<p>Can anyone advise my daughter on two very different schools? Her top three have been Brown, Mudd, and Penn (in that order). Her top two seem very different and nearly impossible for us to compare and contrast for her. Her parents are not engineers and have been of little help with her science and math interests. She has had many outside interests in a large suburban high school (varsity soccer, band) and not focused yet on any type of engineering major. She wants a challenge but has heard Mudd enjoys wearing down students and grades based on curves. Mudd is actually less $ for us but further from home. Any last minute advice will be appreciated.</p>
<p>Well first of all, we get worn down on grades, NOT curves which in general arent used. </p>
<p>Beyond that, I would say that Mudd would be considered a superior engineering school. Although I dont like rankings myself…if you look at the USN rankings for overall engineering, Brown scores a 3.2 and Mudd scores a 4.4 (out of 5) which is pure peer assessment.</p>
<p>I would probably say that your daughter should only go to Brown over Mudd if she doesnt want to be socializing with science-y people all day.</p>
<p>Regarding that last point, did she visit at all?</p>
<p>Thanks, Seiken, for your quick response. I guess that she’ll have to decide whether engineering is most important, in which case Mudd seems like the logical choice. If the liberal curriculum and progressive east coast Ivy environment is the draw then we’ll be visiting her at Brown, which is a lot closer to Chicago.</p>
<p>Brown’s pretty liberal but I wouldn’t use progressive to describe the preppy Ivy league.</p>
<p>With respect to your daughter’s interests, HMC offers a general Engineering degree, a solid background in problem-solving and techniques. So your daughter won’t need to rush into choosing an Engineering specialty.</p>
<p>I’m glad you raised the last point. She is a little concerned about who her friends would be. She does lots of study groups with her science/math friends, but her best friends were not the “science-y” types. She has two friends from high school going to other Claremont colleges. Do Mudd students have close friends studying liberal arts in the other schools? Or does the intense workload effectively limit your social life to those in your classes and dorms? Thanks for any insight. It’s not May 1 yet.</p>
<p>I know a few people who like to hang out off campus at times. Most people stick to Mudd for socializing, but thats because of preference not limitations.</p>
<p>In my personal opinion, if in your mind, body and soul you’d really like to become an engineer, then Mudd is a million times better than Brown to study engineering.</p>
<p>I agree that Mudd’s engineering is stronger. If your daughter wants to be properly trained as a tech person, then Mudd will prepare her much better. I have been rolling around in engineering for a while and must confess that I have not heard of Brown as an engineering powerhouse.</p>
<p>That said, I also know that Mudd’s curriculum is lots tougher. The Core is pretty demanding already, and Mudd is known as a “grade deflator” since they don’t cut much slack for the students, and the kids who go are pretty driven, and don’t mind the work. Whereas because Brown wants their students to really explore, they have made the core lighter, and allow students to drop one class per semester (I think but check the frequency) right up till the end if the grades are not panning out. This gives kids lots of incentives to go ahead and take risks with classes that are not necessarily in their comfort zone. In this regard I feel Mudd and Brown are almost polar opposites. At Mudd, they pride themselves as requiring a LOT of HASS in the core to make a “complete human learning machine” out of their students. The extensive core also may potentially limit kids’ ability to really explore, since they don’t have that many degrees of freedom to begin with, majoring in engineering.</p>
<p>At Brown, the engineering majors are said to have the greatest amount of requirements, and thus have the least amount of freedom.</p>
<p>She chose Harvey Mudd. Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I hope you’re all nice to her.</p>
<p>Yayyyyyyy. More girls 
See her in the fall. Heh</p>