<p>I’ll be visiting Brown in a couple of weeks, and I’d really like to sit in on a class. The website definitely seems to encourage it, but I can’t seem to find much information as to how to go about making the arrangements. </p>
<p>How do I find a schedule for classes? Do I need to contact the professor in advance? Is it common for prospective students to check out the classes?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone have any recommendations? If it helps, I’ll be there all day on Friday the 19th, and I’m interested in English/humanities.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Contact admissions on Tuesday. I'm relatively certain there are a few classes (probably larger ones) which are designated for potential students to sit in on.</p>
<p>Outside of that, you can always use Welcome</a> - Mocha and search for a class that interests you and email the professor to see what they say about you visiting. My guess is that you're not going to be able to get a lot of info now with it being the start of the semester and pre-shopping period (professors have no sense of how many students will be in their class by the end of the next two weeks), but you may find whoever you contact quite accommodating.</p>
<p>So, an update:</p>
<p>I emailed the admissions office a week ago. Four days later, I received an automatic email reply essentially informing me that I would not receive an email reply to my question. I then called the admissions office. They told me that the classes designated for prospective students had not been determined yet, so I was to call the department office of the type of class I was interested in.</p>
<p>I called the English office. They told me to find a class I wanted to visit online and then email the professor asking if I could stop by.</p>
<p>I spent over an hour browsing through all of the available courses, and finally picked an introductory writing class that was obviously geared toward first-year students. Since more than one professor teaches the class, I spent some more time looking up the different members of the faculty. One of the professors sounded really interesting, so I sent her a polite email asking if I could join the class on the date I'm visiting (a week from Friday).</p>
<p>Another two days went by, and then I got a response: There are "no extra chairs in the room."</p>
<p>Now I'm feeling rather hurt. I understand that Brown has many more amazing applicants than it needs and that admissions doesn’t need to go as far out of its way to accommodate visitors as offices have at other school's I've seen. And I understand that in certain cases a professor might not want visitors, especially in what is probably a smaller class, because it would be more disruptive...but couldn't she have just said so? Before this, I'd loved everything I'd heard about Brown and had been strongly considering applying early decision. But now...I'm just not sure.</p>
<p>Anyhow, it feels like it's too late to email another professor, though I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. To any current students: Are there any classes (maybe larger ones) that you've definitely shared with prospective students in the past? Possibly humanities-related? It won't be the best-case scenario, but I'd really like to see a class.</p>
<p>There are many times where there literally are no chairs in the room. It's not really offensive, it's just the way it is. In fact, my largest class has 5 more people signed up than there are seats.</p>
<p>Sometimes a course is more popular than it has been in the past and there are only so many larger rooms on campus.</p>
<p>I understand why you're disappointed, but it clearly would have made far more sense to find a couple of classes you were interested in and emailing all of those professors since it was really going to be to the discretion of the instructor whether they had space or whather you would disrupt the class.</p>
<p>Realize that the beinning of the year is the worst time to visit since students who control tours, information sessions, etc are just gett ing on campus and organize. The administration and admissions is just starting to recover from making sure 1550 new students actually get on campus and get all of the material sthey need over the summer to prepare for Brown, and are now dealing with getting the application and other information material out.</p>
<p>You're trying to get in at a very hard transiition period and as of right now some classes may still have their final enrollment in flux. I'd look for a class taught primarily to second and third year students since anyone teaching a moderately large class with many freshman is not going to be accessible to you right now-- they've probably got 500 overanxious freshman emailing them daily that they have to deal with in conjunction with other responsibilities.</p>
<p>The most typical way that incoming students see classes is when they arrange overnight stays through the Bruin Club and from a set list of courses which is devised after shopping period when professors know the enrollment of their class and what room they'll be in permanently. That list hasn't been developed because shopping period ends in 2 days. The Bruin Club just met Monday and Tuesday for the first time to begin organizing all other activities.</p>
<p>modest, shopping period ends two weeks after classes start. i.e. a week from today.</p>
<p>My brain is not operating. Of course you're right, i_wanna, for some reason I'm thinking Friday is the end of the second week.</p>
<p>When you are on Mocha, go to a class and then click on the CRN number link, and you can see how large the class is. If it is a lecture class, there's a really good chance that there will be room in there for you to sit in. When my daughter visited colleges, she didn't get permission to go to classes ahead of time -- at some schools she got to class a few minutes early to ask the prof if she could sit in. </p>
<p>Maybe you don't want to sit in on a lecture class, but it's better than nothing. And some profs are amazing in lectures. </p>
<p>Here's one suggestion: Arnold Weinstein, in the Comp Lit department, is awesome (so says my daughter, who just raved about him last year). He's teaching 2 lecture classes this semester, and I'm sure no one would even notice if you just showed up and sat in.</p>
<p>Thank you for your help!</p>
<p>I have emailed a few more professors, and hopefully something will work out.</p>
<p>If the seat capacity on Mocha is listed as 999, does that signify a larger course (therefore more likely to be available) or does that just mean the eventual capacity is unknown?</p>
<p>It just means the professor has set no cap on the course.</p>
<p>The default used to be 590 which was the largest sized room on campus, but this confused the hell out of some professors so the Office of the Registrar inputs 999 when no other cap is specified.</p>
<p>I actually sat in on a theater class last Tuesday. I emailed Professor Lowry Marshall and she answered very quickly. The class was so much fun and the professor was really friendly. We chatted for a bit while the class split into groups to wrok on a project. I would definitely encourage you to keep emailing professors. I emailed three before I found one who had a class available that day. There are some email adrresses for professors of certain departments on the Brown website.</p>