<p>abcdefghijklmnop</p>
<p>You should visit them, if possible. While they’re both amazing, they have very different atmospheres. Columbia = huge city, bustle, larger school, not on Common App (lol).</p>
<p>Brown = large but not huge city, in residential area, medium size school, on Common App.</p>
<p>Also, some people prefer the Core to the Open curriculum, and vice versa. Lots of people are confused by the simultaneous appeal of the Core and Open curricula, but an interest in both simply indicates the applicant wants to get a very broad (and somewhat unconventional) education.</p>
<p>^Yea the core v. open dual appeal is very common. Several people I have talked to (myself included) have Columbia and Brown in their top two or three choices.</p>
<p>Columbia. It is in a more urban area (which is good) has more to offer, and is higher on the list.</p>
<p>
Crack advice, man. Because everyone loves schools in the middle of giant cities, especially when they’re ranked higher on USNews. Phew.</p>
<p>You could probably use Brown’s open curriculum to mimic Columbia’s core. But if you’re looking to get into business or any career where prestige is an important factor, then Columbia is the best choice. They’re both very excellent schools, and you will have the opportunity to make great friends and/or receive an excellent education at either institution. However, Columbia is definitely more prestigious. It just depends on what is more important to you and your goals.</p>
<p>“Columbia is definitely more prestigious”. I laughed so hard, I nearly fell out my chair. I really don’t know anyone, and I do mean anyone, who thinks Columbia is more prestigious than Brown. The only Ivy that ranked lower than Brown on the payscale salary survey was Columbia. Their undergrads make the least of any Ivy undergrad with only a bachelor’s degree, although it’s close and the methodology is admittedly questionable. Brown consistently gets a better caliber of student, as shown by success in winning fellowships, representations at the best law schools, and success against Columbia in the Revealed Preferences Survey cross-admit tournaments. You are way off base here.</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s true at all. I’m sure that everyone I know has heard of Columbia and knows where it’s located; not everyone has heard of Brown, let alone knows where it is. I love Brown, but Columbia is definitely more prestigious - certainly among high school students and teachers whom I’ve found tend to clump Columbia right after HYP as one of the ‘best’ Ivies. I’m sure that location has a lot to do with this, but so it goes. When it comes to applying for colleges, does it really matter which is more prestigious (especially when you’re dealing with two very great schools)? No.</p>
<p>I also think it’s rich of you (pun probably intended) to use salary as a measure of ‘prestige’. Really?</p>
<p>Pinderhughes: I’m sorry but I stand my ground. Maybe we have different definitions of prestige? I believe it mostly involves name recognition and respect from both academic and non-academic circles. Both the academic snob and the average Joe.</p>
<p>I like Brown, and you might argue that it’s better than Columbia for a variety of reasons, but remember that prestige doesn’t always correspond to a better school. (Sometimes people over-correlate the two) Fame ≠ superiority (though sometimes it might correlate). It doesn’t matter if one school has more fellowships or higher salaries… it’s ridiculous to say that Brown is actually more prestigious than Columbia. Sorry, but that’s like saying Pomona is more prestigious than Stanford because they have more/better [insert some measurement here].</p>
<p>In either case, everyone knows Columbia. Few know about Brown. When it comes to prestige, and only prestige, Columbia beats Brown by a long shot, that’s inarguable.</p>
<p>From an academic prestige perspective, for undergraduates, the schools are indistinguishable. Graduate schools and employers basically do not differentiate between the two.</p>
<p>The general public gives the edge to Columbia, and for certain areas of graduate school Columbia certainly has the edge. However, to say that high prestige fields will grab more students from Columbia than Brown is not accurate, flyingllama.</p>
<p>Look, if there is a certain field / job where general prestige matters, and we agree that Columbia has more general prestige, then a Columbia alum might have an edge. If a=b and b=c, then a=c. The difference, however, might be small.</p>
<p>Some numbers might show that Columbia gets more people into IB or politics. However, you have to remember that it might be because those at Brown simply aren’t aiming for such positions as much, and not because the school / teaching / placement is inferior in any way.</p>
<p>There aren’t too many situations where general prestige matters, but they exist. However, wouldn’t be ‘penalized’ for going to Brown. I will also add that Brown has excellent grad school placement (especially for law, I think).</p>
<p>Brown 
:)</p>
<p>I read a statistic once, that more people go to Brown when they’re accepted to Columbia and Brown.
So prestige wise, the only schools you should choose over Brown are HYPSM…</p>
<p>Pinderhughes: the payscale methodology wasn’t questionable, it was horrendous, one of the worst statistical survey’s i’ve ever seen.</p>
<p>SoWhat?: cross-admit statistics only reference prestige w/in the group of individuals accepted to both schools, nothing more.</p>
<p>in terms of the general public and the international community, columbia is irrefutably more prestigious.</p>
<p>Let me tell you one thing, New York is extremely expensive for your average middle-class/low-income college student.</p>
<p>Also, is Emma Watson going to Columbia now? I thought she was going to Brown…</p>
<p>im completely unbiased in favor of Columbia because I love Brown and am going to be applying there ED, but I must admit, Brown is mostly prestigious in the northeast, among graduate school admissions, and among elite business employers etc. </p>
<p>With the general public and international community, Columbia wins. Again, prestige does not equal quality of education. Prestige is just prestige.</p>
<p>Brown > Columbia *</p>
<p>I hadn’t heard of Columbia until I was like 14 or something. And check out my username. But, I guess it just depends on where you grow up / who you know.</p>
<p>*(my personal opinion)</p>
<p>thinkforyourself: I think the statistic is a pretty good indicator. Stats btw do mostly only consider a part of a big group as a part usually can speak for the whole…
Internationally, Columbia is better known, but so is UCLA…
So that is also not a very good indicator for prestige!
Anyway. I’ll repeat the only important thing I said for the threat starter as an arguement like this can’t come to an end.</p>
<p>When it comes to prestige, the only schools that are unquestionable better than Brown are HYPSM and Oxbridge in the UK.
All the other ivys are pretty much on the same level and erverybody favors a different one.</p>
<p>We’ve already had the “which Ivy is most prestigious” discussion:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/743848-most-prestigious-ivy-league-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/743848-most-prestigious-ivy-league-school.html</a></p>
<p>And a corollary: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/728280-least-prestigious-ivy-league-school.html?highlight=prestigious+ivy[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/728280-least-prestigious-ivy-league-school.html?highlight=prestigious+ivy</a></p>
<p>Not to mention about 20 similar threads scattered around this forum. If you’re interested in prestige, read these, talk to people, read USNWR rankings (or whatever your random-criteria-prestige picker of choice is), and scour the internet and college guidebooks. However sarcastic I (or anyone else on this forum) may sound, prestige is, to a certain extent, a legitimate cause for choosing University X over University Y. Within a bunch of elite schools? Maybe not, but you can still make a case for it, especially if you’re looking for strength in a specific department.</p>
<p>Re: Brown versus Columbia. As several people have already pointed out, these schools differ in fundamental ways. Those differences alone should be an incentive to move away from the prestige factor and look more closely at the school’s offerings. I didn’t apply to Columbia because I didn’t want a heavy core. However, as someone else mentioned, you can more or less replicate Columbia’s Core with Brown’s Open Curriculum, if that’s what you want to do. I know someone at Brown who, despite a dominant passion for science, takes a handful of humanities classes each year because he believes in a well-rounded education. </p>
<p>You also have to prepare yourself for the attitudes surrounding the respective curricula. Even if you don’t care whether you have the Core or the Open Curriculum, your peers will. I have friends at Columbia who love the Core but know many who dislike it (or aspects of it) intensely. I imagine that the OC can be overwhelming and confusing for some, especially in the first semester or two. How might those external reactions affect you and your opinion? Of course, many people actually like their school’s curriculum. So you need to be comfortable with your decision. After all, the people surrounding you (and their attitude towards their learning) will have an impact on your college experience.</p>
<p>Location, naturally, is another big thing. Providence and NYC are very different places. Brown is separated from Providence such that it’s not immersed in the city, whereas Columbia’s campus (from what I understand) is smack-dab in the middle of things. Some people like being right there, and others don’t. Go visit, spend as much time as you feasibly can on each school’s campus, and see which one appeals to you more.</p>
<p>Columbia, as a university, is larger than Brown and therefore can offer more resources. However, the utility of these resources depends on your interests (i.e. in specific graduate programs, research labs, general opportunities, etc.). Brown offers gems of its own. These factors all hinge on your desired undergraduate experience and your particular array of interests.</p>
<p>Other things to consider:
• The character of the student body: although students at the two schools share characteristics, each school has a certain “feel” to it. Talk to/observe/read about students at each school and see which ones (if either) you identify more with. That’s not to say that everyone falls into the same mold, but you don’t want to be stuck in a community from which you feel overwhelmingly detached
• Distance: how far do you want to be from home? Do you want to stay relatively close, or are you itching to get out of your state/region/part of the country (not that Brown and Columbia are very far apart)?
• Cost/financial aid: tuition and financial aid should be comparable, but you may have a better shot at scholarships with one or the other (I don’t know anything about Columbia’s financial aid, so I’m just throwing the point out there…)
• Random things that may or may not affect you: campus safety, neighborhood safety, research labs (although you SHOULD check out the department(s) at each school that you’d consider majoring in), presence of Greek life, sports, etc.</p>
<p>I stand by what I said in an my earlier post, Columbia is definitely not more prestigious than Brown and, I would argue, at the undergraduate level, it really isn’t close. Look, my definition of prestige is confined, not to schools the general public knows, but to which schools the most prestigious institutions in our society deem to be most desirable to affiliate with. Correlative with this, is which schools do the most prestigious people in our society send their kids. The most prestigious secondary institutions in our society are private schools, and the most prestigious private schools in our society are Northeastern, specifically, New England private schools. This has its antecedents going back to the 19th century when many of these schools were founded, and is expounded upon in C. Wright Mills’ classic book The Power Elite. Among this ultra prestigious subset of our society, Brown is simply far more prestigious than Columbia. Go to the matriculation lists for St. Paul’s, Groton, Milton Academy, Andover, Exeter, Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Middlesex, Choate, Noble and Greenough, St. George’s, etc. and look at where the kids tend to go to college. This subset of private schools, the so-called St. Grottlesex schools, educate not only the children of the most prestigious families in the U.S., but the children of prestigious families from around the world. The present King of Jordan went to Deerfield for example. By the way, based on my definition of prestige, the acronym HYPSM is wholly inaccurate. Stanford and MIT are not prestigious schools for these families to send their children for undergrad. MIT is a tech school, and Stanford is in California. The fact that Joe the garage mechanic has heard of Notre Dame is not a testament to Notre Dame’s prestige, it’s a testament to popular culture extolling a school with a unique football tradition. Prestige can only emanate from those people or institutions that are themselves prestigious. They provide the imprimatur of prestige, and based on my definitional position, Brown is significantly more prestigious than Columbia.</p>