<p>Decision time is here. Visited both and was extremely impressed, loved both. How does one decide. It is difficult to giveup the HYP prestige and Brown is only #15 in USNWR, why? Has anyone made this decision, was it right and any regrets? THANKS</p>
<p>Lots of people make decisions like this, lots of people chose HYP, some choose Brown.</p>
<p>What's the most important thing to you? What will make you happiest/most successful/feel like you got the most out of your four years?</p>
<p>WHAT MAKES bROWN BETTER OR DIFFERENT?</p>
<p>That wasn't factored into your application or your visit?</p>
<p>Again, what matters to you will help me talk about how Brown does or doesn't fulfill those needs in a unique or powerful way. You should have some sense of what matters to you and what attracted you to these places to begin with...</p>
<p>Some considerations:
Brown has 7,000 students, Yale close to 20,000
Brown is in Providence, Yale is in New Haven
Brown has no core, Yale has a fairly rigorous but flexible one
Brown expects 30 or so course credits for grad, Yale I think expects 4 or 4.5 classes a semester
Brown has fewer financial resources than Yale
Brown has more varied housing while Yale is all residential colleges
Easier to double-major at Brown than at Yale</p>
<p>I am done with prestige discussions. Live life on your own terms whatever that means. If you decide where to go based on a number in a magazine, that's your call. I will say most of my friends and myself at Brown realize we are blessed to be at Brown and would not consider trading for anyone or anything*.</p>
<ul>
<li>- No college is perfect. Remember that. You may want to ask some Yalies for equal perspective</li>
</ul>
<p>Wow that's a very tough decision. It'd be a lot easier if you were arguing Brown vs. Harvard (Brown all the way!)</p>
<p>But Yale seems to have a great community going too. As fred said, dismiss all ideas of ranking/USNews/prestige/etc. as they are now irrelevant. It makes very little difference whether you attend Yale or Brown to employers/grad schools - more important is that you go where you'll be happy. If you're really torn, you could always try the coin method: heads it's Brown, tails it's Yale - and do it seriously. Gauge your reaction and that may help.</p>
<p>OMG I am in the same exact situation...
I've been agonizing for the past week and everyone around me tells me different things. Well, you'd know what my parents are telling me (oh prestige). Can people please post more comparisons-opinions on these two schools?</p>
<p>If you guys and gals could be a bit more specific about what sort of information you want it might be easier</p>
<p>Yeah, it's kind of impossible to just now start saying, "This is EVERYTHING you need to know about Brown even though I know nothing about who, who you are, and what you're seeking to do in college, etc in 3 sentences."</p>
<p>Yale and Brown are obviously both great schools. I was admitted ED to Brown, and had chosen not to apply to Yale.</p>
<p>I felt that Yale was really intense--not academically so much, but in terms of student activities. My tour guide and the kids I met talked about devoting hours and hours to their activities (theater, sports, etc.). They barely even mentioned devoting time to academics. One girl said that the worst thing about Yale was that people become so mired in their activities that they have a tendency to break off friendships. I was also told that Yale looks for applicants who will "hit the ground running" when they get there. As someone who wants to explore a lot of different interests (both academically and extracurricularly), it was not the place for me. Brown, on the other hand, stresses exploration and the students there spoke about trying new things (my tour guide, a senior, was very enthusiastic about his Intro to Hip Hop dance class).</p>
<p>Also, I felt that the residential colleges at Yale fragmented the school. Although many people love them, I was put off by the "my college is the best" culture. I also sensed an inferiority complex to Harvard (everyone told me that it was really better than Harvard, while Harvard students just talked about how much they loved Harvard), which was annoying. Even the History Department had a handout of "Yale Graduates who have impacted human history". It was pretentious. </p>
<p>I think that both schools are great fits for different people, so think about what you want and visit each school. Good luck and maybe I'll meet you next year!</p>
<p>thanks.
I mainly want to know about the general campus atmosphere:
is it hypercompetitive? is it cliquey? is it pretentious? is it happy?
(Assuming both school have similar levels of academic rigor and resources like internships, research opportunities, advising/support, study abroad, etc.)</p>
<p>Brown is reported by Princeton Review as having the happiest students. We are the opposite of competitive and cliquey and that's something pretty well known about this place. Students here are all doing completely different things with different aspirations and aren't tying to be you but better. No one gains from making you do worse or from being better, we're all just here to learn and get where we want to be.</p>
<p>most brown students are probably very friendly and open to new people. are minority students treated differently or excluded from groups?</p>
<p>Hypercompetitive? </p>
<p>Not in the least. Not in the least. If you are premed you may be a bit more stressed than the rest of us but I have never heard that word used to describe the tone here....things can be overwhelming but the distinction is that at Brown a lot of the burdens people face are self-imposed and self-contained</p>
<p>is it cliquey? </p>
<p>I mean that characterization depends on how outgoing you are. It is true that people with common interests congregate but if you seek people out they are generally receptive....Compared to the other campuses I have been on for a long period of time (Princeton, Georgetown) Brown is by my lights better.</p>
<p>is it pretentious? </p>
<p>Well, there are jerks anywhere. College isn't perfect but it is dammed good. I often say that Brown has a bit of a complex about this which is rooted in its history where Brown sometimes embraces and sometimes obscures the fact it is an Ivy League school. All in all, relative to what I've seen elsewhere, I'd say not really. I mean it also depends on how you define pretentious does that mean recruiting good faculty? having people proud of their work? Is it popped collars? What's your metric? </p>
<p>is it happy?</p>
<p>College isn't MTV's The Real World and it isn't Saved by the Bell. It's four years of life. Sometimes you'll be happy sometimes you won't be. With that caveat, the answer for me is that it is inspiring while being overwhelming at the same time not that I let it get in the way of my having a good time. </p>
<p>To a certain extent you create your own reality if you assume the worst in people you'll probably see it. If you assume the best in people you'll probably see that. </p>
<p>FWIW Princeton Review calls us a very happy school, No one I know hates it here at least which says something since I've been around these parts for a spell.</p>
<p>i chose brown over yale a while back. at the time i was really torn between the schools, i felt they were more similar than different--particularly in terms of the academic cultures. both are romantic, artsy, socially engaged...</p>
<p>ultimately i chose brown because of the open curriculum. having complete intellectual autonomy was very important to me. i loved how everyone in all of my classes was there because they chose to be there. i loved how each one of friends was pursuing a completely unique course of study. i loved how seemlessly you can walk between communities at brown, how you can study two very disparate things and no one will bat an eye. basically, after visiting both places i just felt brown was a better fit for me. now, three years out of college i definitely have no regrets.</p>
<p>Brown is much more clique-y, from everything I have seen there. The residential college system at Yale promotes diversity and interaction, because students are randomly assigned to small, close-knit, amazing communities. At Brown, people generally just hang out with other people like them.</p>
<p>Dude, people will hang out with other people like them EVERYWHERE. Just because you are stuck in a "small, close-knit, amazing community" does not mean you are going to force them to be your friends if you have nothing in common with them. If one thing Brown is NOT, is clique-y! Everyone is easy going, social and very respectful and tolerant of different people. I would say from what I have seen that Yalies are more snobbish....Most of the people I have talked to and who have visited both places tend to agree..</p>
<p>posterX, go away. or at least make the effort to switch member names so your trolling is less obvious.</p>
<p>When you are assigned to a small group of 100 people in your graduating class (even before you arrive for the first day of classes), and have a facility and structure dedicated to that group, you will go to the dining halls with them and get to know them better, whether or not they have the same background as you or are in the same major. If you're just thrown into a large group when you start college, you're automatically going to be attracted to the people like you and spend your time with them. This has been shown time and time again in studies of universities across the country -- read some of the literature out there on the subject of residential colleges at various universities.</p>
<p>You are assigned ot similar (sometimes smaller) housing units at Brown which are slightly less formal, but equally convenient and somewhat structured. I met all of my really good friends in my freshman unit of about 80 and that's a unit on the large size, most units are 30-50. Do we all have ot eat in the same place? Nope, but we often do at least at first beacuse these are hte people we know.</p>
<p>The residential college system is nice and works some places, but here at Brown we value the exploration in finding friends much like our course load. I think this place would be different and for the worse if we had hte residential college system-- it's just not very Brown. It's not to slag other places that do it, but to say that because we don't your less likely to interact with people from other groups is just wrong.</p>