brown. Harvard though is hard to deny. </p>

<p>One of the detractors from those schools is location except for maybe brown which you happen to not be visiting. </p>

<p>You seem to have liked Amherst in most facets(except location) and it is top notch school.</p>

<p>Ultimately you have to go with your gut. </p>

<p>I am in a similar situation…albeit with less schools. I’m deciding between Yale and Amherst and I’m leaning heavily towards Amherst because of the neuroscience field and the focus on undergraduate education. </p>

<p>Princeton had been my dream…but unfortunately, I was rejected.</p>

48

<p>so let me see if I can understand this…</p>

<p>the OP never visited Princeton, widely considered to have the most beautiful campus in the country, yet removed it off the list because of the campus environment, even though one of the priorities of the OP was for attention to undergraduate teaching, which is one of the main trademarks of Princeton.</p>

<p>Ok, I understand…</p>

<p>this Princeton?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg[/url]”>http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/newJersey/PrincetonBlairHallInSnowM.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

49

<p>I took Princeton off the list for more than that reason. I didnt list it all here, and I dont care to go into specifics of it. I just don’t think it fits me after more in depth research.</p>

<p>& I wish to move forward without looking back upon my “off list”
I’m only looking at UPenn, Harvard, && Brown as of now. No turning back</p>

<p>And the beauty of a campus is definitely not going to make me want to be at a particular college. Each place has its own beauty in a way.</p>

50

<p>@j1s2nb1rn3s
your lucky to have those two main choices. I think they both have a wonderful undergraduate focus. Amherst just wasn’t located in my ideal place. </p>

<p>Have you visited both?</p>

51

<p>honeyjay, well good for you</p>

<p>With UPenn, Harvard and Brown you really can’t lose - truely great universities</p>

<p>just please make sure that you use those securitiy officials offered by the University and the City when walking in the dark at UPenn past 8:00 pm…</p>

52

<p>^ Gratuitous swipes like that really don’t help to elucidate matters. You’ve obviously never been on the Penn campus after 8:00 pm, and know nothing about the actual safety there.</p>

53

<p>hehehe JohnAdams. Youve opened a can of beans.
Security @ Penn while I visit wil be important.
the nice thing about amherst was that you could walk anywhere @ night and be fine (but im leaving that in the past as I said above).</p>

<p>Why are a lot of colleges in sketchy places (like Yale, UChicago to a degree, UPenn, etc). lol</p>

54

<p>45 Percenter, you are correct</p>

<p>you wouldn’t find me anywhere near the Penn campus after it gets dark</p>

<p>

</p>

55

<p>I’d choose Brown
Its Arguably the best place to study neuroscience in the world, the open curriculum opens a lot of new possibilities, and Providence is an awesome city. </p>

<p>I only know from circumstantial evidence, but I’d be willing to bet that you’d have more student-prof interaction at Brown than at Penn/Harvard.</p>

56

<p>I think that while earlier in your selection process you had a lot of choices, youve sort of put yourself in a position now where the choice should easily be harvard.</p>

<p>I guess the idea that “school X is in a city!” Always seemed disingenuous to me. There’s a big difference, in my opinon, between columbia being in new york (sort of like a small campus island amidst the safest neighborhood in the city) and UPenn being in a sort of dirty dangerous part of philadelphia. This is the part where all the UPenn alums come on and say “You dont know what youre talking about!” But as a small town kid, im just calling it as I see it–columbia was in a much nicer spot.</p>

<p>And harvard, for what youre looking for, is best of all. Its sort of in a moderately busy suburb of Boston. Its like a college town, except boston is 20 minutes away, so you have the best of both worlds.</p>

<p>Plus harvard overall has better academics than your other two right now. I dont really believe the ridiculous hype that harvard’s undergrad sucks. Compared with your other two current choices, the resources it offers you are untouchable. The only school that you had that could compete with harvard’s per-student endowment was princeton.</p>

<p>I think when you visit harvard youll sort of get the feeling its just on a different level of excellence than the other two youre considering right now. Looking at what youve said, Ive got to think youd be best off at harvard.</p>

57

<p>Three great choices. Academically they are all so good that it really comes down to subjective “fit” issues (if cost is not a factor). It would make sense to pick Brown for the relative focus on undergraduates (and if you happen to really like the Open Curriculum concept, or the Pass/Fail grading option). However, I’ve noticed that a few posters are turned off by the Brown campus after a visit. If you absolutely cannot visit, order the Collegiate Choice Walking Tour DVD.</p>

<p>[Collegiate</a> Choice Walking Tours Videos - college videos, campus tours, virtual college tours, college planning,](<a href=“http://www.collegiatechoice.com/]Collegiate”>http://www.collegiatechoice.com/)</p>

<p>Boston/Cambridge is a wonderful college environment. How many people visit Providence as a tourist destination? With Penn, you have the safety concerns. If you don’t need LAC-like attention or P/F grading, and are ready to jump into the ocean so to speak, go with Harvard.</p>

58

<p>I second the above suggestion… I ordered some and they were pretty helpful and gave me a good feel for campus…</p>

59

<p>ok. my choices have narrowed due to an embarrassing event today.</p>

<p>now its brown VS harvard</p>

60

<p>There’s no choice here. Obviously Harvard.</p>

<p>And what was the embarrassing event?</p>