Duke or Brown? Engineering and history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brown and Duke have very different cultures. Is your kid more preppy (Duke) or more crunchy/granola(Brown)? Dies your kid like watching sports and want a school with a lot of spirit in the traditional sense of the word (Duke)? Does your kid get really stressed about school and therefore would benefit from Brown's more lax grading policy?

Both are great schools but they are super different.

Brown does not have a “more lax grading policy”, Wtf that is. You made that up.

Brown is well known for its lax grading system
https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/09/serrano-browns-grading-system-and-advising-culture-are-suppressing-student-achievement

https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/04/brown-grade-inflation-continues-to-soar-data-shows

From your own article:

"Grade inflation is not unique to Brown. Students across the country in a wide range of higher-education institutions have transcripts that tend to have higher grades than their counterparts decades prior."

Try and read what you post.

I think you ought to read what you write. I never said that Brown was the only school with grade inflation but it clearly leads the pack with its multiple grading options and the opportunity to change from one option to another. Did you graduate from Brown? I hope not because you would reflect badly on Brown

[Anonymous]

https://college.brown.edu/design-your-education/explore-open-curriculum/course-selection/grade-options

Sounds pretty lax to me

[Anonymous]

Go to Brown as failing grades are not reported.

"The lowest grade given at Brown is “no credit” — a failing grade, but one which does not appear on students’ official transcripts."

What a joke!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to Brown as failing grades are not reported.

"The lowest grade given at Brown is “no credit” — a failing grade, but one which does not appear on students’ official transcripts."

What a joke!

And you think future employers or future grad school admissions aren't aware of Brown's policies on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to Brown as failing grades are not reported.

"The lowest grade given at Brown is “no credit” — a failing grade, but one which does not appear on students’ official transcripts."

What a joke!

And you think future employers or future grad school admissions aren't aware of Brown's policies on this?

Some maybe, certainly not all

[Anonymous]

OP - Eager to hear how the visit goes and final decision

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try to focus on the undergraduate engineering experience. Duke is a true research university while Brown has more of a pumped up liberal arts college atmosphere

My experience is that the latter environment is often better for undergraduates because they have top faculty teaching even lower level courses whereas the former will have grad students doing a lot of teaching. The upside of a research university for an engineering undergrad are the opportunities to conduct high level research, which liberal arts colleges can’t match

But Brown also has those opportunities. To me it’s kind of a best of both worlds. Ultimately she can’t go wrong, so once she makes her decision it will work out great

Grad students don't teach at the highest elite level schools like Duke.

This just isn’t true— my friends who went to Harvard had lots of classes taught by TAs.

I think the post you were responding was a good post (one of the only substantive sensible posts in the last few pages)

Really? I'm sure lab sections are managed by TAs but actual classes??
My kids go to semi-elite schools, but no classes has been taught by TAs at least.

At big selective publics like UMich & Berkeley, there are definitely classes taught by TAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try to focus on the undergraduate engineering experience. Duke is a true research university while Brown has more of a pumped up liberal arts college atmosphere

My experience is that the latter environment is often better for undergraduates because they have top faculty teaching even lower level courses whereas the former will have grad students doing a lot of teaching. The upside of a research university for an engineering undergrad are the opportunities to conduct high level research, which liberal arts colleges can’t match

But Brown also has those opportunities. To me it’s kind of a best of both worlds. Ultimately she can’t go wrong, so once she makes her decision it will work out great

Grad students don't teach at the highest elite level schools like Duke.

This just isn’t true— my friends who went to Harvard had lots of classes taught by TAs.

I think the post you were responding was a good post (one of the only substantive sensible posts in the last few pages)

Really? I'm sure lab sections are managed by TAs but actual classes??
My kids go to semi-elite schools, but no classes has been taught by TAs at least.

At big selective publics like UMich & Berkeley, there are definitely classes taught by TAs.

+1, there's overall much better attention at the privates

[Anonymous]

Here's why I would choose brown: she's not set on a specific engineering degree, so Brown's system (where all engineering majors take the same courses for the first two years) would be good for her. Also, Brown's open curriculum would make it more doable to take history courses in addition to the engineering degree.

I think engineering at Brown leaves more flexibility and is overall more tolerant of stuff like her history interests than engineering at most other universities, including Duke

[Anonymous]

And to whoever said engineering wasn't flexible at Brown - I suggest you do your own research: https://bulletin.brown.edu/engineering/#undergraduate

You can see Brown provides multiple options to meet each requirement. In general, I suggest going in depth at a similar level for Duke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would try to focus on the undergraduate engineering experience. Duke is a true research university while Brown has more of a pumped up liberal arts college atmosphere

My experience is that the latter environment is often better for undergraduates because they have top faculty teaching even lower level courses whereas the former will have grad students doing a lot of teaching. The upside of a research university for an engineering undergrad are the opportunities to conduct high level research, which liberal arts colleges can’t match

But Brown also has those opportunities. To me it’s kind of a best of both worlds. Ultimately she can’t go wrong, so once she makes her decision it will work out great

Grad students don't teach at the highest elite level schools like Duke.

This just isn’t true— my friends who went to Harvard had lots of classes taught by TAs.

I think the post you were responding was a good post (one of the only substantive sensible posts in the last few pages)

Really? I'm sure lab sections are managed by TAs but actual classes??
My kids go to semi-elite schools, but no classes has been taught by TAs at least.

At big selective publics like UMich & Berkeley, there are definitely classes taught by TAs.

TAs typically are handling discussion sections in the larger introductory classes. Professors are overwhelmingly handling the main classroom instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - Eager to hear how the visit goes and final decision

I’ll update when she decides!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And to whoever said engineering wasn't flexible at Brown - I suggest you do your own research: https://bulletin.brown.edu/engineering/#undergraduate

You can see Brown provides multiple options to meet each requirement. In general, I suggest going in depth at a similar level for Duke

Yes this is the impression we got too - lots of flexibility!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She won’t end up majoring in both.

Isn’t duke still like 99% Greek life southern magnet school. If that’s her thing, go for it. Great launchpad for a career in the southeast or Texas.

Brown is more diverse, cosmopolitan student body. Better academic reputation as well. Smaller overall school, great launchpad for a northeast career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for OP: just wondering which other Schools your DD looked at? Brown and Duke are on the list for us to tour. DD interested in engineering/ CS but wants the option to sr least minor in a discipline outside engineering- I know that can be hard to do in a lot of schools…just curious what you found

Thanks for asking! DD was also accepted to UPenn, Cornell, and Georgia Tech for engineering among others. She visited UPenn and Georgia Tech (along with Brown) from those, but decided she liked Brown the best so committed there. Of course the surprise Duke acceptance threw a wrench into all of that.

Congrats!

Do you as a parent have any favorite or history with one? Or alums she can speak too and ask her pivotal and tough questions too?

I know how I’d slice and dice it but have to irked with many people from all of these, stem and no stem.

Ps don’t let her drop the stem and engineering. Tough it out and the labs. Don’t be one of those stereotypes who use stem to get admitted and then change majors by sophomore year to lib arts stuff.