<p>I realize that you’ve probably made your decision by now, so I’m really just posting this for anyone else now or in the future who is deliberating between Brown and Vassar. I started at Vassar as a freshman in 2009, and have just now completed my first semester at Brown. I therefore feel like I can legitimately offer a well informed opinion on both schools. Brown trumps Vassar on every count except scenic beauty of the campus (Brown’s not ugly, but Vassar simply has one of the most gorgeous campuses in America). </p>
<p>The quality of the faculty at Brown is higher. They’re usually more esteemed in their fields, have much better research experience than their peers, and are at least as good if not better than Vassar’s professors at teaching. I recall two Vassar professors who struck me as being so incompetent that I would have been amazed if they had been hired to teach their subjects at a high school level, much less the collegiate level they were teaching, and heard from other students about more professors who were similarly bad. I have never by contrast run into or heard of anyone at Brown who was truly incompetent. Moreover, even though Brown is a research university that has an undergraduate student body nearly three times the size of Vassar, I have found that the professors Ive had at Brown were able to give me as much time and attention as the ones at Vassar. I concede that they may be specific to the social sciences and humanities, other students in the sciences, engineering and math have said that professors there are often much more distant, but on the whole Ive found that I lost nothing in terms of quality of teaching or personal attention at Brown.</p>
<p>Moving on to students, the Brown students are generally much smarter and harder working than their peers at Vassar. I often found at Vassar that on any night of the week most of my peers, rather than doing any work, were instead getting wasted and partying. When people did work, it was often slipshod and at the last minute. People moreover just didnt seem to take classes that seriously. I got the vibe that for a lot of people, Vassar was just a four party that they got their parents to pay for. By contrast, most people at Brown work fairly hard. There are exceptions, I had some roommates on the crew team for instance who mostly got drunk and played video games, but people at Brown actually take their studies seriously and usually get their work done before partying. Beyond this, I also noticed that in class the comments are much more intelligent than what Id get at Vassar. At Vassar people would say things that indicated either that they hadnt done the reading, or that they hadnt really done any thinking. By contrast people at Brown tend to ask intelligent questions that demonstrate a firm grasp of the reading and mental acuity. Finally, the general level of social discourse is much higher. Ive had a number of serious talks about philosophy, theology, politics, and other topics with people at Brown. At Vassar I never had those conversations; people tended just to talk about how wasted they were and who theyd recently had sex with. Overall, I would thus say that Brown students are intelligent, diligent people, whereas the Vassar kids struck me as mostly spoiled suburbanites with very few academic interests. </p>
<p>Browns curricular options also beat out Vassars. There are at least three times as many classes at Brown as there were at Vassar, across a much wider range of programs. Whereas there were a lot of areas that Vassar didnt cover or was weak at, you can take almost anything you want at Brown, from Egyptology to quantum mechanics. The New curriculum is also a godsend. Being able to pick whatever you want is awesome, and allows you to have a wonderfully rich educational experience. Even better though is the ability to take any course pass/fail. This lets you take a course you find interesting, but that youre worried might wreck your GPA. This semester for instance I took an awesome course on Confucianism pass/fail that I would otherwise have never taken, and will also be taking calculus pass/fail this summer. The cherry on top of all this is RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design). RISD is one of Americas top art schools and just down the hill from Brown. As a Brown student, you can register for any course you want at RISD. Although I have yet to take advantage of this, I know people who have taken some amazing classes at RISD in topics like book binding, that would have been unavailable elsewhere. None of these opportunities would be open to you at Vassar, which has a more controlled curriculum and smaller choice of classes. </p>
<p>Browns resources also trump Vassars. The libraries have a better collection than Vassar’s, fights over money are rarer than at Vassar, and the facilities are generally far superior. Brown also has a very strong alumni network and a very good career services. In particular, whereas many people at Vassar were unable to get summer work, almost nobody at Brown, including me, is unable to find a summer job (for the record I received several job offers that I turned down in order to take some summer classes). Moreover, the level of employment people get is vastly superior to what Vassar has. I remember the people at Vassar who got jobs tended to have positions such as summer sales help at the Gap. Elite companies almost never showed up to recruit on campus. Brown on the other hand attracted elite employers such as Bain and Goldman Sachs regularly, and many people I knew were able to snag great internships with these employers. </p>
<p>On a final note, Providence is just a better place to live in than Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie is a very run down town that has almost nothing in it besides Vassar. Its very depressing and isolated, and you can feel quite stifled on the weekends. Dont be fooled by the fact that MTA North goes there either. New York is still nearly two hours away, and youll probably only be able to go three or four times a semester. Providence by contrast is a fairly large city with lots to do and a rich history. Moreover, Boston is only about an hour away by train. While I concede that Boston is not as interesting as New York, Its much better to be an hour from Boston than two hours from New York. Overall whereas I often found myself hating Poughkeepsie, I have come to love Providence and the state of Rhode Island. </p>
<p>I dont mean at all to put down Vassar. As I said it has a lovely campus. Moreover, while it has some incompetent faculty, it also has some brilliant professors like James Merrell. Vassar does maintain a high commitment to education, and you can take some wonderful classes while youre there. Vassars issue isnt that its a bad school (on the contrary it really is quite good) but that it simply is not on the same level as an institution like Brown. Thats really the point Ive been trying to make with these arguments. I would therefore advise anyone whos facing this decision to unhesitatingly pick Brown over Vassar.</p>