Anonymous wrote:Brown is trying to cross a LAC with a research university. You can argue it doesn't do either as well as a place committed to only one but the effort has some good payoff for undergrads.

Most academic departments are ranked for grad students not undergrads but Brown still is solid in most areas and outstanding in a few (like cog sci). I would rather be an undergrad than a grad student at Brown, but vice-versa for Harvard.

Even for cog science Brown is barely in the top 10. Brown is solid/good is many areas but outstanding in practically none. It could try to be the ivy with the biggest reputation for undergraduate focus but it even loses that title to Dartmouth, which does a much better job for kids who want the LAC feeling/undergrad focus.

So where does this leave Brown? I like Brown but imho it has completely dropped the ball and it is finding it very hard to compete with most other top schools nowadays.

The strength of a department affects undergraduates too. Definitely not as much as it does graduate students but it still does. The opportunities available for a top kid at Harvard cannot be matched by what Brown offers.

Brown is trying to cross a LAC with a research university. You can argue it doesn't do either as well as a place committed to only one but the effort has some good payoff for undergrads.

Most academic departments are ranked for grad students not undergrads but Brown still is solid in most areas and outstanding in a few (like cog sci). I would rather be an undergrad than a grad student at Brown, but vice-versa for Harvard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is hard for me to believe that a college with an acceptance rate of less than 10% would be be paying someone to stir up additional applications by posting here

The only colleges shameless enough to do that are Chicago and Northeastern in Boston.

And you know this how?

ALL colleges are gaming the system and all families are applying to more and more colleges which decreases acceptance rates.

Wouldnt be surprised for Chicago. The gumpf and amount of marketing material they send to potential applicants is insane. They are shameless in that way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is hard for me to believe that a college with an acceptance rate of less than 10% would be be paying someone to stir up additional applications by posting here

The only colleges shameless enough to do that are Chicago and Northeastern in Boston.

And you know this how?

ALL colleges are gaming the system and all families are applying to more and more colleges which decreases acceptance rates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What hurts Brown is the fact that it has weak departments and very limited resources compared to the other top schools. Also their ultra-liberal and school-of-choice-for-celebs reputation (which is well-deserved) is not helping either.

Elaborate, please.

Most other ivies and top schools are quite stronger in most disciplines. Find me a major discipline where Brown is an established top 10 player. You would be hard-pressed to do so. Or find my a major college or university ranking where Brown performs exceptionally well. Again hard to do.

Regarding their resources look at their endowment, it is $3.5billion, the lowest in the ivy+ group. The average endowment of the ivy+ group (ivies, Stanford, MIT, UofC, Duke) is ~$15.7b. If you exclude HYPS as outliers the average is still $9.5b. no matter how you slice it Brown is way behind the curve.

Do you think Brown with its lackluster academic departments and limited endowment is able to keep up with most other elite schools in terms of recruiting the very best students, the very best faculty or investing in major capital projects and ground-breaking research? They can't...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reasons Brown seems to invoke very strong feelings, particularly negative feelings, in some people despite that the charges against Brown on here can easily also be made against the rest of the Ivies and other top colleges. Brown is no more or any less liberal than Yale or Columbia or Harvard, to use as an example. Its student body is indisputably accomplished and highly educated. Its graduates indisputably go on to the best grad schools and work for major employers (and plenty go other routes, as plenty of grads from other Ivies do, too).

And is Brown a hot college? Look at the number of applications and admissions rate and that should tell you the answer. All these schools are hot colleges.

Tbh I think it was more a pp trying to defend Brown who rubbed people the wrong way, rather than Brown itself.

Brown does consciously distinguish itself from the other top colleges by having no distributional requirements, pass/fail options, and so on. According to Goldin’s Book, The Price of Admission, they promote these policies actively to recruit celebrity kids. I think these policies are actually attractive, but not all agree, and this can lend itself to a sort of “trustafarian” image that works against the school. It’s different sides of the same coin.

Those policies all stem from atudent-led revamp of the curriculum in the 60s. Now it may be that it makes the school attractive for celebrity kids but that's an effect not a cause. Brown is undoubtedly more liberal than, say, Penn, but generally speaking it has as strong an undergraduate education as anywhere.

Now the haters can pile on (because Brown does attract them)

Brown does actively court celebrity kids. Read Goldin’s book about how Brown’s president visited George Harrison’s house in Britain to recruit George’s son, and mistook George for the gardener.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reasons Brown seems to invoke very strong feelings, particularly negative feelings, in some people despite that the charges against Brown on here can easily also be made against the rest of the Ivies and other top colleges. Brown is no more or any less liberal than Yale or Columbia or Harvard, to use as an example. Its student body is indisputably accomplished and highly educated. Its graduates indisputably go on to the best grad schools and work for major employers (and plenty go other routes, as plenty of grads from other Ivies do, too).

And is Brown a hot college? Look at the number of applications and admissions rate and that should tell you the answer. All these schools are hot colleges.

Tbh I think it was more a pp trying to defend Brown who rubbed people the wrong way, rather than Brown itself.

Brown does consciously distinguish itself from the other top colleges by having no distributional requirements, pass/fail options, and so on. According to Goldin’s Book, The Price of Admission, they promote these policies actively to recruit celebrity kids. I think these policies are actually attractive, but not all agree, and this can lend itself to a sort of “trustafarian” image that works against the school. It’s different sides of the same coin.

Those policies all stem from atudent-led revamp of the curriculum in the 60s. Now it may be that it makes the school attractive for celebrity kids but that's an effect not a cause. Brown is undoubtedly more liberal than, say, Penn, but generally speaking it has as strong an undergraduate education as anywhere.

Now the haters can pile on (because Brown does attract them)

Anonymous wrote:What hurts Brown is the fact that it has weak departments and very limited resources compared to the other top schools. Also their ultra-liberal and school-of-choice-for-celebs reputation (which is well-deserved) is not helping either.

Elaborate, please.

Anonymous wrote:What hurts Brown is the fact that it has weak departments and very limited resources compared to the other top schools. Also their ultra-liberal and school-of-choice-for-celebs reputation (which is well-deserved) is not helping either.

To many, including my family (I’m 14:39), being ultra-liberal isn’t a negative. It may not compel my kids to go there, but it certainly wouldn’t dissuade them. My kids are liberals themselves.

What hurts Brown is the fact that it has weak departments and very limited resources compared to the other top schools. Also their ultra-liberal and school-of-choice-for-celebs reputation (which is well-deserved) is not helping either.

Anonymous wrote:For some reasons Brown seems to invoke very strong feelings, particularly negative feelings, in some people despite that the charges against Brown on here can easily also be made against the rest of the Ivies and other top colleges. Brown is no more or any less liberal than Yale or Columbia or Harvard, to use as an example. Its student body is indisputably accomplished and highly educated. Its graduates indisputably go on to the best grad schools and work for major employers (and plenty go other routes, as plenty of grads from other Ivies do, too).

And is Brown a hot college? Look at the number of applications and admissions rate and that should tell you the answer. All these schools are hot colleges.

Tbh I think it was more a pp trying to defend Brown who rubbed people the wrong way, rather than Brown itself.

Brown does consciously distinguish itself from the other top colleges by having no distributional requirements, pass/fail options, and so on. According to Goldin’s Book, The Price of Admission, they promote these policies actively to recruit celebrity kids. I think these policies are actually attractive, but not all agree, and this can lend itself to a sort of “trustafarian” image that works against the school. It’s different sides of the same coin.

Anonymous wrote:
It is hard for me to believe that a college with an acceptance rate of less than 10% would be be paying someone to stir up additional applications by posting here

The only colleges shameless enough to do that are Chicago and Northeastern in Boston.

For some reasons Brown seems to invoke very strong feelings, particularly negative feelings, in some people despite that the charges against Brown on here can easily also be made against the rest of the Ivies and other top colleges. Brown is no more or any less liberal than Yale or Columbia or Harvard, to use as an example. Its student body is indisputably accomplished and highly educated. Its graduates indisputably go on to the best grad schools and work for major employers (and plenty go other routes, as plenty of grads from other Ivies do, too).

And is Brown a hot college? Look at the number of applications and admissions rate and that should tell you the answer. All these schools are hot colleges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the article instead of looking like a fool? It's the top 10 list, so if those schools aren't there they must not be in the top 10, huh? It's not .047%, it's 4.7% (which is a lot when 7% of Brown students received a degree in CS according to the CDS).

Serious question: are you a teenager applying to Brown? Your discomfort with how rankings are calculated and to what ends, combined with your abusive snark, suggests somebody who isn’t terribly mature, huh?

This. Is Brown "hot"? OP, are you a teenager or student at Brown? A parent with a child at Brown? Have you posted other desperate threads about Brown? If so, "be happy where you are planted". These posts smack of a serious inferiority complex.

My guess is, somebody who’s paid to promote the school but is trying to look natural by tossing in words like “hot” and “huh” in ways that my teens would find cringe-inducing.

On a separate note, can I take a minute to bemoan the Breitbartization of online interactions, as evident in the Brown booster’s arrogant snark. Why do some posters try to make everything into a pissing contest?

It is hard for me to believe that a college with an acceptance rate of less than 10% would be be paying someone to stir up additional applications by posting here

You’re probably right. Most likely it’s a teen or grad, otherwise the aggressiveness is hard to explain as coming from a neutral bystander.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the article instead of looking like a fool? It's the top 10 list, so if those schools aren't there they must not be in the top 10, huh? It's not .047%, it's 4.7% (which is a lot when 7% of Brown students received a degree in CS according to the CDS).

Serious question: are you a teenager applying to Brown? Your discomfort with how rankings are calculated and to what ends, combined with your abusive snark, suggests somebody who isn’t terribly mature, huh?

This. Is Brown "hot"? OP, are you a teenager or student at Brown? A parent with a child at Brown? Have you posted other desperate threads about Brown? If so, "be happy where you are planted". These posts smack of a serious inferiority complex.

My guess is, somebody who’s paid to promote the school but is trying to look natural by tossing in words like “hot” and “huh” in ways that my teens would find cringe-inducing.

On a separate note, can I take a minute to bemoan the Breitbartization of online interactions, as evident in the Brown booster’s arrogant snark. Why do some posters try to make everything into a pissing contest?

It is hard for me to believe that a college with an acceptance rate of less than 10% would be be paying someone to stir up additional applications by posting here