<ol>
<li><p>if you go to ADOCH, the new admit day at brown, you will see a preponderance of people admitted to both brown and harvard. clearly, brown (and other schools) don't consider the other schools an applicant is likely to be admitted to when making an admissions decision. even if they wanted to, there is no reliable information available to them to do so.</p></li>
<li><p>of those admitted to brown and harvard, 80% chose harvard and 20% chose brown. harvard benefits from tremendous resources, history and far-reaching reputation. however, for those in the know, it also suffers from several pathologies of being harvard--it is a slow moving institution that marginalizes the less powerful to the most powerful. brown, by contrast, is less endowed but more progressive and egalitarian.</p></li>
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<p>dcircle, while I don't at all agree with your characterization of Harvard, it is not useful to debate these points - those who get the choice will come to their own conclusions, in their own best interests. I would only urge students who have the choice to keep an open mind to both schools, and not be swayed by sweeping, and often superficial, generalities.</p>
<p>I have no horse in this race.</p>
<p>However, I find these H v. B or P v. Y threads very useful because you can triangulate the real issues at each place. Stereotypes of universities usually have a grain of truth. However, they are not the only truth by any means.</p>
<p>This is an old thread that was mostly filled with Brown students flaming trolls. I'm not sure if people really find this thread useful still, but I'm curious as to why it was bumped.</p>
<p>Ailey, I meant to contribute a useful general consideration in comparing the two schools--not superficial conjecture. My opinion is base on my experience as a former Brown undergraduate, current Harvard graduate student, and current Harvard undergraduate advisor.</p>
<p>Ryan Peterson, President of the Harvard Undergraduate Council, echoed the sentiments of many students who are here at the inauguration of Drew Faust. His remarks can be heard here
<a href="http://www.harvardmagazine.com/2007/inauguration/%5B/url%5D">http://www.harvardmagazine.com/2007/inauguration/</a></p>
<p>This is obviously not a reason to chose Brown over Harvard in itself--in fact, depending on who you are, there may be many more reasons to chose Harvard over Brown. It is merely one consideration among many.</p>
<p>
[quote]
clearly, brown (and other schools) don't consider the other schools an applicant is likely to be admitted to when making an admissions decision. even if they wanted to, there is no reliable information available to them to do so.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I am not sure if this is correct. When DD was interviewed by a Brown alumnus, which, by the way, was very late in the admission's process, one of the questions that he posed was what schools she had applied to, and if she had already been admitted to any schools. DD replied truthfully that she had been accepted SCEA at Stanford, and that she had applied to HYPC and others. I have a suspicion that the interviewer reported this information to the Brown office of admissions.</p>
<p>It's difficult to determine what criteria adcoms use. My son was accepted to Yale, Brown and Duke and rejected at Cornell and Princeton. Interesting part for us was that in the winter (and after overnights), he told us he decided against attending Cornell or Princeton. Perhaps he somehow conveyed his reluctance or ambivalence during his interviews or on his his apps - or maybe they simply didn't want him. Didn't matter much in the end. BTW, he chose Brown - didn't apply to Harvard.</p>
<p>The truth is that the interview has very little bearing on admissions decisions. The only time the interview is weighed in an admissions decision is the extremely rare case when there is something grossly wrong with a candidate. </p>
<p>This is quite logical if you think about it from the perspective of an admissions committee trying to select the top 10% of candidates from a pool of thousands. The subjective impression an alumnus gains over 30 minutes is an extremely blunt instrument compared to grades, scores, recommendations, essays, and other selection methods. If interviews were given enough weight to reject applicants with alternate admission offers, great candidates will be undervalued and less good candidates will be overvalued.</p>
<p>From the school's perspective the interviews are a way of engaging alumni and putting a personal face on the school for prospective applicants. That's it.</p>
<p>Most almumni interviewers fall head over heels in love with their interviewees...because most applicants are very impressive. What do you think is going ot happen to the credibility / weightiness of an interview report when they are all singing incredible praises?</p>
<p>It amuses me that people discuss schools competing for the brightest and most interesting students like there is a finite and small number of them. There are more bright and interesting students that could fit into the Ivies times 10. Last time I checked, they (the students) were competing for us (the schools), not the other way around. </p>
<p>Once you get to certain level, like the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, NW, MIT, and Caltech (plus many top LACs like Pomona, Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, and Carleton), you have a very similar -- if not exact -- level of brightness and interest. Subtle things differentiate the students, like their personal attitudes, political leanings, and what they are looking for out of their education. But to suppose that Harvard has brighter and more interesting students than Brown, and that Brown needs to compete to get that, is simply ridiculous. There are just too many very talented people out there for that to be true. </p>
<p>Admissions is in so many ways a game. I'm brilliant, I'm interesting, how do I make myself look as such to get in? Well, many people play this game better than others and get into certain schools while rejected at others. It took me a while to perfect my strategy at this game (I'm a transfer -- I applied to college 3 times). What ends up happening is that those who don't get into one amazing school just go to another. I'd say there are at least 20 schools in the country, Unis and LACs, overflowing with brilliant and interesting people just as much as each other.</p>
<p>Good post, ClaySoul, I couldn't agree more. Here in CA, I see first hand how many fabulous students who can't afford private college tuition go to the UCs (no, financial aid doesn't do much for the middle class, in particular the large part of it that is loans) and those universities are world renowned and take their students on to very bright futures. That is often not apparent in these forums.</p>
<p>Dcircle, I think you are incorrect. NYCFan, on xoxo said that during the most recent admissions cycle, 97% chose Harvard, and only 3% chose Brown, of the common admits.</p>
<p>Source, please (NYCFan/Byerly is hardly an unbiased source). The RP "ranking" suggests that [url=<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html%5D89%%5B/url">http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]89%[/url</a>] choose Harvard over Brown, which still seems a bit high, although Harvard's excellent financial aid undoubtedly helps. In any case, cross-admit data rarely says anything useful about schools.</p>
<p>Not sure it matters. All our kids turned down schools - they could only accept one. That doesn't mean the other schools aren't good schools or great choices. I think my son would have been happy at any of his choices (except the ones he specifically said he changed his mind on). He didn't consider the acceptances from some simply because of lousy FA pkgs. He really liked two of his "lower ranked" schools but they didn't accept him into the program he wanted - although both offered him full tuition. But he would certainly recommend all these schools to others.</p>
<p>why would someone turn down harvard for brown... Harvard's HUGE endowment (larger than any school), great location, prestige, are so much better than brown's... Plus, Harvard is the second highest ivy on the US News ranking while Brown is the lowest...</p>
<p>Many arguments and some discussion has been made in this thread Bob. Way to ignore it.</p>
<p>FWIW, nothing you listed had any effect on any of my college choices, so you may want to think about the possibility that different people have different priorities.</p>
<p>yes, by bobmallet's logic one should always leap to marry anyone with a big bank account, a fancy job, and a well-located apartment...</p>
<p>If that girl only existed and would have me, SBMom...</p>
<p>I think I'm prime meat for starting a business/investing someone else's trust fund...</p>
<p>holla jason. holla.</p>
<p>Have a look at the Harvard board on CC. It would be superficial to say that CC can give you a general idea about the undergrads at Harvard. Still, go there and see it for yourself. You won't give it a second thought. Pride, pride, pride, f**king pride! Harvard kids need to grow out of their pride.</p>