I have a son who graduated from brown last year, so his and his friends’ and college GF’s experience is recent. None of them experienced an anti-intellectual streak at Brown. In fact, they chose it because when visiting classes, they witnessed a vibrant exchange between professors and students, and they were not disappointed once enrolled. Another thing that they found appealing about brown is that unlike some other universities, such as JHU or Penn, it’s fairly well balanced between the humanities and sciences/engineering (and it also seems to attract lots of kids like my son who are science concentrators but also have a serious love of lit, history, and other humanities. So many of his friends had unlikely dual concentrations) and like uchicago, its vibe isn’t at all pre-professional. In fact, brown and uchicago were my son’s and his high school GF’s top 2 choices (she ended up at uchicago…wasn’t admitted to brown…and I think equally loved her experienced). His best friend chose uchicago immediately after being accepted EA and was also happy with his experience there.
While I think Chicago and brown are more alike than different in appealing to an intellectual student (but are obviously hugely different in the core vs open curriculums), I think the biggest difference between these universities that might account for some people misconstruing that brown kids don’t care much for classroom learning, is that there probably is a greater engagement at brown in extracurriculars than there may be at Chicago, although that may be changing now at Chicago with its different admissions tactics the last 5-6 years. Brown kids are super engaged outside of the classroom. But it seems that one huge benefit of the open curriculum is that kids are enrolled in classes because of their sheer interest, and it impacts the classroom discussion in a positive way. It also seems to attract a particular, independent type of student.
Here’s a brown professor’s perspective on his classrooms’ engagement and how he thinks the open curriculum impacts that experience:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU
As an aside, Prof Miller co-wrote the textbook most commonly used in biology AP courses and college introductory courses:
https://vivo.brown.edu/display/kemiller
Finally, I don’t think you could go wrong attending either of these universities. I must have visited close to 40 schools between both my kids, and these two schools are among the few whose students and vibe impressed me most, and they also happen to be beautiful.