<p>Most top schools are liberal. Perhaps Brown is more liberal than Princeton but
it does not really seem more liberal than HYS.
Certainly it has fewer requirements but the views of the students are not so different.</p>
<p>Princeton as “anti-intellectual”? That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have read on this website. With the mandatory Senior thesis (don’t see that at the other HYPS) and other graduation requirements, I know people who would say that it is the most intellectual Ivy. Princeton’s average GPA is the lowest in the Ivy league, and Pton is the only college that has a grade deflation policy with tangible impacts (massive grade inflation at other schools), which shows that people who go to Princeton are going for academics/prestige, not a high GPA/“social striving.”</p>
<p>Choosing b/w HYPS or Brown?? Don’t worry, chances are very slim that anyone would get that option…</p>
<p>oh i know, a lot of kids applied there for the open curriculum and they loved providence and whatnot, but they still had a choice higher than brown (hyps usually), once they got there though they realized that they absolutely loved it. and yea HW tends to have a lot of kids who take a shotgun approach to ivy leagues and then they pick which one they like best. thats also a popular approach at my school for many</p>
<p>and i think we can all agree that when we are discussing schools of this calibur, ivies, MIT, stanford… etc, ranking them is simply splitting hairs, and i agree with whoever stated above that picking the college that fits the individual is far more important than a rank, because in the end its only undergrad</p>
<p>Typical, it is not just my opinion or statement that Princeton is anti-intellectual. As I mentioned, Brooks’ Atlantic Monthly piece observed this, and so have others. Just because you load up on a courses that require a lot of rote memorization, and grade on curves to depress what is supposed to be a proclivity to grade inflation, doesn’t mean that it is a student body that likes learning for learning’s sake. I am sure there are some there who do, just like there are some at Brown who are gunner/striver types. However, institutions do tend to have overarching personalities, and Princeton’s is anti-intellectual. Historically, it has been a cross between an “up South”, Southern school, and a school that has sent a significant proportion of its student body to Wall Street. That’s a key reason for its large endowment relative to its overall size. This is not necessarily a criticism. American higher education is notable for the variety and types of schools available. However, you are being intellectually dishonest if you say that Princeton is not more prone to anti-intellectualism than not. It just is.</p>
<p>My intellectual interests in college focused on mathematics and physics.
At least in these areas Princeton has a collection of extraordinarily talented
and intellectual students, not as many as perhaps Harvard but many more than
I encountered while at Brown.</p>
<p>Harvard has a larger student body, and is more of a research school, so Harvard should have more, as far as quantity, talented math and physics students than Princeton or Brown. Princeton’s math and physics strength probably derives from its reputation as being a place that Albert Einstein spent time toward the end of his life, and, again, maybe due to many Princetonians wanting to work as quants on Wall Street. Math and Physics are a part of a great liberal arts education, and probably at Brown that was viewed more as being embedded in being interesting aspects of the educational experience but not necessarily wanting to concentrate in those subjects either professionally or as a conduit to Wall Street. I do believe it was a Brown mathematician who solved Fermat’s Theorem if I am not mistaken, so there are some talented math faculty and students at Brown. I do know that Brown’s applied math department has long been one of the finest at the undergraduate level in the country.</p>
<p>Responding to Chuckle’s original post…</p>
<p>I am also a student/athlete from the Bay Area, and I now go to Brown. Besides all the factors you mentioned, a major factor (which I’m sure you’ve thought about) are team dynamics themselves. At least for my sport, I found Brown athletes to be more mellow, quirky, and fun to be with; especially at Yale, athletes struck me as manic and constantly stressed. After spending time at both schools, I’m convinced that Brown students and Yale students go after similar intellectual challenges, and are equally intelligent-- the only difference is that Brown students seem to relish working hard instead of having panic attacks. This applies to both academics and training. </p>
<p>Yale’s campus is striking, but Brown and Providence always felt much more like home to me. As someone from the Bay Area, never underestimate the aesthetic effect of living on a hill. Brown’s position on top of college hill reminds me of the Bay Area whereas Yale always gave me a claustrophobic feelings. </p>
<p>Finally, I’m not sure if this applies only for my sport… but knowing a lot of ex-teammates who ended up at Harvard, Brown actually is more academically rigorous in its recruiting.</p>
<p>Galanter, I now think you must be having some fun! At least I hope so.</p>
<p>The mathematician, Andrew Wiles, who proved Fermat’s Theorem is, as I suspect
you know, at Princeton. I have a feeling that you must also know that Princeton is one of the great intellectual centers for mathematics.</p>
<p>Hi Kmak, we came from SF as well. My daughter only was able to tour U Chi (and home state colleges.) She went to Brown sight unseen, but she really prefered the look at Brown and thought it was ‘homey’ to her and the brick was warm. Yes a hill is great. Although Chicago is more stunning, imo. She was waitlisted at Yale and declined it (seemed unlikely and she was happy with Brown or Chi.) If she was accepted… who knows?</p>
<p>I do know that Brown’s applied math is one of the very tops. One of the close friends she made first year came to Berkeley on a theoretical physics scholarship (I gave him a tour of SF.) I’ve met many of her friends on such trajectories and it doesn’t seem unusual. Esp in Math and CS, though (I have given tours of L.A./UCLA as well.) But perhaps her friends just run to the math and science PhD types.</p>
<p>She played 3 sports varsity in H.S. from freshman year, but never did any in college and was not good enough for a school team anyway, I’m sure.</p>
<p>Funny, but real story: when I applied (back in the dark ages when students from far away went to schools sight unseen) to Brown, I really liked what I had heard about Brown from a college rep, and in particular the MedSci program (now the PLME). I was a top student and could have gone anywhere. My dad went to a HYPS school, too, and maybe in part due to that?? I had no interest in HYP for “prestige”. It was only when I was actually on campus freshman week that one of my hall mates told me Brown was “an Ivy”! (and I figured, “well, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m here because I like the school!”)</p>
<p>BrownParent, it really is amazing to me that a school that is the seventh oldest in the country, and that draws its students from the top 2% of the national applicant pool is so maligned. What do you think is the reason for this cognitive dissonance?</p>
<p>^
I think it’s because of the progressive attitude and the refusal to do things “the way HYP does it.” E.g. no requirements outside of concentration, no +/-, ability to take all courses S/NC. This hurts the “peer assessment” score because what dean is going to say “yeah, that system is better than ours,” which seriously tanks the USNWR ranking which in turn lowers public perception of the school.</p>
<p>I do not think that Brown is particularly maligned. The real problem is the desire to
give a numerical ranking to the top schools. One person
may prefer Brown, another Berkeley and another Carnegie Mellon. </p>
<p>One of the difficulties for Brown is that it is being compared to national universities
and not liberal arts colleges. Although Brown is a national university in some
ways it is more like a liberal arts college. In some ways it is unique.</p>
<p>On the other hand lumping HYP together is also unfair to each of those schools.
There are also many many differences between those three.</p>
<p>The schools that I think are most underestimated in national rankings are the top
public universities. In summary Brown is an outstanding undergraduate institution
but then again there are at least 20 other institutions that are also outstanding
( I would actually think more than 20!).</p>
<p>I think the above 2 answers are great. Of Ivies and S/Mit (lol), my daughter just chose to apply to Yale and Brown (and Uchicago her tops, plus Berkeley and a few good LAC’s.) It was about fit-- an ideal of an intellectual culture and the students that attend. Is that a little dreamy? Yes but it worked. She saw the other schools as too ‘captains of industry’ types, rightly or wrongly. Also, to be frank, she saw previous appicants and accepts from her own school and did not care for them personally. Perhaps just another fit thing.</p>
<p>There was never a question about Brown quality or of being a great school at her prep school. This is an odd question I can’t answer. I can say why Berkeley isn’'t good for undergrads or something, her prep steered them away a bit, but I don’t understand this question al all of Brown.</p>
<p>Now that she ended up in a PhD track in Computer Science, she has only once expressed that she could have been a contender for MIT or Cal Tech, but no one encouraged her for a tech school at the time, and she was a little miffed when she saw in undergrad that she was good enough to go that route. I bet she is glad she didn’t now.</p>
<p>Her PhD program is also a top 10 but I guess some people won’t know that, and would think the other schools with even bigger names, that she didn’t pick might be even better (hi, UCLA.) Not sure. Don’t think ‘man on the street’ opinions are worth much on this kind of subject. Her grad schools knew she went to a school with top CS program (yes, Brown) and her interships knew she goes to top grad school, and did a top undergrad.</p>
<p>BrownParent</p>
<p>Now you made me want to guess her PhD program that people would not
guess is in the top 10. My first guess would be University of Washington
and my second University of Illinois. </p>
<p>As for your comment about her prep school not encouraging students
to go to Berkeley I think that is quite common. I actually think that for
some top students Berkeley, UCLA or another strong state University
can be a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>My brother is applying to Brown this year and it is his top choice as of now. He told me that even if he is lucky enough to get acceptances from all eight ivies, Brown would be tops for him. It really comes down to your fit and what environment you see yourself being happy, comfortable, and successful for next 4 years. You get to go to college only once so you should factor multiple things into account carefully. And choosing not to attend a highly selective school such as Brown based on unfounded opinions of few people that it is ‘stupid ivy’ is ridiculous. </p>
<p>For the record, I do agree that Brown is somewhat under the radar among masses and its name doesn’t ring a bell when its name is dropped. It is likely due to the fact that it is a small liberal artsy school similar to Dartmouth and doesn’t have huge graduate programs or research, unlike research powerhouses like Harvard or Stanford. It is just that schools such as Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst, or Williams suffer from lack of name recognition among those less educated. This may or may not matter to you.</p>
<p>That said, if you are seriously looking to impress random girls at a bar by dropping ‘I went to X,Y,Z college’, you should look no further than Harvard or Princeton. The level of prestige that Harvard has among ‘normal’ people is ridiculous. I know a guy from my high school who went to Harvard undergrad and Harvard Law, and he constantly works himself around some of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. He credits his successful dating strategy, largely to his dropping ‘I went to Harvard Law and I am a corporate lawyer’ bomb in front of these fine women. This kind of elite credentials give him major confidence boost and instant credibility from girls looking to hook up with a hot-shot investment banker/ corporate lawyer/ doctor from Harvard. Knowing this very real example, I do think that going to Harvard (not so much with Yale or Stanford) gives you an undeniable advantage in certain social settings over going to Brown.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As someone attending a top 5 law school, I feel compelled to point out that top law schools admit students from a very wide range of undergraduate schools. Going to a top college is not much of an advantage for getting into a top law/ medical school. It is all about your numbers: GPA + LSAT/ MCAT. For the record, I know dozens of my classmates who went to complete no-name state schools which I haven’t even heard of and yet they made it to top 5 law school. </p>
<p>The only reasons why top colleges have higher representation of their grads at top law schools is because: 1) students from top colleges are smarter and do better on LSAT, 2) students from top colleges are interested in pursuing a career in law in larger quantity.</p>
<p>^As a fellow attendee of a top law school, I completely agree. I would (perhaps mischievously) add one third reason: students graduating from top undergraduate schools often have higher GPA’s.</p>
<p>On the subject of dropping the H(arvard) bomb, I’ve experienced first-hand the effect that it can have on some romantic interests, and it always makes me feel gross.</p>
<p>@ditalia,</p>
<p>USC is mediocre? Are you kidding me? Speaking in terms of an overall undergraduate education, USC is superior to Ucla.</p>