<p>^^ If you’re worried about getting into Brown, Yale is the wrong direction to move.</p>
<p>And I don’t understand why anyone would consider the Open Curriculum or the grading options incidental. I would have though those are exactly the features that attract so many smart-but-“chill” students. But maybe as guitarclassical suggests the atmosphere is more a matter of admission policies, or of kids seeking like-minded people in where they choose to apply.</p>
<p>In any case, this gets back to deciding what aspects of Brown you’d most like to replicate. So far we have a list of schools (including Chicago, WUSTL, Colorado College, Yale, Vassar) that is all over the map in terms of location, size, atmosphere, and curriculum. The one specific thing that seems to matter to the OP is medium size (3k-10k), in an excellent “liberal arts school”. Rice University might fit, although it does have professional schools (it is not a LAC). Wake Forest is another excellent, medium size university (~4K UG, ~2KGrads). It has professional programs … but it also has an Open Curriculum option. US News ranks it 25th overall but 12th for undergraduate teaching quality. More warm weather, less liberal politics than Brown.</p>