<p>Please opine. S loved both - he is entering as a humanities major (but of course who knows what will happen?). I’m worried about the Brandeis financial situation, but appreciate the social justice agenda that is foundational there, but also found that Case is deeply committed to a sound liberal arts curriculum and has lots of social justice opportunities - just not quite so in your face about them. All things being equal ($, distance from home, etc), what say ye? Will also post on Case side.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m a Brandeis alum and I toured Case last year with my son as a prospective student.</p>
<p>I really liked it, but could not talk him into applying.</p>
<p>They are both great schools and you could not go really wrong with either.</p>
<p>But, I’d have to give the slight edge to 'deis due to a smaller student body and a better location.</p>
<p>I was also deciding between Case and Brandeis after I visited Case last weekend for Admit day. I finally decided on Brandeis because I felt the campus was smaller and more intimate than Case’s campus. At Case, the campus was really beautiful though! I thought Case would have a lot to offer to people who would want to go into engineering and the sciences. Brandeis is also a good university for science majors because of the research opportunities available. I also chose Brandeis because I like Boston better than Cleveland XD.
Good luck making the decision! I met a tour guide at Case who also decided between Case and Brandeis but she chose Case =) [obviously… lol since i met her there =)] She seemed really happy. She commented that Case is the “underdog of the Ivies” but I thought Brandeis is also an Ivy-qualified school…
I don’t know much about the financial situation at Brandeis… Honestly, Case would have been cheaper for me [got a financial package of 48,000 dollars] because Brandeis gave me 39,000 dollars but I thought I would be more involved at Brandeis’ community. I only know about the Madoff scandal that everyone is talking about… and I thought it only affected the donors of the Shapiro family, not the school itself? I read somewhere Tufts invested with Madoff and lost 20 million though…</p>
<p>Thanks so much - I appreciate your thoughtful answers</p>
<p>I did a fair bit of research on this. Brandeis lost about 1/3 of their endowment in the last couple of years - a biggish deal but not an impossible situation. In fact, instead of becoming more “like the other ivies” (tempting to emulate when the $ is plentiful) this set-back has made them re-look at their priorities and be creative about their way forward, so, to me, that’s a good thing. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? They had to do some restructuring but it seems as though they did so in a way that protects their undergraduates - at the expense of their graduate students. I spoke to literally dozens of students of all ilks while my son was visiting (of course, he didn’t see me do this!) and (1) ALL of them loved the school and the faculty (2) most of them were not fond of the administration’s stances on many issues but didn’t see that as disruptive of their education (3) none felt the belt-tightenings thus far (reduced library hours, reduced game room hours, etc) had a negative impact on the quality of their student lives. The official stance is that all the schools lost a chunk - and many lost more $ than Brandeis. What they don’t say is that the other schools had a much larger cushion, so the losses, while more in $ are actually less in proportion to their total wealth. Brandeis biggest financial difficulty right now is that, because they are such a relatively young institution, they don’t have the large alum base to draw upon that a university producing graduates for the past two hundred years has - especially the loyalty of multi-generational well-heeled legacy families. Moreover, the kind of social agenda that Brandeis cherishes means that many of their alum go off to do good works at the expense of high salaries, further reducing the deep pockets Brandeis can turn to. Nevertheless, it is exactly this commitment to social justice, intellectualism that attracts the best and brightest students, and, with careful, creative and transparent leadership that is a recipe for Brandeis’ successful future. It’s only $ - they made it before, they’ll make it again.</p>
<p>I’m a student at Brandeis and my brother graduated last spring from Case.</p>
<p>These are both excellent schools and I would hesitate to say that either one would give your son a “better” education (it’s really whatever he makes of the resources with which he is provided). However, there are definite differences in the non-academic realm.</p>
<p>As far as social justice goes, I don’t know exactly how the social justice “scene” is at Case. At Brandeis, this sentiment permeates the campus and everyone is aware and passionate about social justice issues. I would go as far as to say that at Deis, the student body is obsessed with social justice. It’s even one the four “pillars.” And we take those seriously. So it’s a great environment if your son is concerned with social justice.</p>
<p>In terms of the financial situation at Brandeis, it is true that the school has been hit hard in the past couple of years and is actively cutting back on programs. That said, the school is not necessarily doomed and cuts this far have been minor. It’s definitely a problem and something to think about, but probably not the most important factor in your son’s decision.</p>
<p>Socially, the two environments differ. I know that Case is fairly big on Greek life (about 1/3 pledge), for example. Brandeis does not officially permit Greek organizations because of their inherently exclusive nature, and while there is a noticeable (though small) presence of “underground” frats and sororities, this says a lot about the school in my opinion. Most students are supportive of this idea and might go to a frat party on occasion, but choose not to pledge. Even the students who are in Greek organizations are impressively involved in a huge array of other activities and in no way allow their Greek affiliation to define them. It’s very Brandeisian, by the way, to be involved in several activities and devote as much time and energy to them as to your schoolwork (this could be true at other schools, I’m not sure).</p>
<p>Something else to consider is the curriculum of the school. You can find both schools’ core curricula on their websites. Brandeis does have a lot of “general distribution” requirements but they are extremely easy and usually fun to fulfill. I could be wrong but I think Case has fewer requirements. Case has the SAGES program, which is very interesting and requires a capstone project. On the other hand, Brandeis does not require that students complete any such project. Deis requires courses such as a University Writing Seminar, two classes that are either writing intensive or oral communications-based, a class taught from a non-western perspective, and a certain number of credits in the areas of social science, quantitative reasoning, humanities, and creative arts. There is also the optional First Year Seminar (which is a great option). Your son should explore both of the schools’ curricula and see which is more appealing to him. Also, it is important to note that Case is more of a research university and less liberal artsy than Brandeis. This means that there may be more research opportunities at Case (although more graduate students to prevent undergrads from becoming involved in research), but also possibly more TAs teaching classes (that doesn’t really happen at Brandeis, TAs only lead discussion sections unless the professor is out) and less personal attention. </p>
<p>Finally, consider the location. Case is fairly urban and in Cleveland. Brandeis is almost completely secluded and located in a cute but kind of boring suburb (Waltham) which is a good 40 minutes from Boston with traffic. I won’t argue the merits of Cleveland versus Boston, you can decide for yourself. Obviously Boston is great, but at Case you’re much more likely to spend time in the city anyway so if you’re into that, that could be the way to go. I will say that the fact that Brandeis is not IN a city and not really in a college town either means that there is SO much to do on campus every night and every weekend and the campus community is SO strong. This is one of my favorite aspects of Brandeis, though I can see how one might find that claustrophobic as well.</p>
<p>I hope I was able to illuminate some differences, feel free to ask me for my opinion on anything else. Good luck to your son and no matter where he decides to go, he will have chosen a great school.</p>
<p>Just a clarification of the financial sitution. Brandeis is hardly in trouble. The economic downturn has affected all schools. </p>
<p>More forthrightly than most, Brandeis has stepped up to make strategic cuts that do not materially affect undergrads and strengthen the academy for the long run, while simultaneously innovating programs and building state of the art facilities–e.g. the new science center and Humanities center.</p>
<p>Although belt-tightening in certain areas, those are small individually and where the university isn’t excellent. In fact, Brandeis is adding exciting new programs like an undergrad Busness major and the independent-study Justice Brandeis Semester. Resources are being plowed into student aid. The school is focussed on building from its strengths–i.e. an excellent small liberal arts college within a top-notch research university–where prominent professors teach in small classes. </p>
<p>The reports of Brandeis’s budget issues lack context and have been overblown due to the administration’s inartful handling of its proposal to sell a few paintings from its world-renowned Rose Art Museum–which caused international attention to be focused on this issue. As mentoned, Brandeis is hardly alone in this economy. According to news reports, many universities, even Harvard, are making budget cuts in response to severely diminished endowments and donations. Brandeis has pledged to maintain financial aid and maintain, or improve, its world-class education by resisting the type of budget cuts that could undermine its core mission. The now-on-hold art-sale proposal was just one way it was considering to fund that pledge. The key here is that Brandeis is prioritizing students over things.</p>
<p>Extremely helpful - thanks so much. I just handed your response to my son and appreciate your balanced suggestions. Really there are no right or wrong answers - just what’s right for him. What is the general feeling on campus right now about the tempest caused by the TeaParty conference stuff going on right now? It seems like some pretty inflammatory presentation in a place that preaches tolerance.</p>
<p>I am a student assistant who works at the center that put on the conference, so I’m probably biased, but I’d say the Fox News, Glenn Beck reports were highly exaggerated. I think a fair majority of Brandeis kids were kind of proud that Glenn Beck and Fox News were criticizing Brandeis, sort of based on the idea that this must mean we are doing something right, given how many times I saw the link to the Fox News report being passed around among Brandeis people. Also, the offending posters were up for about a week and nobody really noticed them until a local conservative radio host found out about them. The conference itself was very academic with an emphasis on social science/sociology. One of my friends who is conservative was somewhat upset about the posters and the news reports, but I convinced him to come and he came back actually agreeing with a fair amount of what the presenter who discussed Tea Partiers had to say (my friend was far more upset by some stuff another campus visitor, a journalist, had to say two days earlier). Nothing on the poster or the center’s website drew an explicit connection between Nazism and Tea Parties. The conference was about right wing radicalism in Europe and in America, and so the symbol (which was negated on the poster) had some applicability at least to the European aspect of it.
There was high attendance at the event, more than is usual at the center’s events, and there were some tea party members there, but everyone stayed civil in spite of some sharper exchanges towards the end. And that I think made it a successful event, because you really had two opposite sides of a spectrum in the same room which you don’t really have. With the symbol, conference organizers were criticizing intolerance that some say exists among some Tea party members.
Here is some reading material about this:
[The</a> Justice](<a href=“Homepage - The Justice Online”>Homepage - The Justice Online)
[url=<a href=“http://innermostparts.org/2010/04/28/livebloggin-the-right-wing-radicalism-conference/]Innermost”>http://innermostparts.org/2010/04/28/livebloggin-the-right-wing-radicalism-conference/]Innermost</a> Parts Blog Archive Livebloggin’ the Right-Wing Radicalism Conference<a href=“from%20an%20activist%20student%20blog”>/url</a>
[url=<a href=“http://innermostparts.org/2010/04/22/party-time/]Innermost”>http://innermostparts.org/2010/04/22/party-time/]Innermost</a> Parts Blog Archive Party Time<a href=“more%20from%20the%20activist%20blog”>/url</a>
[url=<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Fox News Hoax Exploits Holocaust Link to Mask Racism in Tea Parties | HuffPost Latest News]Chip</a> Berlet: Fox News Hoax Exploits Holocaust Link to Mask Racism in Tea Parties<a href=“post%20from%20conference%20presenter%20whose%20paper%20topic%20caused%20all%20the%20trouble”>/url</a></p>