<p>I happen to be in love with both. I’m interested in something along the lines of public policy and economics.</p>
<p>How do they compare? Pros and cons? Which should I choose?</p>
<p>that was my decision as well …
since you can’t go wrong i would visit both and then trust your gut
i went with brown and had a fantastic experience.</p>
<p>what was it that made you choose Brown over Yale?
I’m visiting both next week…Hopefully things will become clearer.</p>
<p>i honestly believe you will get a gut feeling about where you want to be when you visit both - the silly statistics people banter back and forth on this website matter less when you’re comparing schools this awesome</p>
<p>in my case, i was attracted to both schools because they have a similar artsy/romantic/progressive culture. ultimately, the intellectual autonomy at brown made a big difference for me. the open curriculum creates an amazing classroom atmosphere, everyone in that class with you is super passionate about the subject matter because it was their choice to be there, and the discussions are always fantastic. i loved how everyone around me was choosing their own unique course of study-this basically eliminates competition between peers and compels you to learn from them instead. i also liked the lack of formality and boundaries - as a neuroscience major, i wrote a thesis with a nobel laureate in physics and did an independent study in anthropology. no one labels you - they expect you to combine disparate fields in new and interesting ways. i just can’t say enough great things about brown. i’m sure i would have had a fantastic time at yale as well, but my experience was wonderful and i wouldn’t trade it for the world.</p>
<p>I loved Brown. And most of the students there did too – I’ve yet to see this many happy people in one place again. The complete academic freedom and lack of competition for competition’s sake was bliss. You really get the sense that you ought to be able to try anything as long as you can make it work, and “normal” doesn’t really mean anything. That sort of environment is simply very rare and quite extraordinary.</p>
<p>Well, if you put this in the Brown forums, you aren’t going to be finding many Yale advocates here.
I’d take Yale over Brown.</p>
<p>I’d take Yale over Brown as well. Though both are top notch and it is absolutely rewarding to go to either, Yale does have higher ranking. Though the open curriculum at brown sounds amazing, there is of course also the chance that people around you would use it to slack off and may be compelled to take the “wrong direction” so to speak… so you might have to stay away from some people.</p>
<p>So when I applied to colleges this year, Yale was my first choice and Brown was my second. Logically I applied to Yale SCEA (Single Choice Early Action) since it was non-binding and I had not conclusively decided on one school yet. Although I was deferred and later rejected, I happily got into Brown. Now I am fairly confident that I would have enjoyed my time at either, but looking back I realized that what I liked most about Yale was pretty inconsequential as a student while what attracted to me at Brown was much more substantial (apparently the admissions officers picked this up). What I liked about Yale was the residential college system which I thought would be a great tool for making friendships, as well as the beautiful Gothic architecture and of course its prestige. Brown really stood out for me because of its Open Curriculum that demonstrated two important points - 1) The school had great respect for its students in allowing them such great leeway in crafting their own schedules and this likely resulted in a positive relationship between students and administration in other cases and 2) If students are allowed to choose what classes genuinely interest them, classroom discussion and teacher-student interaction would flourish. As a student, Brown’s pluses are immensely more valuable. </p>
<p>I am sure Yale has great advantages too, but as appealing as the residential college system may be, making friends is no great challenge in college. People supporting Yale often cite its higher prestige (no one questions the fact that Yale is higher ranked than Brown in most cases), but as a student and future job-seeker, these minuscule differences in abstract representations of rank (both schools have good teachers and bad teachers and rankings are heavily based on graduate school resources, something that will not always be utilized until your last year at best) are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. So I recommend you take a minute to write down what you like and dislike about each school and then rethink how significant each factor is as a student rather than as an outside onlooker - you might just be surprised by what you find!</p>