Going to a top ranked but not "target" school?

nauru
Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:53:18 +0000

If you are motivated to go this route having gone to Brown will only help you. It’s an ivy league school, and differences in quality among institutions of that calibre are really marginal (despite what some CC junkies might say). Bear in mind that your goals are likely to change during undergrad, so the most important thing is to study someplace that helps open doors to many different career paths. Which Brown obviously does. Congratulations.

For the record if I could go back and choose undergrad from the ‘peers’ you listed, I would definitely choose Brown over U Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth and Duke – in spite of the weaker IB recruiting. It just seems to be that much better of an experience for an individualist, non-jock/fratboy, academically-inclined person.