Stanford vs Brown vs Rice vs Carleton vs Wesleyan

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I got into many schools that I really love and now have the difficult choice to choose one. I am an international student so the decision is made even harder by the fact that I was unable to visit any of these colleges. I am a potential econ major (maybe comp science as well) and I'm finding it really hard to make a choice. Here's a list of the pro's and con's for each school.</p>

<p>Stanford</p>

<ul>
<li>International reputation may help with employment prospects back home. Could be easy to find internships in Silicon Valley and San Fran (?)</li>
<li>Cali weather similar to Mediterranean climate back home</li>
<li>Renowned econ and comp science departments </li>
<li>Happy, laid-back and well-rounded students</li>
<li>Great campus, lots of activities</li>
<li>Econ department quite large and impersonal - large class sizes mean boring lectures</li>
<li>'Duck syndrome' - students work very hard but try to hide it</li>
<li>Lack of a college town - off-campus activities limited</li>
<li>Large presence of graduate students - undergrads might feel neglected and professors might be more research-oriented</li>
</ul>

<p>Brown</p>

<ul>
<li>Open curriculum that allows me to explore comp science and economics courses</li>
<li>More undergraduate-focused due to small graduate population</li>
<li>Would be nice to experience snow for the first time and change of seasons</li>
<li>Collaborative and laid-back students, liberal atmosphere</li>
<li>Thayer Street</li>
<li>Not as renowned as Stanford internationally</li>
<li>Quarter system seems fast-paced</li>
<li>Economics department not too quantitative (?) (but of course I could take Applied Math courses)</li>
<li>Could be as impersonal as Stanford (?) </li>
</ul>

<p>Rice </p>

<ul>
<li>Residential college system fosters a tight-knit community</li>
<li>Classes are small despite it being a national research university</li>
<li>Located in a large city with many internship opportunities</li>
<li>Well maintained campus, Rice Village, excellent facilities</li>
<li>Not too cold</li>
<li>Quirky student body, crazy traditions (e.g. beer bike)</li>
<li>Students are more of the studious type (?), social life may suffer</li>
<li>Engineering focused school (?)</li>
<li>Much more regional than the other schools (50% of students appear to be from Texas)</li>
</ul>

<p>Carleton</p>

<ul>
<li>True liberal arts education - rigorous economics offering</li>
<li>Small, tight-knit community, professors very accessible</li>
<li>Quirky, friendly student body</li>
<li>It seems students know how to balance work and play - some traditions seems fun</li>
<li>Great post-grad prospects</li>
<li>Cold Minnesota winters</li>
<li>Really small town (but Twin Cities are only 40 minutes away)</li>
<li>Small size means it could feel claustrophobic after first two years</li>
<li>Tough workload (?) might hinder social life</li>
</ul>

<p>Wesleyan</p>

<ul>
<li>One of the best small economics departments</li>
<li>Small size means professors are accessible and class sizes are small</li>
<li>Liberal campus, laid-back students (it seems the culture at Wesleyan is similar to Brown's)</li>
<li>Size means that it's small enough to provide close contact with profs, but not too small to feels claustrophobic</li>
<li>Curriculum allows for exploration and flexibility</li>
<li>Great dorms and facilities, from the pictures I've seen the campus looks really good</li>
<li>Middletown seems to have some safety issues and doesn't offer as much in terms of off-campus entertainment</li>
</ul>

<p>Haven't delved too deep into dorms and campus food because I think that all of these schools have something great to offer (How much could freshman housing vary?)</p>

<p>Basically the choice here is brand-name university vs LAC? I don't want to choose a school solely based on prestige. I want to grow as a person. Even though Stanford seems to be the obvious choice, I feel that I would be just another face in the crowd. I feel that I would learn better in smaller classes, as the professor would try to make the material more engaging. I've read some negative comments regarding Stanford's econ department not being geared towards the undergraduate. As Loren Pope said, the smaller the school the better the learning environment. If someone could shed some light into this decision I'd really appreciate it.</p>

<p>I also got in at UMichigan (but I feel it's too big for me) and Bowdoin College (seems too preppy but willing to consider).</p>

2

<p>I’ve been to Stanford, Rice, Brown and Carleton and I think a lot of your pros and cons regarding the schools’ cultures reflect regional biases.</p>

<p>Example: While Stanford doesn’t have a traditional college town, it’s certainly got a lot more going on in downtown Palo Alto than either Rice (in the suburbs of Houston) or Carleton in Northfield. I think people who say this are comparing it to Harvard in Cambridge or UC Berkeley. San Francisco is 40 minutes away by car or train-a city that I prefer to Minneapolis or Houston. And I especially love the hiking and biking which are near the campus (which is beautiful.) I’m also not sure why the “Duck Syndrome” is a negative: As a native of the west coast transplanted to the east, I find that north easterners (to stereotype wildly here) take a certain pride in complaining about how hard they are working, how stressful their lives are, etc…I think it must have something to do with a combination of bad weather for 4 months of the year and a cultural value that ‘talking troubles’ is a legitimate way to bond with strangers.</p>

<p>Note that Stanford has a quarter system too. </p>

<p>Another example: I didn’t find the students at Rice to be especially studious or quirky (except maybe compared to other Texans). It does have a good engineering program and engineers work very hard everywhere. I actually think they are a bit more conservative overall and a bit less diverse because of that strong Texas influence. For example, people seem to have a stronger attachment to organized religion than I’m used to seeing. They do have a lot of ‘house spirit’ because of the housing system. Some people love that kind of thing, others not so much. It is a very supportive environment in a LAC-like way.</p>

<p>Of the four, I admit that I’m partial to Brown, in part because being next door to RISD, adds a funky, artsy element to the community. And I’m biased in favor of LAC-like environments for the kind of things I’d like to study. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense for you.</p>

<p>The workload at all of these schools is pretty much the same; it just feels more intense when you can’t go outside for months on end (Carleton). </p>

<p>The real issue here, as you correctly identified, is whether you want a large, internationally recognized research university experience or a small personalized liberal arts college experience. You’ve already identified the trade-offs so it really comes down to what you value most.</p>

3

<p>Brown has a semester system, not a quarter system.</p>

<p>Bowdoin, actually, probably has the most racial/ethnic diversity of any of the schools on your list; way too much is made of it being “preppy,” in my view, and I wouldn’t dismiss it for that reason.</p>

4

<p>I don’t think you should worry about just being a face in the crowd at Stanford. You’ll end up in large lectures there, but you’ll also find smaller classes with fantastic professors. The thing is, by American standards, Stanford is actually a pretty small school. Its not like a State University where there are 10,000 kids and one faculty member for every 20 students.</p>

<p>The other thing is this–I live in the north. People from warmer climates say “I don’t really know if I can handle the cold Wisconsin/Minnesota winters” almost like its a partial annoyance that isn’t that big a deal.</p>

<p>If you’re not from the north, its a HUGE change. It gets down to -30 (Celsius) here almost every winter, and within the last three years its been as low as -40. How cold is that? Imagine how much colder 0 C is than 30 C. Now imagine 0 C gets that much colder again. My advice to people from warmer climates that are considering warmer climate schools with Carleton–think very hard about the winters in the North, because they actually are a huge factor in life.</p>

<p>If it were me, it would be Stanford easily. Its not just the name, I think you’ll find yourself to be with more excellent, well-rounded students and you’ll get great teachers and academics as well. I think if you visited, you’d be clear about Stanford’s superiority.</p>

5

<p>@ M’s mom- Does Brown actually give an LAC-like feel? Or does it feel a lot like Stanford seeing as they both have the same number of undergrads? Is Rice the most LAC-like university in my list?</p>

<p>@ sunmachine - My bad. I actually wanted to include the quarter system under Stanford, not Brown.</p>

<p>@ MSauce - That’s Carleton’s biggest drawback. If it was located in California, I think I would have preferred it to the other colleges. It’s such a difficult decision to make without having the benefit of experiencing the campus culture first-hand.</p>

6

<p>

Both Stanford and Brown (and Michigan and Rice) were ranked as some of the most undergraduate-friendly colleges in the country (#4 and #6, respectively).</p>

<p>[Best</a> Colleges: Undergraduate Teaching at National Universities](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-ut-rank]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-ut-rank)</p>

<p>Brown consistently brags about its low graduate enrollment, but if you do the math, it is not unusually undergraduate heavy. </p>

<p>Stanford’s ratio of undergraduates to graduates in arts & sciences is 4.53:1. In contrast, the undergraduate to graduate ratio in arts & sciences at Brown is 3.54:1.</p>

<p>It is possible to slide by under the radar at a small university, certainly, but only if one is completely apathetic about one’s education. Professors typically beg students to come to their office hours, and most of the elite universities have no shortage of ways of encouraging faculty-student interaction (Duke, for example, pays for profs to take students to lunch).</p>

<p>Like MSauce, I put in a vote for Stanford. In terms of academics, social life, weather, athletics, and most other factors, I think it’s a pretty strong contender for the best undergraduate experience in the country. They’re all great options, though - congrats on a job well done!</p>

7

<p>ironically, for some reason, despite all of its plusses, Stanford has one of the lowest levels of alumni giving of any tier-one university and I think that’s for a variety of reasons: #1) Stanford tends to self-select for upper-middle class suburbanites who are looking for a for a safe-harbor for four years; they’re not looking to rock the boat; they’re not looking for anything special except perhaps a round-trip ticket back to the `burbs. When they graduate, it’s with nothing owed, no rite of passage; no sense that Stanford has imprinted its stamp on them.</p>

<p>Graduates of other major universities have identifiable brands and produce palpable loyalties like those experienced by Yalies, Harvard grads, Dartmouth men and women – even Duke and Notre Dame graduates have more post-graduate loyalty.</p>

<p>Most LACs produce higher alumni-giving rates than half the universities listed at the top of the annual USNews rankings. Why? Not because they’re superior academically (I would never compare Wesleyan’s Computer Science Department to Stanford’s.) But, they do excel at one thing that a lot of the bigger universities either don’t emphasize or no longer see as part of their mission: they produce graduates with a very highly developed sense of citizenship, whether it’s in their local communities, the world at large or by paying something back to their alma maters.</p>

8

<p>I would choose Stanford. Personally the draw of silicon valley is just too strong. I think its one of the best college experiences in the country.</p>

9

<p>It seems that the OP will be entering Stanford this fall semester…</p>

<p>attention to undergraduate students is not a problem at Stanford</p>

<p>Percent of Classes under 20 students
Stanford - 72%
Brown - 70%
Rice - 66%
Carleton - 66%
Wesleyan - 91% (and amazingly, 49% of classes are under 10 students)</p>

10

<p>johnwesley, your comments on Stanford and alumni giving would seem somewhat reasonable if it weren’t for the fact that only 33% of the students are white, the lowest amount of the universities that you mentioned.</p>

<p>some of the other schools you mentioned in the percent of students being white:</p>

<p>Harvard - 40%
Yale - 35%
Dartmouth - 48%
Duke - 39%
Notre Dame - 74%</p>

<p>

</p>

11

<p>johnwesley, excellent comments here</p>

<p>

</p>

12

<p>@ OP:</p>

<p>First of all, I don’t agree with M’s Mom on Houston. First of all, Rice isn’t in the suburbs of Houston… we are 3 miles away from downtown Houston next to the world’s largest medical center. I am from the Midwest, and I believe Houston has so much to offer. Rice Village is about a 10-15 minute walk from the heart of Rice campus. Its also very easy to get to Reliant Stadium, where all the major concerts and rodeo performances are. I got to go to a sold out Black Eyed Peas concert (subsidized by Rice) with 73,000 other people in attendance… where else in this country (except maybe Dallas, New York, or Los Angeles) can you go to a concert that big? The MetroRail station is about 5 minute walk from the north end of campus, and it takes you to downtown (Minute Maid Park, entertainment district, clubs, etc.) and to Reliant Stadium.</p>

<p>I’ve visited Palo Alto as well. While there is a lot to do there, I do feel Houston has more to offer.</p>

<p>Yes, we have a large percentage of Texans, but keep in mind that Stanford is about 43% Californians. Rice is trying to become a more national university, so the percentage of Texans next year will probably decline to 47%. Keep in mind that Texas is the 2nd largest state in terms of population and one of the fastest growing regions in the country (the Houston metropolitan area had the 2nd largest population growth out of any region in the U.S. over the past 10 years, behind the Dallas-Ft. Worth area).</p>

<p>Anyway, I do agree that the classes at Stanford aren’t going to be that much larger than at Rice… some will be larger, but others will be smaller.</p>

<p>Good luck with your decision… you can’t go wrong!</p>

13

<p>It would be difficult for an eastern college to compete with Stanford for students of Asian/Pacific Island descent (over 25% of its total enrollment.) Some sociological studies would suggest Asian and Asian American college graduates even more financially well-off than their white counterparts. :)</p>

<p>Total Undergraduates (both degree- and non-degree-seeking)
Nonresident aliens - 469<br>
Black, non-Hispanic - 656<br>
American Indian or Alaskan Native - 182<br>
Asian or Pacific Islander - 1,514<br>
Hispanic - 881<br>
White, non-Hispanic - 2,355<br>
Race/ethnicity unknown - 507<br>
Total - 6,564 </p>

<p>

</p>

14

<p>I simply would not pass on Stanford. Brown MAYBE, but that’s it. Stanford is an amazing place.</p>

15

<p>You have a wonderful set of choices. My first suggestion is to take Carleton off the table. It is a fine school (offering possibly the best undergraduate education of the bunch). However, for someone from a Mediterranean country who is at all apprehensive about cold weather, the Minnesota climate is just too extreme. I’d take Bowdoin off the table for the same reason (not because it is too preppy).</p>

<p>Of the remainder, I’d go with Wesleyan, just because you seem to be a LAC person and Wesleyan is such a good one. It’s a little larger than most LACs; it has the highest annual research expenditures of any LAC. Middletown is an unfortunate location but the college forms its own community and distances between New England towns are short.</p>

<p>What sets Stanford apart is star power. However, at very few universities do you get more than limited (if any) interaction with the star faculty. I don’t know for sure but my impression is that Stanford is not one of them (maybe Stanford boosters will chime in if I’m wrong). The non-star faculty at all these schools are drawn from the same national academic talent pool. </p>

<p>In undergraduate education, where the rubber meets the road is in seminar discussions, graded essays, team projects. Small classes and faculty attention mean everything. What matters most is not the econ department’s Nobel Laureate who shows up on the News Hour to hold forth on policy, but the expert on medieval history who will return your paper with a page of detailed comments including “see me”. It’s the build-up of little “aha” moments you get from these interactions. So it’s no coincidence that liberal arts colleges are so disproportionately represented among the schools with the highest bachelor-to-PhD rates or in placements to top professional schools.</p>

<p>Warblers makes a good counter-argument. Stanford is not huge as universities go. If you are convinced you can get a LAC-like learning experience there, if you care much about athletics and climate, go with Stanford.</p>

16

<p>Stanford’s 6:1 student to faculty ratio would suggest personal attention to undergrads. Of course, I understand that at a place like Stanford it takes greater initiative on the student’s part but the opportunities are endless.</p>

17

<p>

I’m not really a Stanford booster, but from what I have seen of the school, Stanford does not make a conscious effort to keep the star faculty separated from undergrads.</p>

<p>Someone posted the IHUM (intro humanities courses) list recently, and I was absolutely shocked to see the likes of Ian Hodder (!!!), Blakey Vermeule, Ian Morris, etc. teaching freshman courses. Very impressive.</p>

18

<br>

<br>

<p>Possibly, but not necessarily. What matters more is the percentage of small classes (<20 v. >50). The numbers JohnAdams shared suggest that Stanford does not come close to Wesleyan on that count (though it’s still quite good compared to the average school). </p>

<p>Of course, so much depends on your interests and initiative. For the right person, without a doubt Stanford has opportunities no LAC can match. Presumably, Stanford admissions had good reason to believe the OP is capable of taking advantage of those opportunities.</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>I disagree with your premise as well as the reasons behind it. Let’s start with your reasons first and we’ll work backwards. Your argument that Stanford self-selects upper-middle class suburbanites who do not want to “rock the boat” is absurd. Are you saying that Stanford is less socio-economically diverse than, say, Notre Dame? Or that Stanford students are less willing to “rock the boat” than ND students? Given the entrepreneurial spirit and history of Stanford students and alums, your statement is profoundly false. Entrepreneurship by definition requires risk-taking (i.e. “rocking the boat”).</p>

<p>There are more fundamental problems with your argument. You falsely assume that alumni giving serves as a proxy for willingness to “rock the boat.” You also seem to think that it is an indicator of, among other things, school loyalty as well. What you fail to recognize are equally plausible explanations that have little to nothing to do with your reasons. For better or worse, Stanford did not have a history or culture of actively soliciting donations from alumni that one would find in many of the top East Coast (ivies and NE LACS) and Midwestern colleges. It wasn’t until the Casper administration that Stanford sought to change this culture. Gerhard Casper, having been the provost at the University of Chicago, was surprised at the disparity in the solicitation of alumni between his former school (not to mention the ivies) and Stanford.</p>

<p>So it has only been a generation since Stanford’s culture of alumni giving has evolved. It is still a work in progress. Nonetheless, Stanford has been among the top ten research universities in alumni giving rates. Ironically, Stanford’s alumni giving rate has been tied with that of Brown, which is one of the colleges mentioned in this thread as being similar to an LAC in its conduciveness to promoting alumni giving. Moreover, when Stanford alums donate to their alma mater, they make sure their donations count. For five consecutive years running, Stanford has been the biggest fundraising university in the nation. In the most recent fiscal year, Stanford remained the #1 fundraiser with a grand total of $640.1 million dollars. Harvard was second with $601.6 million dollars.</p>

<p>[Stanford</a> remains top university for fundraising - San Jose Mercury News](<a href=“Stanford remains top university for fundraising – The Mercury News”>Stanford remains top university for fundraising – The Mercury News)</p>