Reply to where would you want your kid to go if given the following choice: Brown or Trintiy/Columbia Dual BA

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, this must be a very tough decision.

You've received some good comments on this thread.  Pls consider one academic issue --

Brown doesn't really have a long list of core requirements and major requirements.  Only a few distribution requirements are in play, and one can elect no major and only a concentration.

Columbia is one of the two (the other is UChicago) US universities with the most intensive distribution requirements.  And Columbia is a 5-course semester, not a 4 course semester (like Brown and Harvard).

Pls have your DC make sure that the Trinity/Columbia 2+2 program takes into account the fact that, at Columbia, in every one of their undergrad colleges (Columbia College, Barnard, Engineering, and GS) the core courses and major together typically occupy 3 years of the 4.  Will your DC be 100% assured that the Trinity/Columbia program doesn't involve the possible risk of a 5th year?  
[/quote]

Just to clarify, Brown has majors, but they're called concentrations. It's no different from majors at other colleges and the difference is simply terminology. As with any major, a Brown student needs to complete the distribution requirements the concentration demands. Students do have the option to create their own concentration subject to a proposal and approval by the university and relevant departments but most students do a typical concentration.

This double BA with Trinity seems like a brand new program and there is inherent risk in that because we don't know all the kinks yet and how they would play out. It seems to me that to be able to achieve a double BA with Trinity while meeting Columbia's core requirements you will actually end up doing the reverse of what the typical Columbia undergraduate does, spending your first two years at Trinity studying what is effectively your major, and then when you matriculate at Columbia, you spend the last two years completing all the distribution requirements, which leaves you minimal time to take additional courses in your major. If you're a history specialist, you'd have minimal time to study history in your last two years of college, which would be a negative to me. [/quote]

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