I’m incredibly fortunate to have some incredible college choices before me, and these are pretty much my top three. Now I’m having trouble deciding. Any thoughts? Thank you !
Stanford v. Columbia v. Brown
What will you be studying?
Congratulations. While you obviously have three amazing choices, each will be a wildly different experience from the others. Which have you visited? What is your gut telling you?
I’m thinking premed as an anthropology major, or possibly econ @popitx
I’ve visited Stanford and Columbia. Stanford has always been my dream school, but I’ve really grown fond of Columbia over the past few years since my first visit.
I have not visited Brown, but it seems like there’s something quite special going on there. I’ve heard good things from many people
@ChezCurie
FWIW, I think Brown would be the most fun, Stanford the most beautiful, and Columbia the most intellectually engaging.
@ChezCurie ah, that’s a hard choice. Do you believe Stanford has anything more going for it than just beauty, when compared to the others?
Love it, @marklondon! Stanford is of course more than just beautiful, but its beauty is an overwhelming plus for me. It would be my first choice for beauty and prestige. Hands down. No contest. Stanford would be very hard to turn down. However, I worry about some of the CC posts I’ve read about the undergrad social environment there. My feeling is that you would get a great pre-med education at Brown without having to navigate around all of the cut-throat Silicon Valley wannabes. You will undoubtably get a top education at Stanford, but will you have as enjoyable of an undergrad experience as at Brown? As for Columbia, I love NYC but only for a few days at a time. NYC is an amazing place, but I would not choose to go to undergrad there if I had Stanford and Brown as options. You, of course, are @marklondon and not @ChezCurie. 
Brown probably has the advantage here in terms of premed education, but then again does that really matter? You will still get a solid premed education at Stanford if that is indeed what you choose. If I were in your position, I would probably choose Stanford, but you need to thoroughly visit all three and decide for yourself before May. IIRC, Brown is rated extremely highly for student happiness while Stanford is the best school for overall academics/athletics and Columbia is in the city that never sleeps.
and now for something completely different… they’re all good schools, so here’s a little social intelligence: I went to prep school for four years on the upper east side of Providence ( the Brown campus is integrated into the upper east side) and went to undergrad and grad school at Columbia in the 80’s. Very, very different places. I have to say I had a fantastic experience at Columbia- academically and socially- and have many, many friends from there to this day. It was also a blast to be a student in New York. But I think the city of New York as a place to be needs really to appeal to you in order to have that good experience. My quiet roommate from New Hampshire absolutely hated it- it was a bad match for her. Providence has very little going on comparatively ( of course) but is a really nice town with a very special historic character. The university is big enough to have constant events, and Boston is only an hour or so away by train. You really need to visit and go with your gut.