I HATE how Brown doesn't cater to US News Rankings

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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<p>There is no "recent trend" to speak of when it comes to striving for the best.</p>

<p>Furthermore, cost is relative based on how much you can pay, and many of the schools with the best financial aid also happen to be among the best academically - for example, Amherst, which just announced a major finaid initiative, also happens to be tip-top level in terms of undergraduate academics. Schools may be "cheaper" in advertised tuition figures, but are certainly not always actually cheaper for those who would qualify for financial aid from a very top tier institution, or for those who might not want to spend their summer collecting money at a pizza shop and would rather spend a couple summers abroad (an area in which the very top-tier schools now provide massive amounts of funding). </p>

<p>Also, a simple cost:benefit analysis demonstrates for most people the value of going to a top-tier institution that can get you into the very best graduate programs and allow you to form friendships with motivated and extremely passionate, unusually intelligent and "quirky" (in a good way... usually) people. Even if the up front cost is a bit higher for some, the long term payoff can be enormous.</p>

<p>The "bang for your buck" people are the same ones who started the now-defunct "self esteem" craze in the early 1990s. Some of them even want you to go to an "easy" school so you can feel like you are the top dog. If you listen to them, again, you are being penny-wise and pound-foolish, although obviously a few of them make the important point that you should find a school that is a good "fit" (which you can only determine with extensive visits, not gross stereotypes about "types" of people who attend a school).</p>

<p>Of course it is sad that the rich get richer, and the schools with the highest endowments per student keep getting better relative to their poorer peer institutions, but that's the way education works. If you don't like it, get involved in government and try to improve funding for public education. Or get involved in private industry, make a lot of money, and donate it to a school instead of buying a yacht or a third home. Our state-funded and second-tier private universities are good, but if the country really wanted to, it could make them HYP level. It would just take a lot of money. But hey, we currently spend 38% of the national budget on the military (including interest on military expenditure related debt) versus a tiny fraction of it on education. If you could reverse those numbers, you would see public universities that were at the level of HYP. To bring everyone up to the level of Yale and Princeton, which have ~$2,000,000 per student, you would only need to spend about 5,000,000,000,000 dollars; the cost of a few wars in Iraq. </p>

<p>Until then, go to the best place you can get into.</p>

<p>Regarding numbers, I think you are being overly defensive, and ignoring the fact that the vast majority of my posts do not have to do with numbers - they have to do with giving advice. I receive many posts & personal messages from people thanking me for specific advice - and almost none of it has anything to do with facts or figures.</p>

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<p>your posts deal with advice? i musta missed that but does that advice by any chance come as a result of numbers you found somewhere?</p>

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<p>First, Modest, don't shoo PosterX away, he's rather entertaining me.</p>

<p>Your "advice" is terrible. No one but the richest can afford to visit schools for 2-3 days at a time. We've already gone through a cost analysis on this. </p>

<p>Furthermore, I don't know who you think is touting "go to the best school you can get into" besides yourself, and whoever it may be, is giving terrible and misguided advice. There are several schools that offer an equal caliber education. The education at Brown is just as good as that at HY, if not better in many ways because of its focus on undergraduates. (Your claim that Brown does not focus on undergraduates is a. wrong b. unsupported by facts, evidence, or claims of any kind, and c. erroneous because you don't go here and therefore cannot judge how much emphasis is put on undergraduates. Furthemore, the numbers, which you so love, clearly show how much more empahsis is put on graduates at places like H and Y. Brown doesn't have a giant medical school, a law school, or as extensive of graduate programs. The result, in conjuction with Brown's own educational philosophy, is a focus on undergraduates) But back to the point. Because you can get the same quality education at many schools, the only difference is prestige. Prestige is far less important than qualities like "fit" for where you are going to spend 4 years of your life, unless you're a superficial loser, which perhaps you are. You make the call. In other words, Brown is just as good as Yale, so go to the school that feels better, not the one that US News says is better, which is what you are proposing. Want to impress truck drivers? Go to Harvard. Want to go have a good time at college? Go to the school that offers you the best possible education and feels right.</p>

<p>Here you go with the numbers game again. Money is not everything. In fact, it's hardly anything at all, once you've gotten passed a certain level of endowment, which both Brown and Yale have. Having more money for advising does not make advising better. I cannot tell you how amazing the advising is at Brown. Each advisor has about 10 students and is devoted to each and every one of them. This far surpases most school's systems of having several advisors for the entire student body. Furthemore, Brown not only has advisors, but an abundance of deans that you can either see on a sparatic basis or form a connection wth as a secondary advisor. I have. My point is that money is not everything, which you seem to be saying. In fact, it's not much at all. It's much better to do a qualitative analysis and see how that money is actually being spent and see what the results are. Forget how much money is being thrown at research, find out how good the research and research opportunities are. Forget how much money is being thrown at food, taste it and find out. However, you are not doing this in your analysis of schools. Attitudes, distribution of funds, and priorities are important and you are overlooking them. You are pointing out that some schools have more money and jumping to the conclusion that their resources, and education as a whole, must be better. A does not equal B here. </p>

<p>I have to ride a sweet sweet Piaggio MP3 home from work now, but will surely write more later.</p>

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<p>And what makes you say that the "bang for your buck" people started the "self esteem" trend. You aren't supporting your argument with anything, dude.</p>

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<p>Sorry to go on a rant here but I'm really disturbed by PosterX's posts and attitude. </p>

<p>Furthermore, despite the benefits that supposedly can only come from going to a high-prestige school, some people just can't afford them. EFC's are often, if not always, overstated (they vary from school to school). Additionally, some people have to work to support their families, or live at home. Others have parents that qualify for financial aid and won't pay. So "bang for your buck" is a perfectly acceptable way of choosing a school. It's not what I would do, because fortunately, luckily, and fabulously, I have parents that are willing to take a second mortgage on the house to pay for me to go to Brown (for the record I am on a lot of financial aid) But many people don't. My freshman roommate at Tulane (I'm a transfer) was brilliant (a b*tch, but a brilliant one) and had parents that were well off but wouldn't pay for her schooling. So she had to look for merit aid -- Ivy's weren't a viable option. </p>

<p>And further for the record, going to Brown isn't going to launch me into a lucrative career to pay off those loans I'm taking out because of my chosen field. This is true for many people, so you can't claim that going to ivy leauge schools will "pay off" monetarily for everyone, because some people have priorities other than money. This is obviously a choice. I could be a money whore if I wanted to be (but we all know my feelings on that). My point is that I am in it for the education, and the experience, not the prestige or where it will launch me.</p>

<p>Most of the richest school's peer institutions have enough money to be just as good if not better! Endowment (I'll say it again) is not everything. It's all about attitudes, priorities, and teaching ability. <em>primal scream</em> </p>

<p>2 anecdotes: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>I used to be very involved with Oregon State University. It's a 3rd tier state school. I know it's underfunded. But I met so many great teachers and students who were doing fascinating cutting edge research (back in my science days, jason. lol). Oregon State is obviously not Brown, H, Y, or P. But clearly there are great opportunities there and great teachers (= opportunities to learn) despite the poor funding and lack of prestige. You have a huge superiority complex, PosterX. So many of your posts give unfounded and all together too much credit to prestige, or suggest that only the "best" schools have the "best" students. There is surely a larger percentage of the "best" students at top schools, and probably a more academic atmosphere, because of low acceptance rates. But to ignore the presence of brilliant people elsewhere, or the quality of education you can recieve at an underfunded institution, is just ignorant. Oh yeah, the hands-down smartest kid in the class above me at my high school decided to go to Oregon State. Among others. </p></li>
<li><p>I'm going to talk about advising again, because I think it's a really good illustration of how endowment means very little. PosterX keeps reffering to larger endowments meaning more money for advising, which, according to him, clearly makes their advising superior to that of other schools. Well, Brown has less money than Yale. But get this: </p></li>
</ol>

<p>One day I was walking out of health services. I had just been reffered to get a catscan for a potential concussion, which would postpone my broken nose surgery (ahhh...rugby). So naturally I was feeling a little down. I saw a dean I knew coming towards me. I wasn't in the mood to talk, so I kind of looked away. She saw me, walks over, bends down and around and gets in my face (not in the bad metaphorical way, in the literal way), and says "hello, how are you doing?" Later that day I get an email that says she thought I had a "not on top of things look" and wanted to see me. So I did. And she was very helpful. Like always. </p>

<p>Now this is a dean! Not my advisor, not someone specifically assigned to me. Someone who took it upon herself to look out for me. That does not happen everywhere, and it clearly has nothing to do with funding!!!!!!!!!! It's about attitude and priorities! And Brown, its advisors, its professors, and its deans have the right ones.</p>

<p>So dismount from your high horse, PosterX, or I will dump tackle the two of you. Woopacha. Go Bruno.</p>

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<p>I don't think that's so unusual. I know I went to the hospital last year, and the dean at Amherst called me up to check up on me in my hospital room, and then called my boyfriend for me, since I didn't get cell phone reception in the room. Then she told me to contact her when I got out, where she called a taxi service to take me back to my dorm...and then called me the next day, asking to see me and and telling me that if I wasn't able to take my exams, she could talk to my professors for me. I think it's a wealthy school thing, and possibly a smallish school thing, but not at all exclusive to Brown or Amherst.</p>

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<p>Clearly it happens at other schools too! My point is that it has nothing to do with endowment, it has to do with a focus on the undergraduates and a level of caring that I'm sure Amherst has too.</p>

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<p>And I think every reasonable person here knows that Brown is a great school that cares about its undergraduates.</p>

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<p>This thread is definitely brings the lolz. I approve.</p>

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<p>I'm not disputing that Brown is a great school. </p>

<p>ClaySoul, it's very illuminating to hear about your opinions on Brown, but you don't need to constantly bash other schools in order to get your message across. Presumably, you've selected the ones to "bash" just because they have 10 times more money per student? If not, you've selected them rather arbitrarily!</p>

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<p>posterX calls kettle black! More news at 11...</p>

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<p>You're putting words in my....posts, PosterX </p>

<p>I'm not bashing any school. I have the highest respect for HY, etc. I am refuting your claim that Brown is inferior to them. Perhaps refuting that requires "bashing" on some level. My opinion is that they are on par, generally speaking, and that perhaps Brown's undergraduate focus makes it slightly better even for undergraduate learning. (I have excluded P in this because they too have a larger focus on undergraduate learning). I have selected said schools to compare Brown to because they are the ones you keep saying are superior to Brown. There's nothing arbitrary about it. </p>

<p>You are the one coming to another thread and bashing its school. The occaisonal concession that you do in fact like brown does not negate the number of times you have said how inferior it is to your schools of choice.</p>

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<p>This is so intense...</p>

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<p>No, not really. It's just sad that a student from Yale can not craft sound arguments.</p>

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<p>It's more like he's just wrong. It's hard to craft a sound argument when you don't have a leg to stand on in the first place.</p>