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USNEWS ranks Brown as 17th only . BUT if you look in ranking on ‘acceptance rate ’ Brown ranks 5th with 16% ie just after HYPS and Columbia . Even MIT is below it. I have seen many comments that Brown is one of the lower Ivies . If so why are so many trying there. Columbia is hot due to its location in NY. Brown has no such non-academic advantages. Upenn, Cornell, Duke are all far below it with 25 to 28 % . This year it is even less it seems. My son’s admission offer from Brown says that ‘ you are one of the 1400 freshmen out of 15,000 applicants –‘ ie 9 % only
There must be a solid reason . What could it be . I am trying to help my son who is offered admission in Brown and Cornell in making the decision.
May I have your comments please.

By Breeze (Breeze) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 04:11 pm: Edit

Kengeorgesmith, that's a hard decision.

To answer your question - Brown has optional grades and so many who didn't excel in high school apply but have 0.0000000% chance of being accepted. Many applications and a low acceptance rate, but not students who are more qualified than those at Cornell.

The decision really depends on which school of Cornell he got into. The endowed (non-state) schools are almost certainly harder to get into (as far as grades and SATs, not raw percentages) than Brown.

If you want academic reputation, Cornell probably outweighs Brown by a small margin.

How much is each school offering in terms of financial aid? What does your son want to go into particularly? He really can't go wrong with either school, and neither is likely to be noticeably better than the other.

If you want the stereotype of each school, there are some ways in which they are quite the opposite of each other. Cornell is seen as the "hardest-working" Ivy and Brown is seen as the "slack" (optional grades) Ivy. It's arguably easier to get into graduate school from Cornell because all the students work hard there, and of course they have the full slate of grades (nothing hidden from the grad school admissions office) to show for their work. If he's not going to grad school, your son could likely take it a little easier at Brown for four years and still get a decent job.

By Unhappiness (Unhappiness) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 05:21 pm: Edit

breeze
what are your opinions on princeton (waitlisted) and dartmouth, smith and vassar? i have to make a choice quickly.

By Argus (Argus) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 09:54 pm: Edit

I differ from Breeze on a few points, due in part to information taken from Brown’s profile of the Class of 2007 (the profile is available to the public and is released after decisions are mailed).

The Admission Office records that of the 15,153 students applying to Brown this year 11,059 were ranked in the top 10% of their class – that’s 73% of the total applicant pool. Of those admitted, 91% were ranked in the top10% of their class. Additionally the middle 50 percentile scores of students admitted to the Class of ‘07 were between 660 and 760 on the SAT verbal and 670 and 770 on the SAT math. If it was true that hordes of students applying to Brown hadn’t done well in high school (as Breeze indicates) it seems to me that the percentage of top 10% kids wouldn’t be so high.

Secondly, I differ from Breeze on the perceived stereotype of Brown vs. Cornell. I’ve heard it said of the Cornell kids that they work hard – but I’ve usually heard Brown referred to as the "liberal Ivy" or the "activist Ivy" – not as "the slacker school."

Third, I’d like to point out that Brown graduates are accepted into professional school at a fairly robust rate. According to the Admission Office 83% are admitted to one of their top three choices for med school, 95% to one of their top 3 choices for law school and 98% to one of their top three choices for business school. I don’t have reliable info on Cornell for any of this, but perhaps Breeze has more to add.

Finally, according to US News and World Report, the 6-year graduation rate from Brown is higher than the 6-year rate from Cornell. If Brown really were the slacker school that Breeze perceives it to be, wouldn’t their graduation rate be lower?

Just my $.02.

By Superkid (Superkid) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 10:31 pm: Edit

"Over half of the students I asked said they were taking the class pass-fail, so they had no incentive to actually do the reading. It showed: on the one or two occasions that Professor Kim made even a dim allusion to the plot, all he got were bemused stares. Nobody had to read the book, so nobody did. The class was handicapped from the start." -Article about Brown

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:23 pm: Edit

That article is from 'Dartmouth Review' and reading it clearly shows it is biased and anti-Brown . That is not a pointer.
Legend says ‘ Harvard rejects go to Brown’ . Is this good or bad

By Superkid (Superkid) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:49 pm: Edit

Nothing wrong with the 'Dartmouth Review'. I'm going there next year!

Brown kids are funny though. It's a liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal school. I'd probably choose it over Cornell though, if only because pass-fail means you can take 'er easy for four years and protest things whereas Cornell students' biggest tradition is screaming out their windows because they have too much work.

"Harvard rejects" go everywhere. I don't think that's good or bad, the other 7 Ivy schools all fit that.

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 12:49 am: Edit

Thousands won’t apply for such simplistic reasons and can’t go on doing that for decades. Has to be more solid reason. That is what I am trying to fid out. Their freshman retention rate’ ‘graduation rate ‘ etc are all on the top.

By Superkid (Superkid) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 09:12 am: Edit

Freshman retention rate and graduation rate should be #1... they have optional grades, remember? How could anyone possibly get below a 2.0 if they can pick and choose which grades will count? Brown has a huge advantage there.

Which is why your son should go there... he can graduate without straining himself.

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 10:45 am: Edit

Superkid – You seem to be very bitter about Brown. I am on this thread to help my son to decide and to help me decide. We are not having an argument. Even if it is ,one of the first thing you should learn , before trying to get into Dartmouth or Cornell or for that matter any university , is to be polite to your adversary and not rude . Be humble and LEARN otherwise you will never be a ‘Superkid’

By Superkid (Superkid) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 10:56 am: Edit

Huh? I recommended he go to Brown... do you mean I'm bitter about Cornell? I didn't apply to either, and got into Dartmouth.

By Anotherdad (Anotherdad) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 02:03 pm: Edit

Brown is getting awesome in the selectivity front -- just under 15% for this year's class. USNEWS will have to move it up a bunch next year.

Pick the school that fits the kids personality and has the strongest specific program for your kid's interests. As for me, I'd go to Brown because Cornell is too cold.

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Anotherdad- What are you Majoring in and where are you from. My son has never lived in US or for that matter in any big cities. Had a very protected life in a ‘ Police State’ like Singapore. I am leaning to wards Brown as we have some relatives in Boston and some one to turn to in emergencies .
Brown is an ‘activist College’ scares him. He was asking me ‘what if it is full of weird people like hippies and gays , He has no exposure to such things.
Will it be too much of a cultural shock , I wonder!!
He is planing Eng & Finance double major NOW may be decide to go for Medicine later

By Anotherdad (Anotherdad) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Kengeorgesmith,

By Singapore standards, almost any of the Ivies will seem pretty liberal. Most US college campuses are liberal, some are very much so. Meeting and interacting with different people is part of the educational experience, but I do not think that you could describe Brown as wierd or hippy, and certainly nothing to fear. It is a very pleasant campus and there are people of all political persuasions, and your son should not have any problems finding people that he will fit in with. I have an in-law -- non-drinking, non-smoking Chinese kid physics major who just graduated from Brown and raves about it.

My major? I studied international relations and had enough cultural anthropology to know that anyone moving between cultures such as from Singapore to Providence will undergo culture shock. That should be expected, but it will not be unique to Brown.

By Ravi (Ravi) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 10:15 am: Edit

bump

By Ravi (Ravi) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 02:00 am: Edit

Bump

By Cru (Cru) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 09:30 pm: Edit

hmmm.
What is your son gonna major in?

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Eng and Finance

By Cru (Cru) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 08:03 pm: Edit

- - ;

Cornell

By Ravi (Ravi) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:07 am: Edit

Bump

By Brownhopeful (Brownhopeful) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 09:48 am: Edit

i have another thing to add about brown. the academics are challenging because the students are so gifted. Brown students are supposedly one of the most gifted groups of people in the country. They aren't all legacies and rich kids (which might be one of the reasons Brown has the lowest endowment in the ivy league). On average the students at Brown are by far more talented than the students at Cornell, simply because Brown is much more selective and is drawing a much smaller group.

Of course, prestige shouldn't be everything. Cornell might be more "prestigious" for its engineering or its hotel management schools but Brown is known for educated, open-minded students who LOVE to learn. That's the difference. I don't think there's any question that Brown is the better institution. This year, even, I had to make the choice between Brown, Berkeley, Cornell (Dean's scholarship), Dartmouth, and Georgetown. And I don't think I even thought twice about it. I'm going to Brown.

By Ravi (Ravi) on Friday, April 25, 2003 - 03:51 pm: Edit

Bump

By Pãezinho (Pãezinho) on Friday, April 25, 2003 - 08:01 pm: Edit

Whew... thanks Brownhopeful! At first, I slightly regretted sending in my acceptance card to Brown so early, but now I feel it's a choice well made

By Ccpusher (Ccpusher) on Saturday, April 26, 2003 - 06:22 pm: Edit

brown is probably the second lowest ivy in terms of prestige (ahead of cornell), but some of the smartest pseople from my high school, who were expected to go to harvard, went there.

By Ravi (Ravi) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 06:29 am: Edit

ccpusher -That is what my son too says .Brown is a school for Harvard rejects. Is it good or bad???

By Kk02 (Kk02) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 07:01 am: Edit

its a great school to study the liberal arts.

By Brownie_07 (Brownie_07) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 08:41 pm: Edit

If you really want to find out what these schools are like and what the students are like, why don't you just read their newspapers?
Half of the people on this site just give you the stereotypes.

By Nocalguy (Nocalguy) on Monday, April 28, 2003 - 08:47 pm: Edit

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but acceptance rate don't always correlate with the quality of academics. Brown is a small school so naturally their acceptance rate will be low. It may have the 5th lowest acceptance rate, but it's quality is certainly not 5th in the country. If anything, its ranking has slipped in the past few years.

By Kengeorgesmith (Kengeorgesmith) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Any more comments???

By Ravi (Ravi) on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 05:33 pm: Edit

bump

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 06:55 pm: Edit

Admissino rate for the following schools:
University of Chicago: 44%
University of Southern California: 32%
Pepperdine University: 28%
Boston College: 34%
Washington University: 23%
Brigham Young University – Hawaii: 10% (greatest school in america?)


The best school in terms of academics in this bunch, however, is University of Chicago. Very few will argue otherwise.

By ~the_Chosen~ (~the_Chosen~) on Friday, May 02, 2003 - 04:52 am: Edit

Hey Brigham Young *MUST* be a top school! Look at it's ACCEPTANCE RATE and YIELD RATE!! From PR

17% acceptance rate
84% yield rate! *gasps* omg! That is better than Harvard and USAFA!!!

Some of you get the stupid point. Selectivity isn't everything and obviously, big schools with 2,000+ places in the freshmen class suffer from it.

Almost this entire board goes ONLY by "selectivity."

Mimicing a snob: "I got into a more selective school than you did- I AM BETTER THAN YOU!"

Typical losers that need to put down others so they can "feel better"

By Macbeth (Macbeth) on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 12:58 pm: Edit

I think Brown and Cornell are both great schools...c'mon it's the ivy league. Brown's acceptance rate is quite low due to the available space, but Cornell's academic rating is one of the highest in the country. I would choose Cornell because they are known for producing some of the best students in the country. Their students earn high marks in grad school.

Some people can make an argument about selectivity in this case. Cornell is quite selective for CALS, Engineering, Arts and Science. The hotel school, ILR, and Arch. School bring down the selectivity. I know several students with 1500s who got rejected to cornell and were accepted by many other great schools.

In my opinion, doing well from Cornell opens a lot of doors because it's a known fact that cornell's grading is very hard and their academics are excellent. Graduating with a high a gpa from brown does not indicate definite academic excellence. Grad schools know about grade inflation. College is what you make of it. Picking between schools within the ivy league (not including HYP--anyone would pick these) is a matter of personal preference. Cornell is famous for the sciences while brown is a liberal arts school.

Doing well from either school will get you far. The important thing is to do well. Cornell will force you to work your butt off, while Brown will let you choose the difficulty. If you're willing to work very hard and you know that you will not die under the pressure..Cornell is the way to go. If you have doubts about your abilities...I would suggest Brown.

just my $0.02, don't take it personally.

By Senior (Senior) on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 08:35 pm: Edit

If you're arguing that the more A's the school gives out the easier it is, then you would have to say that Havard is a pretty easy school. 91% graduated with Honors last year and about 50% have an A average.

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 08:58 pm: Edit

Harvard IS an easy school once you get in.
George W. Bush graduated with honor in Harvard business school (getting in with $$$ and legacy), 'nuff said.

By Senior (Senior) on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 07:22 am: Edit

so if your want an easy ride, look to Harvard, Princeton,& Brown - all have grade inflation. Does grade inflation mean the students are slackers? (as Superkid suggests)

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 08:34 pm: Edit

Brown is the last school to became part of the Ives, they needed a even number for the games. It was a choice between Brown and Colgate, but Brown was chosen because of its location (it was closer to the other Ives). At first no one wanted to go there, the school Val. applied to better ives, and if he/she did apply to Brown, admission was guranteed. In the 1960s, with a new admissions dean and new liberal ideas (the core curriculum [all the other ives had it] was abolished) changed the perception of the school. Brown became an overnight sensation. How did they manage this? Not one new teacher was hired or one new building built. The ONLY thing they did was lower the acceptance rate. So when the school val. got rejected but the druggie got in. It was a shock to everyone. Good thing the US news realize that a low acceptance rate doesn't equate with a great school.

By Nocalguy (Nocalguy) on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 08:48 pm: Edit

Grade inflation does not mean the students are slackers. It just means that if they work hard they'll get a 3.9 GPA. At Cornell or Berkeley, they could work hard and get a 3.4 GPA.

By Lethalfang (Lethalfang) on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 09:05 pm: Edit

Grade inflation doesn't mean slackers, but it means students there have an option to be slackers and still graduate with decent GPA (like a 3.4) or even graduate with honors.
At Cornell, Berkeley, MIT, Cal Tech, etc., if you slack, you flunk out.

By Wobudong (Wobudong) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 10:54 pm: Edit

You are all missing the most important distinction--school colors. Cornell is red. Brown is--well--brown. Think ahead. Someday you might want to buy that convertible to match the colors of your alma mater.

By Ravi (Ravi) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 04:57 pm: Edit

bump

By Brown_Man (Brown_Man) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Sure. Brown has the "open curriculum" and also has an unlimited pass/fail grading options for all the classes. But if u r considering graduate school, the whole notion of "open curriculum" diminishes. Slackers are everywhere. Its not just at Brown, Harvard, and Yale.

Wobudong, Brown's school colors are Brown and RED. Not just brown.

Correct me if im wrong but I think many Ivies have red as their school color.

By Brown_Man (Brown_Man) on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 - 07:10 pm: Edit

Brown is not the best school, but if ur looking for a well-rounded university, I think Brown is on the top list (so as the other Ivies)