Should I go? (RD)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
1

<p>I am in love with the U. of Chicago - and will be getting EA info next week (lucky Brownies-to-be), but I am applying to brown and have mixed feelings.</p>

<p>I have asked quite a few people with loose or no connections, so recent alumni or students would be awesome?</p>

<p>I come from an academicish San Francisco overly-large public school. School is liberal but apolitical. Anti-prep.</p>

<p>Me? Activist tendencies, but mild, mostly yelling at my computer or passersby as I listen to NPR on my bike.</p>

<p>-Culture - is it uniform? elitist? ivy-tower elitist (not saying any if this is necessarily bad)? heavily academic/geeky? liberal? very liberal? political? Any other places to compare?</p>

<p>-Academics - many large classes (not discussion-friendly size)? good teachers by-in-large? how do people handle the work?</p>

<p>-Other - How many people will dance gleefully getting in when I didn’t (1/9 of one, I know)</p>

2

<p>Hey there. As I've posted on other threads, both UChicago (to which i have some close personal connections and know a considerable amount about) and Brown (which I currently attend) are fabulous schools, but with very different academic environments and student cultures.</p>

<p>The culture here (Brown) is certainly not elitist -- Brown kids are some of the most chill, modest, and simultaneously genius people I've met. Uchicago isn't elitist either, per se, but I do think that a lot of people there have a chip on their shoulder about not being in the Ivy League and therefore go way out of their way to criticize Ivy League schools and those who go to them, which makes <em>them</em> sound elitist. Does that make sense?</p>

<p>There are large lectures at Brown, but all are broken down into sections by TAs. However, it's easy to take a lot of small classes. My first semester freshman year, I took 3 small classes (15, 16, and 22 students each) and one large lecture which was actually a fabulous class.</p>

<p>How do people handle the work? There's definitely a lot of it, but everybody here worked hard in high school and came with the expectation of working hard in college, too. It can be stressful, but there's plenty of fun to be had here, too,</p>

<p>I'd say on average, UChicago's culture is "geekier" (which is awesome!). Everybody at Brown is "geeky" about something, but it ranges from Star Trek to Mahler to NPR to ultimate frisbee. Obviously, there's quite a range of interests at Chicago, too, but I think the culture there is a little bit more on the traditional "geeky" end of things.</p>

<p>Brown is definitely very political, and the majority of students on campus hold fairly liberal views. However, there are definitely conservatives here too who speak up plenty.</p>

<p>Good luck on your UChicago admission! It's an amazing school, but if you don't get in, or are still considering other schools afterwards, come visit Brown and see what you think.</p>

3

<p>-Culture - is it uniform? elitist? ivy-tower elitist (not saying any if this is necessarily bad)? heavily academic/geeky? liberal? very liberal? political? Any other places to compare?</p>

<p>It's definitely not uniform. The kids here range from ultrapreppy to ultrahippie, with everythign in between. And like the poster above me said, everyone here's geeky about SOMETHING. That's usually why people got in here in the first place. That's not to say that people here are socially retarded, though, because believe me, nothing could be further from the truth.</p>

<p>From what I've heard about U Chicago, it's a very nose-to-the-grindstone kind of place. Their unofficial (but widely embraced) motto is "The place where fun goes to die," which is, granted, only half serious, but it's still fairly true, from what I've heard from friends who go there.</p>

<p>-Academics - many large classes (not discussion-friendly size)? good teachers by-in-large? how do people handle the work?</p>

<p>A lot of the intro courses will be large lectures with TA-led smaller sections. Above the intro level, though, the class sizes obviously shrink a good deal. I've taken mainly sciences here, so I can't really comment on other departments, but all the courses I've taken so far have been great and challenging. The profs are all really smart and enthusiastic. And I'm not really sure what you mean by "how do people handle the work," so I just won't answer that one. </p>

<p>-Other - How many people will dance gleefully getting in when I didn't (1/9 of one, I know)</p>

<p>Six, maybe seven.</p>

4

<p>Hrm - I just got in EA to U Chicago, which my gut likes quite a bit more than Brown. I don't really want a last-minute application finishing, but I could....</p>

<p>gak...</p>

5

<p>If you want to be at Chicago, please, go. More power to you for getting in where you want to go!</p>

<p>The attitude and atmosphere there is considerably different, as are the schools, IMO. If that's a better fit, well, that's why there is a place for everyone. I'm glad to see you're giving Brown a shake, and if there are any more questions you have (the above to answered very accurately what you already asked) feel free to shoot em out.</p>

6

<p>Congrats on Chicago! Since it's EA, I'd encourage you to apply other places and visit them to make sure Chicago is the best place for you -- you don't really have anything to lose (especially since you can submit to Brown whatever essay you wrote for UC). On the other hand, if you feel positive that Chicago is the place for you, then more power to ya. Sit back and relax.</p>

7

<p>kodama,</p>

<p>My daughter's final decision last year came down to Brown and Chicago. How she decided was to read what students and alums of both schools had to say on studentsreview.com. We also went to Borders and read the pertinent parts of assorted "what the schools are really like" college books. They really do seem like completely different places.</p>

<p>She decided to go with Brown, but you might feel differently. Good luck with whatever you decide!</p>

8

<p>I'd recommend against using studentsreview.com. It's an extremely limited selection of the total sample, and that selection is far from random. Those who know Brown and UChicago well will understand why UChicago wouldn't top Brown on studentsreview.com, but those same people will understand why Chicago could be the better fit for a significant number of people. </p>

<p>And to kodama, I'd say apply to Brown, visit, and really consider it; you've got nothing to lose. I definitely wish I had paid attention to all the options and took advantage of all opportunities when I first applied to college. (Just to give you some context: I originally went to Chicago, got into Brown as a transfer, but ended up transferring to Columbia.)</p>

9

<p>prc618,</p>

<p>Could you explain more about why studentsreview.com shouldn't be used? Yes, it is a limited selection, but I don't know of any source that wouldn't be. Why wouldn't UChicago "top" Brown on something like it (although the reviews were mixed for each school)? Just saying people who "know" the schools "will understand" doesn't really tell us anything. If people knew the schools, they wouldn't need to have reference to something like studentsreview.com in the first place.</p>

<p>I posted on a number of internet boards and heard from a number of alumni of both schools. My dd and I went to the book store and read all the "insider looks" college books they had. What we read was fairly consistent with studentsreview.com.</p>

<p>Perhaps the only way to truly know a school is to attend it. But this is hardly practical. In real life, one has to make a decision and can only use what information is available. And if one chooses incorrectly, as you apparently did, twice, he/she can always transfer like you did.</p>

<p>I do not deny that Chicago could be the better fit for a significant number of people. I never said otherwise. Indeed, in the last few months, I directed someone to studentsreview and her son read all about Chicago and now is convinced it is his top choice!</p>

10

<p>I'd just first like to say that I didn't choose incorrectly twice, but rather only once. I don't wish I went to Brown; Columbia is the perfect place for me. At the same time I feel I know some of Brown's strongest points, and I think it would be a shame for kodama to overlook those points because for the moment he's infatuated with Chicago.</p>

<p>The reason Brown will usually top Chicago on studentsreview is because of the two types of schools: for Chicago, there are a much wider variety of experiences. A Chicago student is much more likely than a Brown student to absolutely hate their school, because Chicago is so quirky and driven towards a certain type of student. And it is these who are most likely to respond to a forum such as studentsreview.com. On the other hand, many of the students I knew at Chicago absolutely loved the place, and couldn't imagine themselves anywhere else. I know that a lot of Brown students would say the same thing (that they couldn't see themselves anywhere else), but at Chicago, I think it was actually true. That is, I think that the people who are most fulfilled at Chicago truly couldn't get that experience or fulfillment anywhere else. Brown, on the other hand, will cater towards a "happier" environment, and that will shine through on studentsreview. I think it would truly be a shame for one of the students who would have loved Chicago--where Chicago would have been the absolute best place for them--to choose Brown based on the biased and superficial reviews on studentsreview. I remember being turned off NYU based on the reviews I read, where now I realize that NYU is really just another really unique school that's more likely to receive hate comments than the average school.</p>

<p>As you asked, what other options are there? It's true that you can't attend each school, which is really the only way to know if it's a fit. Also, the campus visit can be very misleading; I remember at Chicago, when the "prospies" came, everyone all of a sudden had a "great time" and partied a lot. Of course this wasn't a representative cross-section of the year in general. So I can see how a frustration stemming from the difficulty in getting to know a school intimiately would tempt you to use a site such as studentsreview.com. Though in my opinion, it could be a grave mistake.</p>

<p>If anyone would like any questions answered, I'd be glad to answer a private message--of course, I can really only speak in depth about UChicago. I didn't leave Chicago because I hated it; I value the time I spent there, and I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. I just thought Columbia was the "better" fit for me, whatever that means. So what I'm trying to say is I think I could give some unbiased accounts of life at the school (but of course everyone thinks that about their opinions).</p>

11

<p>Thanks for your answer. Sorry I misinterpreted your experience at Chicago ...</p>

<p>As I pointed out before, we also did ask around on a number of forums and were able to question a number of alums from both places. So studentsreview wasn't our only source of information. </p>

<p>I can see how a quirky place might generate more negative comments. But at least the nature of the quirk itself is discernable from the comments, which I think would be useful to know -- even if you choose to discount how people deal with it. Further, a number of people do consider Brown quirky due to the lack of distribution requirements. My daughter has a friend who was admitted everywhere she applied but decided against Brown because the lack of regimentation (her word) scared her. I also heard from a number of other people who really disliked this aspect of Brown.</p>

<p>But then, for my daughter, this was the major selling point of Brown since she has known since 3rd grade what she wants to do. It also came down to comparing specific course offerings and the program in her sport. While the assorted descriptions of the atmosphere and typical students at both places would indicate that Brown would be a better fit, it was a pretty minor factor in the deliberations and could easily have been overcome had she thought the academics (for her) better at Chicago. For what it's worth, I've lost track of the number of people who know my daughter and told me, once dd decided on Brown, that they simply couldn't have imagined her liking Chicago.</p>

<p>From now on, I'll always insert a caveat if I mention studentsreview and will also continue to advise people to try to cast their net widely to talk to current and past students at different institutions.</p>