Here are Grinnell’s degree requirements:
http://catalog.grinnell.edu/content.php?catoid=12&navoid=2537#Requirements_for_Graduation
Note the limitation of 48 credits in any one department and 92 credits in any one division (humanities, social studies, or science), out of a total of 124 credits. This effectively creates breadth requirements, so it is not an open curriculum.
The schools don’t have much choice. A traditional (ABET-accredited) engineering BS is a professional degree, and the curriculum has significantly more course requirements and less flexibility than most other undergraduate majors. To graduate with an engineering BS in four years, you have to hit the ground running as a freshman, and complete all of the degree requirements on a tightly defined schedule. There isn’t much room for the kind of preliminary intellectual exploration that an “open curriculum” is intended to encourage, unless you are prepared to spend more than four years in college.
Re: #21
Some schools do not require frosh applicants to apply to the engineering division or engineering majors, and do not impose selective admission barriers to declare engineering majors later (though they may require that students have taken sufficient prerequisite courses so that they can finish in 8 semesters). The reason is that they have excess departmental capacity to allow all interested students in the major. Usually, this is the case at the wealthiest (and often the most selective) private universities (e.g. HYPSM) and schools which are relatively low on the selectivity scale where only a few students are able and willing to go for a rigorous engineering major. Popular state flagships and other schools in that selectivity range are most likely to have their engineering majors enrolled to full capacity, so they require applying to the engineering division or engineering majors, and/or have additional selective admission to engineering majors after students enroll.
Sometimes I fancy using a bit of hyperbole.
I do think it would probably be good to have some guidance in the class scheduling strategy, but I also know (well, i figure…) most students at Brown are serious about getting the most out of their educational opportunities.
Re: #19 and Brown’s S/NC policy
But note that taking out-of-major courses with a grading option similar to Brown’s S/NC (e.g. passed / not-passed) is allowed and common at many colleges. It is not unique to Brown.
Couple of critical differences:
Wesleyan/Middletown has a very similar vibe to the whole Brown/RISD/Providence matrix except that Middletown is a lot less densely populated. They’re less than an hour away from each other and, tbh, there’s really not that much more to do in downtown Providence than on Thayer Street which is smack in the middle of the Brown campus.
Who doesn’t love Brown? OP, your son needs match and safety schools. Seems to me that you looked at all reaches. There are in fact a lot of colleges that have such broad distribution requirements that they are effectively very similar to an open curriculum. Your son needs some schools in the 30% and above acceptance range to avoid being shut out altogether. And of course, we don’t know anything about his stats, but all of the schools you visited are in the 20% and below acceptance range. They are reaches for all, regardless of stats. For safety schools, he needs some schools in the 40% and above range, depending on stats. And he needs to show interest, because colleges routinely deny top students if they suspect they are being used as a safety. Put some common sense on the list, so that we don’t read a sad post next April about not getting in anywhere.
UVA Echols Shcolars have no distribution requirements. You can’t apply for the program, however, and it is only offered to a small number of applicants to the College of Arts and Sciences.
Lindagaf: Thanks for the advice. Based on 5 years of data from his school and for a variety of reasons, my son has a very high admission probability to Brown (much higher than 20%) At this point, he will apply early to Brown–which will increase his admissions odds.
At the same time, he will apply to several UC’s (due by Nov. 30) and other schools for regular admission. My original question focused on similar schools (from a curriculum/size/STEM perspective) to Brown. I did this to help him develop a list of fall-back/alternative schools.
It’s not as common as you might think. You have to read the small print. Many restrict the number of courses you can take P/F. A number of colleges don’t allow you to meet distribution requirements with courses taken P/F. Some give professors the option of restricting their courses to students who are taking the course for a grade. (At one school I had trouble finding courses in which the profs hadn’t restricted enrollment to students taking it for a grade. )Other schools penalize students who take P/F classes in other ways–it may be in terms of election to honor societies like Phi Beta Kappa or in getting honors like cum laude, magna, and summa.