<p>Brown vs USC. Equivalent money at both schools. Love the California weather but am hesitant to pass up Brown. Thoughts?</p>
<p>what is your major?</p>
<p>Mathematics!</p>
<p>USC is pretty far inland where it can get pretty smoggy, especially in the summer and fall. So that should be considered along with the rest of the weather.</p>
<p>When I think “smoggy” and “inland” for Southern California, I think of Pomona and Scripps, or Caltech. Not USC. </p>
<p>The schools seem very different to me. Have you visited both?</p>
<p>USC does not belong in the same solar system as Brown. GO TO BROWN PLEASE!!!</p>
<p>Wow. Night and day schools. Yeah, Brown has a historical rep, but math and academics in general will be strong at both. USC is fiscally stronger with recognition that is growing exponentially (pun intended). </p>
<p>What are you looking for? Brown is a great school for the right person with an interesting, liberal vibe but if sun, sand and sports are your thing DON’T go to Providence.</p>
<p>Hate to say it, but yeah, go to Brown.</p>
<p>You may want to pm FindAPlace re USC’s math program.</p>
<p>@Slithytove, I have visited both. Definitely got an “I belong here” feeling @ USC, but I don’t know if I can pass up Brown with its open curriculum.</p>
<p>How are post-college prospects for each?</p>
<p>My daughter went to Brown from California and never complained about the weather. In good weather she often biked to Newport on the East Bay Bike Trail.</p>
<p>She started out doing sciences and physics but ended up with a math/cs major and is now in a PhD track program (finishing 2nd year) at a top 10 CS school. A close friend in her class rec’d a fellowship to UCLA for PhD in mathematics. Her boyfriend received a followship for a PhD in Finance. You do quite well, in general, for grad school at Brown. There are abundance opportunitites for undergraduate research (she rec’d 2 summer grants from Brown.) She worked often with professors and grad students on projects, leading to an impressive resume for grad school. A coauthorship at a conference paper came out of one piece of work.</p>
<p>At her department graduation, it seemed like 3/4 of the class was going to work for MS or G. I don’t know about other departments. Although I-banks often recruit on campus, 2009 was a bad year for the Econ grads, I think. But she did attend an I-bank recruiting session for people with technical and math skills, and a CIA session as well.</p>
<p>I’d say do not underestimate the value of the open cirriculum. It provides much needed flexibility. Same with the grading system, along with the ‘shopping period’ and late drop for classes. It helps you try different things and takes a lot of pressure off in some ways, although the student body in general tends toward overachiever types. You can push yourself as hard as you like, and my daughter was allowed to take some classes without the prereq’s and also some graduate classes with just the permission of the professor.</p>
<p>Brown is really a special place.</p>
<p>Weather is a really big issue for me. Would it be terrible to pass up Brown for USC?</p>
<p>It would not be terrible. I personally wouldn’t make that choice, but if you really need that warm weather, USC is still going to provide you with an excellent education.</p>
<p>It would be terrible to pass up Brown if the ONLY reason was weather. If you like 'SC that much better socially, and/or you find Brown to be too lacking in political diversity, and/or you want to experience big time D1 sports, SoCal maybe a better choice for you. But please don’t choose against Brown just for weather.</p>
<p>Yeah, I concur with bluebayou. Don’t make a decision based just on the weather. Remember, it’s only four years out of your life. If you’d don’t have to deal with a car, then snowy weather locations really aren’t too hard to deal with, even during a snowpocalyse. At least that’s what my SoCal S thinks and he’s at Northwestern (with his buddy, the class val, at Brown so I expect they have cross talk about the weather, probably bragging who had to survive more this past winter.</p>
<p>USC has been raking in the big donations lately. It was announced yesterday that another Trustee is giving $100 million to the school, to be used primarily for merit based undergrad scholarships.</p>
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<p>Have any of you ever heard of anyone at Brown who wasn’t passionate about it? I don’t think I have. This would be a hard opportunity to pass up.</p>