Hi! I’m a prospective transfer and I’m asking for the most brutally honest answers you can give me: what’s the absolute worst thing about Brown? Something you can’t stand or think is stupid.
And then what’s your favorite thing? Something super unique or simple about Brown that you think would be useful for me to consider.
any and all comments welcome
One of my kids went there. Pros: free curriculum, Providence, “vibe” (most of all)
The only con was one year in a concrete dorm, and no house system like Harvard or Yale or some public U’s
The worst thing is definitely the disconnect between upper-level administration and the students. Covid has exacerbated this–everyone who I’ve interacted with face-to-face has been awesome, but administrators make no sense when asking them about their decisions. Wealthy people think of brown as a hedge fund and not a place of learning, and since they have the money, financial priorities come above students. However, I don’t think this is unique to Brown.
I love how nice everyone is. There are literally only two people at this school that I dislike.
As a parent of a Brown student what I have most enjoyed and appreciated is watching the school live up to its reputation for cultivating independent thought.
Like most high achievers my kid and friend group all seemed to arrive on campus thinking they wanted to be doctors, bankers, consultants etc. In some cases the open curriculum served to reinforce this path but for a significant number the flexibility seemed to open up new areas of interest, change perspectives and cause career paths to be adjusted. In many cases I think this has not only resulted in a better academic experience but will translate into a lifetime of greater productivity, happiness and success.
My kid describes a collaborative environment with very little academic pressure beyond self imposed expectations. Very relaxed and happy while extremely productive.
The only major down side had been the up keep of the dorms. My kid moved off campus as a junior but was very disappointed at the condition of his dorms.
I would also say Providence has proven a huge plus in terms of accessibility for professional opportunities, entertainment, food, etc. The size and the prominence of Brown relative to RI are a nice combination in terms of quality of life.
Hope this helps.
I’m also a parent of a current student.
I think the students make the school. The level of collaboration and amount of peer tutoring is amazing, as well as the kids being just genuinely nice and supportive of each other whether academically or in life issues. As an e ample of peer tutoring, my kid goes to TA hours all the time, and has also been a TA for several classes. For one of her difficult, large STEM classes there are 3 or 4 different TAs, which is incredibly helpful as she’s identified which TA gives the best tips for her learning style, which is different than most of her peers’ style.
The downside is the administration and the dorms.
TAs are hugely helpful and I think the culture of undergrad TAs is pretty uncommon! 3-4 TAs is a little bit of a lowball for a huge class–there were at least 10 for orgo 1, plus all the lab TAs.
Total Brown newbie here: many of the posters here are slamming the dorms at Brown. What’s so bad about them?
Not going to ask about the issues with the administration, but…?
Old and in need of paint and some attention. Several rehab projects were and are underway (some new housing being built) but Covid seemingly slowed it down.
My kids freshman dorm was built in the early 1900’s and it appeared they had changed the toilet set no more then twice since it was new construction 
I am exaggerating they weren’t the worst we saw when looking at colleges but schools like Duke had clearly focused more attention on housing.
We have no Brown students in the family, so this is just our gestalt having spent a day there when our son was looking at schools. He did not apply to Brown either.
We all found Providence, particularly that which abuts the campus to have a great vibe. That was also one of the problems though, where does campus end and town begin. The campus has a very amorphous feel to it.
More importantly for him, the engineering department just wasn’t up to the level of many of the programs we looked at. I’m sure Brown produces good engineers, but the facilities, especially the labs used by undergrads, were noticeably lacking relative to the ones he ended up applying to and the one he attended.
Most common complaint that I have heard is with respect to outdated facilities.
Not sure when you toured but a lot of resources have been added since new facility opened in 2017….
The Nelson Entrepreneurship Center opened 2 years ago just down the street and there are a number of collaborative projects between the two concentrations.
You can see the engineering facility to the right adjacent to the Nelson Center.
With all due respect, I think that may be a slightly dated perception. This is a link to all ongoing facility projects. On campus it has been obvious that they are a actively upgrading and building…
Active Projects List | FACILITIES MANAGEMENT | Brown University
To give you a relative comparison though, the school my son did choose has 450,000 square feet of engineering space, with multiple buildings over 100,000 sqft. There are over 80 free standing engineering labs. It’s all dedicated to undergraduate instruction.
That does not include the collaboration between the school and Amazon at the AWS training center, the HotHouse startup incubator, or the multi-disciplinary 102,000 sqft. research facility currently under construction.
School? What’s the size of the undergraduate student population? What’s the size of the engineering population?
I fear we are going off topic given OP is specifically asking about transfer pros/cons to Brown. I suspect you are comparing a Cal State Tech school several times the size of Brown a northeast Ivy.
Apples and oranges. Both have their strengths but I didn’t see OP asking about the question you are answering.
It’s about twice as big as Brown if you consider the Brown Graduate students. The college of engineering has roughly 1000 fewer students than the whole Brown student body.
The thing is, for engineering it isn’t really scalable on just square feet or student body size. It’s what those square feet, and an engineering program that size get you.
Those things would be more than one machine shop used only for student projects and clubs, not for instruction, a rotational dynamics and vibrations lab, multiple wind tunnels, including a mach+, propulsion lab, mechatronics lab, two CubeSat labs, Anechoic Chambers, a computer intelligence lab, robotics lab, engine lab, etc. I could go on. There are more than 80 autonomous lab spaces in engineering alone.
That’s the advantage of scale. It’s noticeable when comparing engineering programs. It might not matter to everyone.
The OP didn’t ask what was great about Brown or for the institution to be defended. They asked about the warts, what is there not to like about Brown. Every school has them. You often don’t learn about them until you’re on campus. I admire their quest for the whole picture, but hope that they’d find things students and parents didn’t like about any school and keep it in perspective. They need to decide if any of them are deal breakers.
Given the totality of your experience being a tour many years ago it seems a bit dubious for you to consider yourself informed enough to comment to such a specific request.
You will note I did provide the OP with warts (as you put it) and the positives up thread based on first person recent experiences.
I will add, one of the great things about attending an Ivy school like Brown with a sub 5% acceptance rate is you never will look back and feel compelled to “flex” by criticizing schools you know little about or wonder if you could have even gotten in.
Take your best shot OP it’s a great place!
Actually he/she kind of did…
“what’s your favorite thing? Something super unique or simple about Brown that you think would be useful for me to consider.”
What they didn’t ask is the square footage of Cal Poly.
Disclaimer- graduated a hundred years ago or so it seems. But I have been back frequently for speakers, events, conferences etc.
Favorite thing- no matter what your interests, there will be a faculty person who will want to help you. Whether it’s calling a colleague at another university, reaching out to an alumnus or alumna with a solid network, arranging a research project overseas- there will be a professor who is ready to jump in.
Least favorite thing- the month of February. Providence doesn’t always get as much snow as the rest of New England (and the U sits on top of a hill) so it’s not white/pretty/picturesque in February, it is gray and cold and grimey. I remember wondering how a short month could feel so endless!
But then the ice melts, the flip-flops come out, and the Green is alive with students drinking coffee and reading and laughing even before it’s really warm enough to be lounging outside!
I’ll assume @Catcherinthetoast and @eyemgh are done arguing and that other users can focus on the OP.
@mynameiswhatever The dorms are not that bad. My son is in Miller, which was around in 1908? The buildings are old but that’s the beauty of having a historical site. Inside, my son’s floor has a study room, so compared to a newer campus like UC Davis, it’s not that different. Where it differs is that newer campuses like UCs may have ACs (although many don’t!). Up until a few weeks ago, my son was suffering thru the heat in the dorm but he and roommate each have fans, they got one from residence life, and the air purifier Brown gives each dorm helped with additional cool air.
But a place like a UC (what we know) has quads with 192sq ft while my son’s double at Brown is 283sq ft. It’s all relative since we from CA so it feels ginormous to my son when comparing his dorm vs his friends’ UC dorms. The food isn’t that great but I think it’s because we have more of an ethnic preference and we are from CA where we can get pretty diverse ethnic food on campus. That said, that’s the beauty of kicking my kiddo to the east coast. Get that exposure he wouldn’t get in his bubble here :).
