CS and neuroscience are the real flagship departments (i.e. top 3 in the country).
Other outstanding departments: biology, chemistry, history, classics, econ, literary arts, IR
There are no bad departments at these schools.
The job prospects are excellent (as they are for Dartmouth and Duke). The CS students are highly sought after and all my friends going to wall street/ibanking were landing jobs during the height of the recession.
I’m not really sure what @thenextcolbert is getting at. Brown very much has departments http://www.brown.edu/academics/degree-granting and I don’t think they are “designed to clash with other departments” (what does that even mean?)
The point of the open curriculum is to take ownership of your curriculum. Concentrations still have requirements and depending on which one, more or less requirements (e.g. an AB in classics was 8, an ScB in biology was 20) and more or less specific requirements (e.g. take these courses vs. take 3 advanced courses).
Frankly, I think among Brown, Dartmouth, and Duke, you’d be better off using non academic factors. These are creme de la creme universities but they are very different when you get beyond the caliber of the academics.
I also disagree with “Brown simply recommends taking courses from different places.” Brown doesn’t have an official recommendation and that is the point of the open curriculum. Do you want to take courses from different places? Cool, go for it. You don’t? Cool, don’t. Maybe your courses will look like they’re really different but actually one common theme emerges. Maybe they’ll look really similar but in fact span a wide range of topics. I’d recommend reading this thread if you’re interested in the theory of the open curriculum: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-the-brown-curriculum-and-university-college-explained-p1.html