<p>Hello! The question is, did you or would you ever choose Brown University over HYPS? And why?</p>
<p>A little background:
I am a high school senior and athlete who is looking at Brown, Princeton, Yale and Stanford. Originally when I first began my college search Brown was my #1. I was first attracted to the school by the dual Brown-RISD program. With my sport, the coach told me I could not do the program but I found that I still loved Brown and the environment the open curriculum created. One of exploration and discovery and I felt that at Brown I would be able to explore my passions more fully than the HYPS schools. Most of my life, I am passive, and I saw Brown as a place where I would really grow as a person. Cheesy I know.</p>
<p>But when I visited Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, I was stunned at the difference between these schools and Brown. Not in academics, but in looks. So shallow but hear me out. I had always heard that Brown had a lower endowment, but I didn’t believe I would be able to see it. YPS were BEAUTIFUL. The classes I sat in on at Yale and Princeton were so fascinating I found myself interested in subjects I normally despise. The facilities were breathtaking. The resources. Everything was so perfect at these places. It was unsettling how perfect they were. An oasis where all troubles disappeared. (Stanford I was disappointed by their focus on the undergrad and the fact that there weren’t enough seats for everyone in the lecture halls I went to) At Yale and Princeton though, I felt myself falling prey to prestige, imagining myself telling my friends “I’m going to <em>insert big name school here.</em>” (not that Brown does not have a good name, there just isn’t the same reaction when I tell ppl I am looking there. Several (1-2) ppl go to Brown each year from my school, while maybe one has gone to P or Y in the past three years.) I blame Gilmore Girls for my weakness for US rankings.</p>
<p>How does Brown’s endowment really effect the school? Is Brown really lower tier than HYPS? Certainly in looks, but what about what matters: undergraduate education and job opportunities after college? I really don’t see how Brown is worse in actual education. Even though HYPS were all beautiful, I still liked Brown’s environment more. But I am stuck listening to peers, friends and family say how Brown is the “stupid ivy league,” that it is for washers, celebrities children who can’t get in anywhere else. The worst ivy. That Cal and UVA are better schools than Brown. That it is overrated and only ranks so high in US News because it is an ivy league…Waste of money. No one works hard. That it is easier than Princeton and Yale because there is only 30 credits requirement so it is for slackers. All these comments make me question myself and my judgement. I wonder, if I have to pay full tuition for a school, might as well go with the HYPS, right? Or…</p>
<p>There’s a lot to play with here, and I don’t have time all of it at the moment.</p>
<p>The most pressing thing that you need to be told is that you very well might not get into any of the schools that you’re considering. This sort of Brown-might-not-be-good-enough stuff might look a bit silly once you’ve been rejected by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Brown. The dual Brown-RISD program, in particular, is extraordinarily selective.</p>
<p>I think you need to take a step back and figure out what it is that you want. Do you want the name-based respect of the ignorant people who are trying to poison you against Brown? Do you want to be certain that no one will question the legitimacy of your college’s curriculum? Do you want a lot of wood paneling? Would Brown’s ‘inferior status’ weigh on you for your whole time there? I knew very few people at Brown who were unhappy with their experience, but of the ones that I did know, they all wanted one or more of these things. If that’s you, don’t bother applying.</p>
<p>To respond specifically to your point about Brown ranking high only because of its Ivy status, it strikes me as bizarre, since Brown doesn’t rank highly in the US News rankings, last I checked. Brown is squarely in the top ten schools as ranked by revealed preference, but squarely outside the top ten according to US News. That sounds like an abysmal showing to me. Of course, you could always just learn to accept that the US News rankings are meaningless pap designed to sell magazines. </p>
<p>And for the record, no one who knows anything calls Brown the ‘stupid ivy’. That (undeserved) epithet goes to Cornell.</p>
<p>1) Brown’s campus is prettier than Harvard’s (where I go to school now). I have a number of non-Brown-alum-friends who agree with me about that.</p>
<p>2) Job opportunities after college should not be in the top two things that matter when looking at a college.</p>
<p>I laughed at this. Brown is a better undergraduate institution than Harvard, by far. It’s more intellectual than Princeton, and I really don’t think Stanford is in Brown’s class as an undergraduate institution. Only Dartmouth and Yale are Brown’s true peers as a place to get a nonpareil undergraduate education at a national university. I’ve seen Stanford’s campus. It has a Spanish flavor, gorgeous at first if you like that style of architecture, but it can get old pretty fast. There is nothing more beautiful in the Spring time or the early Fall than Brown’s campus on the Main Green. Serene, peaceful, contemplative, mellow. In it’s own way, a Colonial way, Brown is also quite beautiful. It’s all in what your tastes are.</p>
<p>Let’s see, Brown the stupid ivy. Just this past cycle, Brown has produced as many Rhodes as Harvard, Princeton, or Stanford. It consistently ranks as one of the top producers of Fulbrights. It consistently is well represented in the student bodies of Yale, Harvard, Penn, and Stanford Law Schools, all member of the hallowed T-14 fraternity of Law Schools.</p>
<p>Goldman Sachs, NGOs, JP Morgan Chase, all recruit on campus at Brown. In fact, Brown’s now departing president was once on the Board of Directors at Goldman.</p>
<p>It consistently has spawned happiest student responses in surveys attempting to assess that sort of thing. </p>
<p>In my opinion, for most uber-bright students, it is probably the best place in the nation to get an undergraduate education. By the way, don’t necessarily think you are a shoo-in to get into the school. It’s acceptance rate last admissions cycle was 8.7%. This compares to about 8.1% for Princeton, 7% for Harvard, and about 7% for Stanford. Remember too, that Brown has a smaller undergraduate class than Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>I never visited Harvard but I was never interested because of their lack of focus on undergraduate. Truthfully I liked Yale and Brown the best. </p>
<p>I was just wondering what should matter when choosing a college? The fit, obviously. I’m just dealing with parents who are stressing about money that is why I place an importance on job opportunities. In this economy they want to make sure this is an investment that works. (Neither parent completed college)</p>
<p>And most of my friends go to Yale, Stanford and Harvard. Everything I said about Brown above, quoted from them and their parents. They say “the only reason Brown even ranks #15, is because it’s an ivy. And even if it wasn’t because it’s an ivy. It’s still #15.”</p>
<p>I know I’m not “a shoo-in” to get into any of these schools but, I am an athlete who has the grades and test scores to look at these schools even without my sport so I know I have a shot. I have friends who are athletes at these schools with 3.8’s and sub 1800 SAT scores who have gotten in and I’m well above these numbers.</p>
<p>Chuck, the main reason Stanford is rated as high as it is, since we are pulling things out of our a****, is because it is the only really decent national private university West of the Mississippi. The liberal arts there are an afterthought. It is primarily an engineering school. If a job after school is a priority for you, maybe Stanford is your best bet because engineering grads tend to have a ready made segue into the work world.</p>
<p>As for Princeton, I never applied there because I thought of the school as too Southern and anti-intellectual. Primarily a school for strivers, not someone seriously interested in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The one really good thing about Princeton though, is its tight alumni network, particularly if you want to work on Wall Street. The architecture also is quite lovely. However, as far as selectivity, its pretty much neck and neck with Brown. Very little difference.</p>
<p>Keep this in mind. Antiquity is prestige. Its one of the reasons antiques hold so much value. As good as Stanford is for a West Coast private university, it can’t buy the fact that it is not, nor never will be, an Ivy. Brown, the seventh oldest school in the nation, is. In the upper circles of New York, and at my prep school, Stanford is viewed as a back up if you cannot get into an Ivy, particularly a New England Ivy or Princeton. In fact, I suspect none of the people who speak perjoratively of Brown are particularly high up in the familial or social prestige hierarchy in a national sense. If they were, they probably would not have said what they said. By the way, are you Asian? Asians are particularly slavish to magazine rankings, allowing magazine writers to do their thinking for them.</p>
<p>I am not asian but I have many asian friends. I also live on the west coast in the Bay Area, so over here the focus is on Stanford and Cal. The only schools we hear about in the east are Harvard, Yale and Princeton.</p>
<p>^^^^ i know where youre coming from, chuckle. I’m from the los angeles area, and at my school and community, if youre not talking about Cal Stanford or UCLA for west coast schools, then youre not smart. Even schools like UCI and USC are thought of as mediocre. The only east coast schools that pop with a wow factor when heard are HYP, and occasionally MIT. My teachers of course know Brown as one of the best Ivies for undergrad, but my classmates mostly have never heard of it. I’ve been really looking into BC and Brown, neither of which my friends think too highly of, even my parents are the same way. There’s a lot of undue pressure to reach for the good names rather than the good institutions. From my visiting Brown and looking into the education itself, i agree with all of the above comments.</p>
<p>There is no shortage. Brown is not as preprofessional as some other schools. That has both positives and negatives, and I have heard plenty of complaints about Brown’s Career Development office. I get the feeling attending Dmouth gives you a better “in” with many business type jobs because many companies revere Tuck, or were founded by Tuckies. That being said, there are plenty of negatives that come with that environment as well.</p>
<p>Galanter, I am not sure if JPMC interviews on campus anymore.</p>
<p>Interesting statistics Wolfman. For 2011, there were more students from California than from neighboring Massachusetts, or New York. I’m a bit surprised. Apparently the OP and Ditalia have been hanging around some pretty uninformed people.</p>
<p>The idea that Stanford is the only decent private school West of the Mississippi would
probably amuse students who attend Caltech. Although Stanford has one of the very
best engineering schools, the idea that it is primarily an engineering school would shock
most of those on the Stanford campus. If Princeton is anti-intellectual then a list
of other schools that are anti-intellectual is likely to be very long!</p>
<p>^^^ my point exactly @Galanter, it’s unfortunate, but the 4-5 kids from my hs who end up going to brown only go there because they got denied from 3 other ivies, they love it there now, but like i said, not a lot of people give Brown enough credit. And you also have to understand that california regularly sends more people to these top schools because the LA/SD area and norcal are just as academically competitive as Mass and NY, except there are a lot more students down here.</p>
<p>and also just a thought from a los angelian (i dont quite know if thats how you say person from LA), a lot of people down here dont even regard caltech as an undergraduate school. Its right in our neighborhood but it’s just so overly competitive that a lot of people dont even think about it. My school along with our 3 academic rivals in the LA area maybe get 1-2 applicants to caltech every year, and thats a total of about 1500 seniors</p>
<p>Two college, I said Stanford was the most prominent national private university West of the Mississippi. Cal tech is more like a private, specialized, small, institute. Stanford is viewed primarily as an engineering, science, school. Some of that has to do with its importance in developing the tech companies in Silicon Valley, and some of it has to do with its perceived focus. It is just not viewed highly as a premier liberal arts university. As a said earlier, few of the very top students at my prep school thought highly of Stanford. Just the reverse of your school. I must say though, that it is far more competitive for what is perceived as entrance to the best schools than California. The reason for that is the close proximity of the finest public and private secondary schools in the nation. St. Paul’s, Andover, Exeter, Milton, Hotchkiss, Groton, Deerfield, Choate, Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson, St. Alban’s, St. Andrew’s, as well a schools like Eton, Harrow, and Le Rosey. Look at the matriculation lists. The sheer depth of talent in these schools form a critical mass of students that California, though a bigger state, can’t really match. I would venture to say that the high school you are attending really isn’t in the same league as the schools I just delineated, and this is the pool of talent Brown draws its students from. Stanford is well thought of at the above secondary schools, but Brown or one of the other Ivies is usually preferred.</p>
<p>As for Princeton, I am not the only one who thinks of Princeton students as anti-intellectual. David Brooks wrote a piece in the Atlantic about Princeton’s incurious student body. I believe it was called The Organization Kid. Google it. They follow the rules, they never question the professors, the main focus is a narrow definition of success. Usually in the business realm, specifically Wall Street. That’s not a bad thing. It just means that this mercantile philosophy informs the environment of the school. This could not be more different from Brown. While you have Brunonians on Wall Street, Brown’s student body tends to be more intellectually diverse, and wind up doing more varied things in life.</p>
<p>@ditalia: I think that you’re giving in to the temptation to overgeneralize the attitude in your narrow community to the larger California or SoCal world. Brown gets a large chunk of its class from early decision admits, and a large chunk of those are from Cali. The proportion of the class that comes from Harvard-Westlake alone is staggering. For most of the people I knew at Brown, Brown had been their first choice school, and about half of those people were not from the east coast.</p>
<p>Brown also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a second choice to other ivies. For one thing, it is more selective than half of them, and not particularly easier to get into than the remaining half. It also isn’t a very good fit for many ‘generic elite school’ applicants – the open curriculum and the school’s culture make for an unhappy experience for many of those who didn’t self-select into it. The unhappiest people I knew at Brown were the people who ‘settled’ for it after not getting into ‘better’ schools.</p>
<p>Galanter, you actually said that Stanford was the only decent national private
university west of the Mississippi. Stanford is actually very strong in history, english
and many other areas outside of the sciences and engineering. Caltech is of course small
but in the academic world it is particularly prominent. Princeton as an institution
is certainly not anti-intellectual. It attracts some of the finest minds across many fields.
There are always students even at top schools who become less serious about academic
studies but this is not unique to Princeton. </p>
<p>As for choosing Brown over HYPS a case can certainly be made. A student
who wants the open curriculum may find Brown the perfect fit. A student who does
well at Brown is certainly better off than an unhappy student at HYPS who
loses motivation. This is of course quite generally true. A student who does well
at Berkeley is better off than a student who loses motivation at Brown. This is why
the fit of the college is particularly important.</p>
<p>I’m going to agree with mgcsinc. I know people who just get destroyed by the open curriculum because they viewed Brown as an “easier” school. The unhappy people are those who aren’t thinking to keep a balanced schedule/overwhelm themselves freshman year. I know people at HYPS that wouldn’t succeed at Brown necessarily and vice versa. </p>
<p>The CHANCE ANYONE can pick between Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford is extraordinarily thin. Good luck, but, really, being an athlete won’t get you in the school. I have a friend who was recruited with a 24 on his ACT (4.0 GPA in high school)… but he’s also one of the best wrestlers in the country. Unless you really are that great of an athlete, it won’t be that easy getting in even with a better standardized score.</p>
<p>Brown is far more liberal than HYPS. It is also more unstructured curriculum-wise and has no core schedule. I have several friends who go there and contrary to what many people say, Brown is just as intense academically as every other Ivy and Stanford. The “rankings” that put Brown a few spots behind other Ivies? It means literally nothing, and is just the result of screwed-up rating systems.</p>