<p>hey everyone, i have another question… I always hear people talking about the laid back atmosphere at brown and how they discourage competition and there’s not as much emphasis on grades. Is this generally true? while too much competition can get annoying, I do feel like competition is what propels me to work harder and do better, and I’ve never wanted to go to one of those schools where everyone’s constantly talking about how “education’s a journey and not just the means to an end.” don’t get me wrong, I do agree with that statement, but I can’t say I mind a more preprofessional focus in education. Does that mean that brown and I aren’t as good a fit as I once thought, or are there people like me on campus who prosper and enjoy their education fully? Thanks for any responses…</p>
<p>I hope so. Wait... I won't be accepted so it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>From what I know, Brown is probably the LEAST pre-professional and most laid back ivy. It's not particularly competitive or grade-focused compared to other IVIES, however it is still an ivy so of course it's going to have some of that. Still, if you're looking for a very competitive and pre-professional school, I'd say don't choose Brown (unless you're going into medicine).</p>
<p>Choose Stanford lol</p>
<p>since brown is really laid back, the students there are (supposedly) incredibly self-motivated. i guess that makes sense with the open curriculum and all. i'm sure there is external competition, but it's not as big of a deal at brown.</p>
<p>preprofessional... hmmm. upenn?</p>
<p>Personally I don't like competition for grades and such. I do think that you should sort of be your own competitor and do as well as you can, but constant rivalry for grades is stressful. Tons of kids at my school are gpa obsessed, hey even I am, but I think college should be different.</p>
<p>Well put, Pinkear.</p>
<p>I'd imagine that some of it goes away in college. I mean, half of the grade competition probably comes from GETTING INTO college. And people probably mature and realize that there are larger issues than whether they got a B as opposed to an A on their English papers.</p>
<p>Then again, you need good grades for grad school.</p>
<p>I know colleges realize that their admissions standards and methods of selection (i.e. only taking people with remarkably high grades) are placing so much stress on students and causing them to compete with one another for grades, forcing them to forget about the intrinsic pleasure of learning. And I know that they probably didn't intend for it to be this way.</p>
<p>But I wish that they could figure out a better way to evaluate students for important factors such as intelligence, motivation and sincere interest in learning. With the current applicatons process, there's so many ways to eliminate intelligent, independent thinkers from the pool and accept rich idiots who just suck up to teachers and only learn the material that they'll be tested on. I suppose having more "fair" admissions evaluation processes would take a lot more time, and they don't have the money or people to do this. </p>
<p>But, if a college could just take, I don't know, 50 people who don't have the best scores and perhaps didn't get mostly A's and all honors, but showed sincere academic interest and intelligence, then it would prove to potential applicants that it was more important to "learn" and develop criticial thinking skills and enjoy oneself than to get high SAT scores, and get stressed out, and only learn what's they're tested on in school. </p>
<p>It's a shame what the American education system has turned into. It seems like people, on a whole, are more concerned about getting a good job than the exchange of ideas. And I blame admissions offices to an extent. But I can understand their policies; if they started taking candidates who didn't have objectively good statistics, it would encourage laziness.</p>
<p>At the same time, the competition for college has made people crazy and belittled education. And when I get to college, I'm going to try to do something to change this attitude about education, at least on a small scale.</p>
<p>i'm with you soccart! we need to reinstitute learning for the sake of learning, and performing well for self-satisfaction!</p>
<p>From what my sister says, our attitude is the prevailing one at Brown. So it's gonna be a fun next four years! I can't wait!</p>
<p>Hear, hear!</p>
<p>yes! brown is awesome!</p>