<p>Hi! I’m a junior in High School and primarily looking at LAC’s (Middlebury, Haverford, Oberlin…), but for some reason Brown interests me too. I’ve heard that it is more liberal and less preppy than some of the other Ivy leagues. Is that true? Also, what is an average class size at Brown and are almost all of the courses taught by a professor? (instead of a TA) Finally, do the undergraduates feel valued even though the school is so large, and is a research university? Thanks!</p>
<p>Brown’s main focus is on undergraduate education. I really wouldn’t say it’s a large school - it’s primary undergrads, with a small grad/med student population. Courses were 100% taught by professors in my experience, with grad students serving as lead TAs if necessary.</p>
<p>You can look up average class sizes on the Brown website. In general, the big lecture courses (intro sciences, etc) will be larger than at LACs, but the rest of classes will be about the same.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman. After just a month of classes, it’s perhaps too early to draw sweeping conclusions. But so far–all classes have been taught by full professors, three of the four classes have fewer than twenty students. She is floating on cloud nine and 100% thrilled with the personal attention, and dynamic instruction. Her academic advisor (who happens also to be a medical doctor) is thorough, attentive, supportive and extremely accessible and helpful. Writing fellows are available to assist students all semester with their papers and she signed up for one during her first week of school. The school is large-ly diverse, and large-ly stimulating but not large in any overwhelming sense. Quite the opposite. Friendly faces everywhere. I’m not sure what you mean by “preppy”, but my daughter feels she has met brilliant kids on every end of the spectrum–super liberal to super conservative and from all over the world. Brown was my daughter’s dream school and so far it has lived up to her expectations in every way.</p>
<p>If you dont mind, could you please tell me what your daughter did in highschool that made her stand out be acceptd?</p>
<p>She received a Full International Baccalaureate diploma, maintained a 4.3 GPA, decent test scores, had many quality extra curriculars including a two year internship at a non-profit where she really made a mark (and found her passion), excellent recommendations, and she was a recruited athlete. Not a day goes by without her being thankful for her good fortune at being admitted, as she knows of many equally qualified candidates who were not so lucky.</p>
<p>@lisaol You might look at this to get a feel for the accepted students: <a href=“Official Brown University 2018 ED Results - Brown University - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/1584575-official-brown-university-2018-ed-results-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Thank You. She sounds wonderful. My daughter had hopes of being recruited but suffered 2 concussions in the past year and now can’t play. She wants to apply ED to Brown. Her essay is real out of the box and one of her English teachers loved it and the other one told her to redo it. I know that Brown is known to be real appreciative of creative, out of the box thinking but in your opinion, do you think she should show this in her essay?</p>
<p>I think it’s important that the essay use every precious word allowed to reveal whatever is unique about your daughter that cannot otherwise be demonstrated by her grades, test scores, teacher recommendations, and quality of extra-curriculars. So if the “out-of-the-box” essay cleverly or intriguingly links to and reveals your daughter’s strengths in a memorable way, then great! But if it is more of an exercise in creative writing, I think she runs the danger of having the delivery obscure the message.</p>
<p>^^^ I would agree with @osasmom . @lisaol, perhaps your daughter should rely on the teacher that knows her the best in order to best help her reveal herself to Brown.</p>
<p>I know my own daughter put her heart and soul in to both the Common App essay and the Brown supplement in an honest, straight-forward style. She worked very hard on it, utilizing all the time allowed to revise, reflect, repeat through at least twenty or so iterations. </p>
<p>I agree with @arwarw. One thing I am convinced about, having been through this process twice (older kid is at a top 10 LAC - if you go by USNWR rankings that is) - the admissions people are very good at what they do. They are looking for kids that will fit into their college, and they look at all aspects of the application to try to find out all they can about him or her. My kids did not play sports, participate in music or drama, had public school education their entire lives (very large public HS). Nothing available to them such as Robotics clubs, Intel competitions, internships, etc. Very few kids from their school even apply to out of state colleges, much less places like Brown, yet they were both essentially plucked from obscurity to two of the top colleges in the nation. I think the key thing to do is just try to be yourself in your application as much as you can, pick good recommenders, and leave it up to the admission committee to see the whole person.</p>
<p>Thank you all. I appreciate your advice. She has revised her essay but wants to stay true to her original message. It is Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or familythe event in yor life that transistions you through childhood through adulthood. She discusses an event and how her insecurites about herself flash thru her mind but at the end she realizes her true self and has an epiphany. She does it real creatlively. I think Brown might appreciate it but i’m not sure about some of the other more consevative schools. She originally wantad to write abou ther concussons and how she overcame them but was advised against it and was told that those essays are a dime a dozen.</p>