<p>What do you think, especially if you are considering a major in computer science? How are the dorms and the work loads?</p>
<p>lawyerdad: I sent you a pm about the dorms/faciliites at Brown. Hope it's useful.</p>
<p>Hey lawyerdad- Duke and Brown are very different (but both excellent) places. My best friend goes to Brown and I've visited him many times, and though I would really dislike going to school there, I realize for some people it's a great fit. For him I unfortunately think it's not so great, since he's an athlete and athletes at Brown are like segregated from the general population and just hang out with other athletes, something you don't find so much at Duke. However, he is doing amazingly well in terms of grades in his engineering classes so that's good news (I don't know of any engineers here with A-, let alone A, averages).</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids here who chose it over Brown and vice versa. For computer science (or any other engineering) Duke is stronger. However, what it will come down to is what your son feels more comfortable with. Brown is much more a New England school. The campus isn't as nice, stunning, or well-kempt as Duke's but it's pretty in its own way. Though Duke has a large population of NE prep school kids, Brown's is pretty huge, in that everyone and their mother was from Andover, Milton, Exeter, et al. when I visited. Duke has more public school kids and is more national in student body (lots of kids from the midwest, south, west, mid-atlantic, northeast, and a larger international population). </p>
<p>Brown is excessively liberal. This is coming from someone whose political views are EXTREMELY liberal. When I visited Brown I felt angered by kids who were very disrespectful of other political views/athletes/ROTC kids...at Duke, though the student body is liberal-leaning, things are much more balanced and you don't really find that suffocatingly PC/liberal environment at all. I am of the train of thought that it is good to interact with people whose views differ from your own, but people there sure didn't seem to feel the same way. If your son is conservative or even moderate I would not advise him to go to Brown.</p>
<p>Also, whereas Duke has been raising money like whoa and is expanding at an astonishing pace, Brown seems to be standing still, using its very low endowment to justify its being sedentary. I personally think as it is now, Brown is overrated in many regards. In all, however, I think your son should choose the environment in which he feels most comfortable--he has two great choices.</p>
<p>I agree with Brown stagnating in comparison to Duke. Duke really has such high ambitions, whereas Brown seems more content with where it is right now. </p>
<p>I'm not sure if I would choose Providence over Durham, but they're different types of town. I've heard that the section of Providence that Brown is in is pretty sketchy, but Durham isn't so great either, so I guess that's a toss up.</p>
<p>And yes, Duke's campus is much much nicer than Brown's.</p>
<p>But yeah, they are both great schools, good luck deciding.</p>
<p>Actually, incollege, I was under the impression that Brown CS is much better than Duke CS. I have heard Brown is quite liberal as well, so lawyerdad, if your son would be offended, then he might want to take that into consideration. They're really different environments. Duke is heavily pre-professional, whereas Brown is more of an open learning type of place. A lot of kids like the idea of an open curriculum and Brown kids can choose to P/F any class (though they probably don't do so that much anyways). Frankly, in terms of college towns, I highly doubt Durham is much better then Providence (or most college towns really)</p>
<p>If that choice where up to me I'd definitely take a look at not only the academics (since they are both pretty good) but the atmosphere</p>
<p>duke for computer science</p>
<p>I was initially torn between these two but I have decided that duke is a better place for me</p>
<p>Edit: here are the rankings</p>
<ol>
<li><p>CMU, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley</p></li>
<li><p>UIUC</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell</p></li>
<li><p>Texas, Washington</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton</p></li>
<li><p>Caltech, Wisconsin</p></li>
<li><p>Georgia Tech, Maryland</p></li>
<li><p>Brown, UCLA, Michigan</p></li>
<li><p>Rice, UNC, Penn</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Purdue, UCSD</p></li>
<li><p>UMass Amherst, Yale</p></li>
</ol>
<p>the ranking for CS???
why do i alway see Berkeley on the top.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr</p>