gtown or brown?? please help-- time running out!

<p>i got accepted into the gtown college and brown. i visited both of their open houses and still cant decide! right NOW i'm into poli. sci. and business but im definitely open to other majors..</p>

<p>brown-- the atmosphere was sooo relaxed and i dont know if this is a good thing. i might need a little more structure than their open curriculum. providence is cute but i did want a bigger city.. the most enticing thing about brown for me is its name. i want to go to a really good grad. school nd several people have told me brown is better if i wanted to get into a grad. school. </p>

<p>gtown-- i'm actually leaning toward gtown a lot more. i visited and i really did love the campus and the people. the only thing is, i talked to some ppl from gtown and one of them told me to go to brown. she said that the lack of funding at gtown was hurting its students and the usnews ranking (i know i shouldnt put much weight into this but.. i cant help it if i notice it!) keeps falling for gtown. i know the funding hurts its rank but the academic reputation score is also quite low for gtown.. </p>

<p>if i want to have the whole package--great education, great time, and a great future (i.e. grad school) where should i go???</p>

<p>It really seems like you're leaning towards Georgetown already, so go with your heart. Georgetown is also obviously the better choice for what you want to do.</p>

<p>And as for the funding problem, I haven't heard of it directly hurting the students at all. And as for the academic reputation score, I would think that Georgetown's would be better in the eyes of future employers, because they may not like the whole "open curriculum" thing.</p>

<p>I agree...sounds like you're set on Georgetown. In regards to funding, gtown does have its problems with financial aid, but if you can do it you can do it. The offer you get for your first year will very much resemble what you get in subsequent years (keeping in mind that tuition increases every year) so if money is a big factor for you, then you might have to give that a bit more thought. As for grad school, if you want to do poly sci Gtown will most likely be more helpful than Brown...especially considering the opportunities you'll have being in DC. Then again, you have to want to take advantage of those things in the first place. But I know my Gtown education helped me get into the best grad schools in the country for public policy...the schools like the structure of my curriculum and felt it prepared me well to go straight in out of undergrad.</p>

<p>thank you for replying!!
open to more comments =)</p>

<p>just wanted to get a gtown student's perspective-- is gtown as preppy as they say it is? are there only "one kind" of gtown student? i didnt notice it so much when i visited but everyone seems to say it is. i'm asian and i'm used to being around a lot asian people. while i dont want to be clustered with asians like i did in high school, i did notice that there were BARELY any asians in gtown. it was just an extremely diff. environment than wat i grew up in. how big is the minority scene?</p>

<p>i'm a minority (not asian) who also went to a school with a lot of Asians. it was kind of weird, after 12 years of going to school with so many asians, to be on a campus that was only something like 9% asian or something. a far cry from schools like stanford or columbia.</p>

<p>there were more white people there than i'm used to being around, so for me it'll be a step down in terms of diversity. plus, gtown is without a doubt less diverse than brown. but for me, the best undergrad IR program in the country was too hard to turn down. less diversity--not a lack of diversity, less diversity--was a fair price to pay for that. besides, gtown is a very internationally-oriented school, and that carries with it a lot of implications. </p>

<p>do NOT pick a college based on your grad school plans. there's absolutely no way you can predict what your interests or plans for the future will be in four years, because so much happens when you go to college.</p>

<p>i am currently a freshman at gtown
and have seen that gtown is very very diverse.
there are many asians and many brown people at well. i dont think you got a good perspective when you visited.
and they all have their respective societies which organize lots of stuff
do not worry about fitting it.
you will most definitely fit in
if i, a brown muslim from PAKISTAN, could fit in, then you can.
i arrived in the US for the very first time last Aug, alone, to attend gtown :)</p>

<p>In regards to students of color, the scene definitely could be a lot better (seriously). I love Gtown, but that is definitely my biggest problem with it. The Asian community on campus is EXTREMELY diverse and both culturally and socially active. It's definitely the most organized SOC community on campus. The black/African-American community here is substantially smaller and a bit more spread out among different interests which sometimes causes controversy and discussions about "black unity." Still, black students tend to be the focus of nearly anything related to diversity and students of color in general from the administration. I've always thought that when the administration talks about students of color they really only mean black students. The Hispanic/Latino community is the most fragmented, mostly due to differences between the international and U.S. students. In previous years, it's also been one of the least diverse domestic communities with a majority of the students coming from southern Cali. This year's freshmen class really shook that up though so there's been a very different dynamic to work with. The Native American community here has been virtually non-existant...but once again this year's freshmen class finally brought the numbers up (I think we're at six now...seriously). The different communities don't work as well with each other as they should, but that's just my opinion. Overall, I'd say that the communities are all strong enough now for you to branch out and get some "mainstream" Georgetown life while still having that cultural safety net to turn to. Some people just do the safety net thing...some people just do the mainstream thing...I'd like to think I've been able to balance (Hispanic female) which has definitely been one of the greatest parts of my experience.</p>