What is Brown really like?

[Anonymous]

My husband is fixated on the idea that Brown students are 'too weird'. He keeps going on and on about it before my kid has even visited.

I know the reputation is out there--but from people with kids there now or very recently (not 40-50 year olds that were there in the 80s-90s) what is the overall atmosphere, student body like?

[Anonymous]

It is too hard to get into to be filled with weird students.

-Brown grad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is too hard to get into to be filled with weird students.

-Brown grad

That’s what I told him !! I told him there have to be many kinds there.

[Anonymous]

What does "too weird" mean to your husband (or, more relevantly, to your child)? It's going to have fewer pre-business types and more students interested in grad school than, say Penn. Does that make them "weird"?

[Anonymous]

Rich
Arty
Geniuses

[Anonymous]

Was your kid accepted yesterday? If so definitely go for a visit and judge for yourselves. Many schools which used to kind of alt are much more mainstream now so unless your DH has current insight he’s probably out of date.

[Anonymous]

My mentee goes to Brown. She's on a sports team and has a lot of friends, and a boyfriend at a school in Boston, and seems quite normal to me. Very bright, driven woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is fixated on the idea that Brown students are 'too weird'. He keeps going on and on about it before my kid has even visited.

I know the reputation is out there--but from people with kids there now or very recently (not 40-50 year olds that were there in the 80s-90s) what is the overall atmosphere, student body like?

Listen to your husband.

[Anonymous]

Only people in the DMV are suspicious of Brown because there is almost zero creativity or imagination in the area. It's all politics, medicine and lawyers. A total yawn.

[Anonymous]

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1185892.page

[Anonymous]

The couple kids I know ( current senior, grad a year or two ago) are pretty straight arrow types and have been very happy there. I think your husband is relying on a pretty goofy stereotype. Even the people I knew who went in the 80s/90s were smart/creative/ambitious but I certainly wouldn’t say they all met some threshold of “weird”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rich
Arty
Geniuses

OMG, creativity?!?

[Anonymous]

The Brown grads I know are exceedingly normal, one is super active in the junior league. It's not a great school academically (lots of grade inflation, very little rigor), but it's difficult to get in so the kids are bright.

[Anonymous]

The weird kids are really across the street at RISD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Brown grads I know are exceedingly normal, one is super active in the junior league. It's not a great school academically (lots of grade inflation, very little rigor), but it's difficult to get in so the kids are bright.

My kid graduated 3 years ago, double major in the humanities, had a great experience, took only courses he found interesting, and graduated with a 4.0 that helped produce great grad school acceptances

So if there was grade inflation, it didn’t negatively impact his academic experience and positively impacted his next steps

I think Brown’s liberal reputation was overblown in the 80s when it became that generation’s stereotype for liberal campus excess (taking the mantle from Berkeley in the previous generation) and it’s now very much in the mainstream of campus culture nationwide

I perceived it as a dream of a liberal arts college, melding the best of that experience with the size and breadth of a midsize university. We are truly middle class and my son was a little surprised at the wealth that was prevalent among students.