<p>This is thread is rather depressing and actually made me want to go from ED to RD. But I realize after a few days that every school has its problems.</p>
<p>Don’t get discouraged. Any time you post a “what you don’t like about this school” thread on a forum on this site, you’re going to get a plethora of negative responses. That’s the point. However, some schools have more visible weaknesses (or what you will) others, something Brown manages to avoid by touting the “Happiest Students” banner. While there are many other threads on this site, including one I attacked just the other day, that argue Brown’s strengths and downfalls, the school tends to come out in a positive light. So we’re here to tell you why it’s not utopia. If this were the Cornell board, or JHU, or Princeton, or Swat, or any other school with known for grade deflation/angsty premeds/bitter winters/lots of pressure/intense and controversial core curricula, etc. most posters would read aware of existing reputations.</p>
<p>Woah, a fellow hater. Surprisingly, I think I’m going to have to stand up for my alma mater a little bit…but first:</p>
<p>“My son is a senior Neuroscience major (ScB) and he seems to have had plenty of room for exploration. Even with fulfilling his major requirements and his med school requirements, he was able to study abroad junior year (taking NO science classes) AND he may graduate with a double major in a humanities subject.”</p>
<p>I hate to tell you this, but the Neuroscience requirements (the REQUIREMENTS, not the SUBJECT. I want to be precise) are kind of weak in comparison to other science majors. A lot of pre-meds take it because it covers most of the pre-med requirements without a lot of extraneous crap, and frankly its easier (I say this as someone who took BN1, BN102, and BN103). That’s not to say that pre-med or pre-grad Neuro majors do poorly or aren’t hardcore (I know that plenty get into top med schools), but mattgriffin may be right about some of the other science majors elsewhere. Biochem certainly had a lot of reqs, but I had enough time to get a BA in math at the same time (I even took a few english and history classes in there). Even then I didn’t get to take all the classes I wanted to, but that happens no matter where you go and no matter what you study. You just gotta be careful with your planning, and don’t be afraid of taking more than the required number of classes.</p>
<p>Also, at Yale, lab classes count as two credits (one for the lecture and one for the lab), so if you’re a science major its roughly equivalent.</p>
<p>"I find it interesting how mattgriffin feels the need to put down humanities majors, stating that they don’t need to do any work. How would he know that? If he doesn’t have room to take classes outside his major, then how would he know the workload of classes he hasn’t taken? My kid spends time at the SciLi like lots of other kids, but even as a science major, I don’t think he has any more right to be there than someone else. "</p>
<p>I’m not going to completely jump on the mattgriffin hate train and say that humanities majors have to do NO work, but its pretty much a universal consensus that humanities majors have it easier. That’s not to say that there aren’t hum. majors that don’t work hard, but there’s way more room at the bottom if you’re a humanities major. And I mean WAY more room. I’m speaking as someone who, unlike this matt fellow, did take humanities classes at Brown - and I will unequivocally say that they were way easier than comparable-level bio, chem, and math classes. Have you ever met an MCM major?</p>
<p>"Matt’s complaints about the open curriculum are very puzzling to me. He moans that if you are getting an ScB you have no opportunity to take other classes. Just how is this different from other colleges? Let’s look at the engineering requirements, for example. These are mandated by a national accrediting association (or something like that). These required classes are going to be mandatory whether you go to Brown, Cornell, WPI or ANY college. I haven’t studied requirements at other colleges (which applicants should do), but I can’t imagine that getting an ScB at another school is going to require significantly fewer classes than Brown. "</p>
<p>QFT QFT QFT. </p>
<p>Alright, now straight down case (any debaters in the room?):</p>
<p>“1. Libraries are terribly over-crowded with students who are just procrastinating anyway, especially the Friedman study center. It cuts down on the efficiency of your studying significantly. Your only option is to go into the upper levels which have incredibly uncomfortable, unadjustable seating, or to The Rockefeller (seriously, just go here), because humanities majors don’t need to do work so that’s always pretty empty.”</p>
<p>Boo hoo, this happens everywhere. Study in your room with some headphones.</p>
<p>“2. The open curriculum is a joke. They use it as an excuse to allow BSc concentrations to take up an overwhelming majority of your course-load ( >2/3rd) because nothing else is required of you. Have fun enjoying with your “liberal” education in every single aspect of biology if you want to graduate with a BSc.” </p>
<p>As someone pointed out, this is pretty comparable to other institutions. Furthermore, while I do agree that the open curriculum tries to style itself as something its not (TOTAL FREEDOM HAHAHA), I think this aspect of it isn’t the problem. I think the problem with the OC is that people don’t realize that functionally it doesn’t do anything additional for you other than avoid a particular subject that you hate or just take a bunch of classes in a subject that you like, which is what it ends up getting used for anyway.</p>
<p>“The only way you can benefit from it is if you major in something like anthropology where your only goal is seem “edgy” for medical school or to take a position working for your parents as soon as you graduate. If you want a useful degree the open curriculum offers virtually no advantage.”</p>
<p>Dude, stop dissing anthropology. People don’t major in it because they want to be “edgy” for medical school, they legitimately want to learn anthropology. Maybe it is easier than what you and I majored in, but as long as they have the reqs, GPA, MCAT, and extracurriculars they shouldn’t be considered second-class citizens among premeds. </p>
<p>I actually used to have a tinge of this, until I met the anthro md-phd’s in my program. Its true that many of the non-science majors in my class are lagging (probably including some anthro majors), but these people most certainly are not. </p>
<p>“3. The math department is generally clueless for beginning classes. Just buy any calculus/linear algebra/dif eq textbook with a solutions manual and you will learn everything you need to significantly faster and clearer.”</p>
<p>…I don’t know what classes you were in, but in my experience the intro math classes were decently, but not amazingly, taught. Also if you move further up the math department, there are way better teachers lurking around.</p>
<p>“Almost all of my classes have been uninspired and apathetically taught. Professors literally just copying and pasting slides from the textbook CD into a powerpoint and then going through them faster than you can comprehend, and then expecting you to go back and memorize every minute detail (try BIOL0280 or 0500).”</p>
<p>I did. And I TAed both of those too. Gary Wessel (cell bio - BI0500) was incredibly committed to his students, to the point of helping some of us find research mentors. And he made his own slides and updated them every year. I don’t remember his tests being un-innovative in the least - sure, there was memorization involved, but what biology class doesn’t involve memorization? Even my upper- and graduate-level bio classes still involved at least some level of memorization - its important that you’re conversant in the pathways in a cell. Even if I can’t recite the Notch signalling pathway (look it up, its cool) from memory anymore, its still useful to know which proteins are involved/what it does, and memorizing it made that information stick. Biology is unlike most other sciences in that, at least in the initial stages, its not based on very heavy problem-solving but on knowing what processes go on where. And I can tell you that the equivalent classes at MIT, Yale, and Harvard (having seen the tests for these) aren’t any different in terms of their innovation and whatnot. At MIT they’re open book, but a little harder.</p>
<p>As for biochemistry (BI28), your complaint is heard and understood. But you have to realize that intro biochemistry is this ritualistic, um, ritual in which undergrads are essentially forced to memorize every pathway ever that happens in a cell. This ritual is universal, I am not kidding. It might not seem like it now, but this IS helpful in the long run, if only because you’re asked to do the same thing in medical school. Its only in upper-level biochem where every question is based on experimental design - I wish the intro biochem class did this more, but c’est la vie.</p>
<p>Also, if you really feel like this is true, esp about cell biology, I would really encourage you to go in and talk to the profs about it, or even become a TA. I actually did that for cell bio because I wanted to see more research papers get read in the class (since in advanced biochem we get to read like 10 of those a week), and lo and behold the next year Gary assigned two papers in addition to the reading. Furthermore, I noticed the questions took a more experimental bent (the students had to analyze the results of a FRAP assay, for example) that year - hopefully that trend has continued?</p>
<p>"The organic chemistry class series is equally outrageous and functions solely by giving you an incredibly dumbed down textbook, and then they take problems from much better, challenging textbooks (I think I found about 1/2 of the final exam of Chem36 in a graduate level textbook). How original and fair. "</p>
<p>Sorrell is not dumbed down. At all. Its the standard textbook people use for intro orgo, and is comparable to other intro orgo texts (we actually used a different one, but I’ve read Sorrell because I’m a huge nerd). I don’t know how you think the textbook is dumbed down, and I’d encourage you to post or PM me about why you think so. As for pilaging a grad level textbook, I think Suggs wrote one of those. Furthermore, while this may not be original, I don’t really have any problem with it - maybe this is a problem that the instructor had to solve at one point in their education and found it useful. And I’ve read Carey and Sundberg (the standard advanced orgo textbook) and I fail to see how its any “better”.</p>
<p>"And you think those lectures you(r parents) are paying out of the ass for are good for anything? I did better than 80% of the class both semesters of organic chem, literally without attending a single class because it was at 9am + I was incredibly irresponsible. What a joke this school is. "</p>
<p>Dude high five, I never went to class either. I did watch a lot of them online, but for me learning from the textbook/doing problems/going to only the review sessions was way more useful. Have you ever considered that you might be like that, that lectures just aren’t that useful for you? Or that you’re more prodigious than the average person at science? I’ll tell you that you’re not alone in destroying orgo - in fact most of my biochem major friends were just like you. But keep in mind that every pre-med has to take orgo, and that orgo is not easy for most people. I know someone in PLME who had to take it three times, in fact, because it was so difficult for him - and he’s going to be someone’s doctor someday.</p>
<p>I will say this about Brown orgo, though - its pretty damn hard. </p>
<p>“Do these people really think that the key to creating innovative scientists is to just jam facts down our throats for four years and then release us into the wild? No wonder every science class has to cling to mentioning Craig Mello, as he is the only example of an innovator that this school has ever, through sheer luck, produced.”</p>
<p>Craig Mello also took advanced classes, where they do force you to innovate and think (it hurts). I doubt that you’re going to have the same opinion after you’ve taken BI0154, 0127, and 0105, or even intro genetics. Your point is well-taken that Craig Mello is the only Nobelist to come out of Brown, though I don’t think it has to do with the teaching. Also they do cling to him a lot, and its annoying. I hope more good scientists come out of Brown so that he can stop being the poster child for every class.</p>
<p>My complaint about Brown has never been that the classes have left me feeling ill-prepared, but that the research culture wasn’t cutting-edge enough and that I felt like there weren’t many people like me there. That and the whole prestige thing. My time in medical school will probably be better, though.</p>
<p>“Humanities classes are better? Yeah right. Enjoy reading the most trite, unoriginal thoughts drawn out for a semester long while paying $200 > per every lecture. ‘You mean to tell me conflicts can be started by social and economic factors?’ Your grade is solely dependent on your ability to repeat the concepts in the book clearly, instead of coming up with anything avant-garde or that would actually challenge the professor (excuse me, the TAs) to think. And then the professors love taking “trips” where they give you a short documentary during class and ask you to write an essay on it. Your tuition at work!”</p>
<p>You think its any better anywhere else? I doubt it. If other people on this board are right, professors elsewhere care even less about undergrad teaching than those at Brown.</p>
<p>“The crappy rank: Brown is considered (by US News & World Report) the 15th best national university in the country. There are THOUSANDS of school ranked lower. How can anyone think that being number 15 is crappy?”</p>
<p>We’re speaking in precise terms here. Most of the students on this site are high-powered enough that they can pick many schools in the top 10 to go to, and many parents on the site want the same for their kids. </p>
<p>There’s also another issue here. Depending on which ranking you use, or which metric, Brown will fluctuate anywhere from mid-teens to #5. And that’s true of all of the other schools in its bracket. But HYPS always come up first, in almost every single metric. What does that tell you? Its exactly why I put Brown in a 1.5-tier, along with other great institutions like Cornell and Dartmouth. If you go to, or you send your kid to, any of these places, you can rest easy that you’ve done well for yourself. The whole point of my posting is that there are tangible differences (some justified, like the research, and some unjustified, like the idea that all Brown students are lazy) between HYPS and the next set of schools, which I think people on this board are too quick to dismiss when selecting a school. </p>
<p>“And ranks related to research should be listened to by the administration, because it sure is in need of expansion, not necessarily only improvement.”</p>
<p>I’m confident that Ruth Simmons’ pumping money into the medical school and science facilities at Brown can only be a good thing. I hope that with time, Brown’s science improves to the point where it attracts the top crust of scientists, which in turn will attract the top crust of science students. Unfortunately, Brown just doesn’t do that right now; even if these people (Olypmpiad qualifiers, intel winners, whatever) don’t get into Harvard, MIT, or Caltech, they don’t tend to go to Brown (my own stupid story notwithstanding).</p>
<p>Also, I see I’ve been addressed directly:</p>
<p>"Brown the school does NOT portray itself this way. Applicants do. Guidebooks do. But official literature from Brown – no. I laugh when I read some of the comments here on CC, with applicants thinking that Brown is so much more liberal/laid back/etc. than every other school. "</p>
<p>Yeah that’s what I was railing against, because its not true. The problem is, even if Brown’s administration doesn’t portray itself that way, it tacitly benefits from that portrayal because applicants (those who can get into better places but pick it as their number 1 choice, especially) see it as a place they can chill after killing themselves for 4 years of high school. And the fact that it is based on the open curriculum, which just perpetuates that stereotype, doesn’t really help. Maybe being the school with the happiest students or whatever is actually a negative for Brown, who knows. </p>
<p>“geoforce, if Brown is a 1.5 tier school, then what do you rank Georgetown? A 5-tier school? There are 3000 or so schools in the country. Step back a bit, and realize that of those 3000, Brown is a top-tier school.”</p>
<p>I still consider Brown a top tier school. I even said so in my post. But people on this board are considering Brown vs HYPS + other ivies, not Brown vs Podunk State. </p>
<p>“Why is it that Brown is only compared to HYP? Honestly, how many students each year actually get to decide between Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown.”</p>
<p>More than you would think.</p>
<p>Whoops double post haha</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, that’s not true. While there are many people on CC who are “HYP or die,” there are even more who are looking at Podunk State and Brown and every school in between. I’ve been on CC for many more years than you have, and have seen thousands of posts from students and parents who are aiming considerably lower than Harvard. And since only 7 percent (or so) of Harvard applicants actually get in, it’s a smart move for those Harvard achievers to seriously consider some of those 3000 schools that are ranked lower than Harvard, because for 93 out of 100 of them, that’s where they will be going.</p>
<p>I’ve been on CC since 2003 (by proxy; my father used to post), so pulling rank isn’t going to get you anywhere. Your point is well-taken though. The problem is I feel like this site helps as much as hurts people who are aiming high, because they see all of the “can I get in?” posts from people who end up going to HYP and are frankly scared by them (I know many instances of this).</p>
<p>Bottom line is, I think you and I are saying the same thing, but while you’re saying that Harvard-caliber students should apply lower, I want to tell people who see themselves as Brown-caliber but not Harvard-caliber to seriously consider and apply to HYPS anyway, because there are people at HYPS like you, there are many benefits to going to HYPS, and you have a good shot. In other words, you should apply widely, but up AND down.</p>
<p>And there’s no real close Chipotle, so it makes dressing as a burrito to get a free one on Halloween difficult.</p>
<p>And there’s no real close Chipotle, so it makes dressing as a burrito to get a free one on Halloween difficult.</p>
<p>“by proxy; my father used to post)”</p>
<p>So you’re equating a much older (and wiser, before I get into trouble) Brown alum’s perspective as a parent to your ~14 year old self reading your dad’s business on CC? That made me giggle.</p>
<p>“people who see themselves as Brown-caliber but not Harvard-caliber to seriously consider and apply to HYPS anyway,”</p>
<h2>I’d tell that person they are going about the process all wrong.</h2>
<p>“And there’s no real close Chipotle”</p>
<p>Chipotle is opening a store on Thayer, I’m not sure why people are excited. There will now be three places to get a giant bland overpriced burrito on Thayer Street. Thrilling!</p>
<p>In response to whoever asked about the trend of bio 0500 becoming more literature-based, the class is no longer taught by Wessel. It’s now taught by Profs Heywood and Freiman (I found Heywood to be an especially engaging and inspiring lecturer), and in 2009, we read at least 2 or 3 primary literature articles. And Prof Freiman spent a few slides of one lecture talking about his own current research.</p>
<p>Regarding bio 28, I have the same complaint as everyone else-- that the class is unsatisfying because it’s such heavy rote memorization rather than problem-solving. The class is billed as the sequel to chem 35-36, which is a joke considering how vastly different the teaching style of bio 28 is. It was awesome when Prof Salomon explained the mechanism of the reaction catalyzed by trypsin, but very unfortunately (in my opinion), that turned out to be the only reaction mechanism covered all semester.</p>
<p>Anyone billing 28 as the sequel to 35/36 is stupid.</p>
<p>Ch145 is the sequel. BI28 is just related course work.</p>
<p>
</snip></p>
<p>Isn’t it?!</p>
<p>“I’d tell that person they are going about the process all wrong.”</p>
<p>How would you tell them to go about it?</p>
<p>“Chipotle is opening a store on Thayer, I’m not sure why people are excited. There will now be three places to get a giant bland overpriced burrito on Thayer Street. Thrilling!”</p>
<p>Your credibility just shot to zero, dude.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>SexPowerGod isn’t that wild. It would probably be considered ho hum at a big public university.</p>
<p>“How would you tell them to go about it?”
“Your credibility just shot to zero, dude.”</p>
<p>Amateur.</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<ol>
<li>The whole ‘Humanities is inferior (in terms of workload, or rigor) than the sciences’ is v. sophomoric. I took intensive science courses in junior college, and took almost no humanities in comparison. I personally find the sciences to be the ‘easier option’ - experiment, analyze, synthesize, memorize - than the majority of the humanities. Why? Because the majority of the humanities and social sciences have a lacking body of knowledge. I actually have to think. (I’m not trying to belittle the sciences, but rather neutralize this pro-science, anti-humanity rhetoric claiming that you cannot slack off in the sciences, but you can in the humanities). So, I’ve decided to study English Literature, and to try and master 6 languages at Brown (I know 2 fluently, and am moderate in 4 languages). I personally find that studying Biology (the subject I had applied for in the UK), or Chemistry (my best subject) would not have enabled me to do what I wanted with my future.</li>
</ol>
<p>Anyways, cons about Brown:</p>
<ul>
<li>As a vegetarian, the food options are not nice. The Ratty is pretty miserable as they don’t think about your protein needs, B12, Omega 3s, etc.</li>
<li>The open curriculum is definitely overwhelming. Expect to shop like 10 courses minimum, because you will almost definitely end up hating one of your ‘definite’ courses.</li>
</ul>
<p>Way to dodge the question, Wolfmanjack. Also way to miss a joke.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>nice ■■■■■ dude</p>