kelceallach

Hey, i'm an incoming transfer and I was wondering what the school spirit is like at brown? does it exist? i am unbelievably excited and proud to be a brown student and coming from my last college (boston college), I'm hoping the kids at brown love their school too.

So what's it like?

modestmelody

We love our school, but it has nothing to do with school sports.

GroovyGeek

Heh, heh, heh - if you expect school pride a la BC, you transfered for the wrong reasons. Hopefully you transfered to escape what looks to be stifling uniformity and willingness to confine yourself to the "preferred way" of doing things.

When we visited BC this summer, I was shocked to be told that 98% of the seniors live on campus and the school does everything it can to encourage it. The kids answered the obvious question well (what is the role of religion inside and outside the classroom), but stumbled badly on the mild curve ball (what was the biggest recent controversy on campus and why).

modestmelody

It's unfortunate they stumbled when answering. That being said, Brown wants to be 100% residential and if we had the housing for it we would be. In fact, that's a major goal of Brown's future expansion is to at some point build enough attractive upper classman housing to be 100% residential.

In fact, those who live "off-campus" are often basically on top of campus. I myself live closer to GeoChem (a good marker since I am a chem student) this year living off campus than I did living in Grad Center on campus.

kelceallach

heh, well i'm glad its a community that loves brown. as for sports, one of the big reasons i left BC was because of how overpowering athletics were. from the social scene to the class room, there was a focus on the school's athletics reputation. the counselor that handled me as an outgoing transfer even told me that the school chose a few years ago between pouring money into its athletics or academics to gain a strong reputation. according to her they chose to funnel more into athletics to get more tv-time.

and for the housing... there is a simple reasons some many kids live on campus at BC. the housing is f'ing sweet. there is no reason to leave. its the off-campus experience without the commute. ((however, my friends and i drew 6th last for the entire school in the housing lottery, definitely helped make my transfer decision easier :-P )