<p>I’ve repeatedly criticized college rankings and so it would be hypocritical of me to brag about the new Princeton Review rankings of Brown (even though they are incredibly flattering). Cough cough. However, their descriptions of Brown are really great, so I thought I’d cut and paste them to share with everyone:</p>
<p>Student Body
“It’s like the school has a motto,” writes a typical Brown University undergrad, “and that motto is: ‘It’s your money. Why should we choose your classes?’” Thanks to the school’s open curriculum, “being at Brown means you will never again have to take a class if you don’t want to.” Students who flock here are the type who yearn for such academic freedom; they “love the open curriculum and the chance it gives us to really invest ourselves in what we’re most interested in. Brown allows you to explore academically without punishing you for it.” Brown also “allows students to choose how we are evaluated in our classes by choosing to take any class S/NC (Satisfactory/No Credit). This says a lot about the learning philosophy of the school, which is mainly focused on the process of learning rather than simply the results.” Brown professors “are engaging, challenging us as students and as participants in the learning process,” and are “very accessible, dedicated to undergraduate students and usually pretty funny outside the classroom.” Students appreciate that “a lot of the introductory classes are taught by brilliant professors. The concentration is truly on the undergraduates.” Administrators, “as strange as it seems, are also incredibly accessible.” Sums up one student, “Everything is at your fingertips, but you have to reach out for it. At Brown, very few things will simply come to you, but you can be sure that if you want it, it will be there.”</p>
<p>Academics
“The social scene is a lot like the academic scene” at Brown “in that there is a huge variety of options, and people tend to experience most of them. From hanging out to cocktail parties, from hippies partying in their co-ops to kids studying in the library, from fraternity parties to watching a movie, everything you can imagine doing for fun happens.” Students agree that “Brown is a school that definitely parties, and Wednesday night through Sunday students here are partying,” but not until they get their schoolwork done. Academics are demanding and students here work hard, but “aside from exams and major assignments, life is laid-back. That isn’t to say the students lack passion or drive quite the oppositebut there’s a marked lack of nervous tension.” Undergrads find plenty of time for extracurriculars, populating “over 150 extracurricular clubs and activities,” including “great theater and music” opportunities. They also enjoy “free lectures by everyone from Spike Lee to Mikhail Gorbachev, free concerts, free comedy show, plays. We have anything and everything. There is almost too much going on.” And then there’s Providence, “a nice location with all sorts of cool night clubs and restaurants that don’t make it easy to be bored on a Saturday night. There are hot spots like Fish Company, where people drink and dance, and there’s Thayer Street, with anything a college student could ever need, from groceries, books, and clothes to videos, bikes, and clubs.” Brown undergrads also take advantage of the fact that “Boston and New York City are relatively close by.”</p>
<p>Campus Life
Most Brown undergrads are “individual, free-thinking, and eager to learn.” They are “very smart, have a keen knowledge of current affairs, and can talk about Plato, FDR, or biology,” but “they don’t have swelled heads. They’re generally pretty well-grounded, open to new ideas, and fun.” Like the New Englanders who surround them, “they tend to be very liberal and very politically active. It is a necessity to be up-to-date on current events, as discussions and debates take place from dorm rooms to the gym to the cafeteria.” The “typically small ‘outsider’ communities (e.g. GLBT students) here have a lot of support on campus and generally hang out together.” While “Brown has a reputation as a hippie school, it really isn’t: There are people who fit into every social niche, and although it’s not always easy to find the right people right away, they’re out there.”</p>
<p>Rankings-wise, we got #3 for happiest students, #10 for hardest to get into, and #9 for best radio station. We were ranked equally with Harvard and Yale academically and tied with Harvard and 1 better than Yale for quality of life. Though I recommend to everyone actually VISITING colleges (and staying over night if you can) rather than basing decisions on numbers, statistics, and worst of all - rankings.</p>