Hi, so maybe everyone who actually manages to get into Brown doesn’t have this problem, because obv. they’re all already wonderful kids – but can anyone with experience talk to me about how Brown ensures its students don’t flounder in the open curriculum?
My kid is also wonderful ( 
) but I think structure might serve him well, so maybe it’s not the right educational fit? How does Brown reassure worried parents that their kid won’t just, like, take a bunch of random courses that don’t lead to a degree after 4/5/6 years?
Every freshman has an advisor. Every concentration (Brown-speak for a major) has a set of requirements. Every advisor make sure that students are on-track to either a declare a major and stay with that advisor, or switch to a departmental advisor once a major has been declared. That advisor makes sure-- in myriad ways- that kids are on track to graduate in that major.
Look at the four year graduation rate… the university clearly has safeguards in place!
I switched majors at least 3 times; my final advisor was 100% accessible, made sure that I was not only on track to finish the major, but that I was completing various requirements “just in case” I decided on grad school in that field down the road (I wasn’t interested in applying to programs senior year, but he counseled “never hurts to be prepared”). If I had made a late decision to apply to grad school, he was already ready with two faculty recommendations, and had made sure I was qualified for any Doctoral program in that field in the US.
A student would have to willfully ignore the signs (failed classes, not showing up for meetings with the advisor) to take a bunch of random courses (after Freshman year, when a lot of the courses are random) without a clear path to graduation in 8 semesters.
I even did a semester abroad- and my advisor did the legwork once he saw the courses I planned to take, to make sure I’d get credit for every single course (which doesn’t always happen- kids often come home and discover that one or two classes won’t qualify for credit). He had the department head pre-sign after reviewing the syllabus… so essentially if I passed at the overseas U, I’d get credit at Brown. I did have to submit one paper for an independent study, but the professor whose area it touched read it, and signed off.
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Thank you, that eases my mind a lot!
Gator- even Independent Studies have structure built in…a kid who is interested in creating a course on Poverty (just making this up) will need faculty buy-in (probably a professor from the Econ department, and then contributions to the reading, overseeing a project, etc. by professors from Sociology/Political Science/History). You can’t just go off and do your own thing and call it “a course”. Interdisciplinary work is encouraged- but there are still standards imposed by one or more academic departments, and someone (a faculty member or sometimes a department chair) is “in charge”. I know some classmates who groused about not getting credit for work done overseas OR not getting enough credit when they transferred in… but the process was pretty transparent- you submit what you did, what the requirements were, a graded paper or final exam… and then the relevant departmental faculty made the call as to whether the course met the requirements.
It’s not a free-for-all.
I would describe two of my advisors (one whose department I switched out of… but we stayed close, and the one who was my advisor until the bitter end) as among the most inspirational mentors I’ve ever had. Not just academically/intellectually (although that was huge) but also helping me sort out “what do I want to be when I grow up” which could not have been fun for them. One of them produced a box of tissues, popped it on his desk, and discreetly walked out of his office (I was having a rough semester…) and came back ten minutes later with a cup of tea for me. (yes, I was done crying).
There was NO way he was going to let me stay another year and drive him crazy- 8 semesters, in and out!
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My son always said there was intense advising because of the open curriculum, He was a STEM major (and the path for his major was pretty clear) but, for an example, the advisor thought he should take some writing- intensive classes for breadth of skills, which he did and it stretched him. He wasn’t on his own at all- in fact maybe less on his own than at some schools with a lot of gen eds.
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Seems like fewer general education requirements would make it easier to graduate on time, because there are fewer total course requirements for the student to keep track of.
A student who just takes a bunch of random courses early may enter senior year needing perhaps 6 more courses to complete a major – but if they need 4 more general education requirements that they did not fulfill earlier, that could make it more difficult to graduate on time if a normal load is 4 courses per semester.
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It’s also really easy to see what the concentration requirements are and if a student needs more guidance, parents could get access to academic records with student’s approval and see what classes are being taken. My son, as a courtesy, sends me a screenshot of his class schedule so then we have something to chat about. I just let him be with his advisors. We are paying $ to get this benefit
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Brown is a recent addition to my kiddo’s college list so I’m following along. Really appreciate the insights shared here about the educational support within the open curriculum.
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All of the concentrations (majors) set forth their requirements on Brown’s web pages, if that’s of interest.
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True, plus there’s not the sort of risk as with some places of a required course being “impacted” to where an additional semester or year of attendance is needed to graduate. That happened to someone (elsewhere) I was mentoring.
There’s no way, at least on paper, that a Brown undergrad could arrive at senior year way behind on required courses: “… (usually spring semester of sophomore year) Students must have an approved concentration on file in order to pre-register for the 5th semester.” While I would never claim that it’s impossible for someone to find a way to mess things up (e.g. “The concentration declaration functions as a kind of contract, and it is the student’s responsibility to ensure that it has been approved prior to the deadline”), there are at least reasonable guardrails in place.
Concerned parents might also note that while Brown’s Open Curriculum is sometimes perceived from the outside as being akin to an academic version of “1960’s free love/anything goes”, the reality is an undergrad population top-heavy with concentrators in engineering, CS, and pre-med (one of the highest med school admit rates, over a period of decades). Accomplished, driven students who regardless of concentration have worked incredibly hard to get there and plan to make the most of it. The few I saw fail out were unable to handle personal as opposed to academic freedom: With infinite distractions available, not everyone got around to doing the work. What saved me freshman year was an unfailing ability to stay productive all night after typically starting my assignments late in the evening.
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If it helps, I have a S21 who’s a happy go lucky and probably easily distracted. He’s also premed track. The counselor and advisors took care of him. He took the classes he needed last semester. Just came home and told me what he was taking, checking off med school req’d classes and concentration class. He said they are required to have 30 units min for graduation. He and his advisor talked and with the courses spring semester, his advisor recommended that this next semester is the one to take 3 vs 4 classes since he has two science classes with labs. Apparently, they can afford to have two semesters where they don’t need to take 4 classes.
HS students ask my advice as to any particular subjects they should take in undergrad engineering, no doubt expecting to hear things like “differential equations” and “computer programming”. Instead, I reply “Writing, Creative Writing, English Literature, Old English Literature – anything with writing in it.”
While the focus in college engineering is understandably on equations and problem solving, taking those sorts of courses will happen automatically thanks to well-defined course requirements. But once in a professional environment, if you can’t communicate well then at some point your utility within the organization suffers. A mere cipher, banished to the hinterlands of a program’s engineering floor (ok, maybe not that grim… though a friend once interviewed with General Dynamics and his escort motioned to the corner where they “keep the PhDs”).
HS or undergrad writing-intensive courses aren’t going to teach you good technical communication, but they can at least serve as preparation. Many people don’t stay in technical engineering for their whole working life anyway, and writing competency is “portable” for whatever’s next.
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@Brown79 This advice is so true and valuable! I live in this world. You have to communicate articulately and also via written form to request funding, to persuade others at work on project ideas, proposals. It’s a very communications-rich environment. It enables career progression. And as STEM folks advance in their careers, I would say the business/communications component of their day to day becomes a bigger percentage. Technical skills are critically important but writing and speaking skills are strategically important.
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However, writing about literature may not necessarily be optimal as practice for communicating about engineering topics both to other engineers and to those with a non-technical background.
Brown does have a WRIT designation for courses in various subjects that involve substantial writing, so choosing some of those across various subjects may be helpful generally to all students. For examples, see https://cab.brown.edu/ (put WRIT in the “title, tag, subject, CRN, or keyword” box).
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That’s my opinion as well – what I was conveying with “HS or undergrad writing-intensive courses aren’t going to teach you good technical communication, but they can at least serve as preparation.” So wring out any bugs in grammer and so forth, to where acquiring the specifics of technical communication is straightforward.
Fresh out of college I had great writing skills (no thanks to Brown, as it happened) but was lousy at written technical communication. Everything conveyed in traditional paragraph format, for example. My boss worked with me to get things right, and I kept improving from there. But I’m sure courses in one format or another must be available.
I just remembered an extreme example of that from my wife’s company: An associate of hers went from an electrical engineering career to writing romance novels… with IC Design references, of course. So competency in more than one writing style served her well. Might have been harder to get published with
SUMMARY: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back.
DISCUSSION: Multiple elements were involved in the outcome. A causal analysis revealed
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Lack of relevant verbal communication skills between the parties in their initial encounter.
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A mutual friend who was just trying to be helpful but in doing so revealed information of a confidential nature which effected an opposite result in the short term.
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An approximately three-sigma event of seemingly no relevance which nontheless led to a favorable resolution.
“What is the possibility of getting into PLME on a regular decision basis? How many seats are usually available for RD applicants?”
Admissions-related stats have moved around alot in the last couple of years, but one could pull up AO press releases following the end of ED’s and RD’s to get whatever the specific numbers have been.
I’ve interviewed plenty of PLME’s over the years who got in RD. Plenty is relative, however, as we’re talking very slim percentages one way or the other and it’s only been getting worse. What used to be the (ED and RD combined) PLME admit rate is lately the general RD admit rate (~3.5%). The last season we interviewed, I had ten PLME’s and none were admitted.
More generally, to whatever extent the question is “Does ED give me a better chance of admission than RD”, my answer is “IMO not really, at least not historically. Admit rates are higher in ED, but so is the quality of the applicants.*”
What’s changing is that with the surge in applications over the last couple of years, Brown would have little trouble putting together a great entering class just from ED applications. Things have been heading that way for quite some time – ED’s getting deferred to RD who would have been admitted ED in earlier times, as the AO tries to preserve enough RD slots so that they have some space left to pick the best of the RD’s who will soon be flooding in. Even more striking is the drastic increase in the number of ED denials in the last two years… some of them excellent candidates. What used to be a trickle of that has become a relative flood, also indicating a lot pressure on RD.
- This ED applicant quality is a central tendency rather than an absolute. I’ve had plenty of “blah” applicants in ED as well, especially since Brown went with the flow for raising one’s college ranking and signed on to the Common Application.
Thank you for the detailed response.
I graduated from Brown in 2019. The freedom aspect of Brown is the most educational part of the place. I made the mistake of taking a bunch of econ classes in my first year. I learned I need to be interested in the course material. The next year I switched to taking CS and Spanish. Then the rest of my time I studied only CS and language courses to the exclusion of almost everything else. Systems engineering, Portuguese, Chinese, AI, Software engineering, courses like that.
It parallels real life, where you make bad choices, learn from them, then make better choices.
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