How hard is it to get into Brown?

Parents Forum
101

Yes, ironically, schools want “authenticity” !!!

Ellelakes, is there need to cram with two weeks left for some and 4 weeks for one or two?. It’s great to have the options she has already done and maybe she doesn’t want more, these are great choices and enough. But to consolidate:

Jan. 15: Wellesley, Oberlin, Macalaster, Grinnell, Carleton, Colgate, Kenyon, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Skidmore, Dickinson, Hampshire

Feb. 1: Ithaca

Maybe when she returns to school her guidance counselor there can advise her.

She’s probably done but just in case.

102

Ellelakes- “Even the kids who do get in suffer emptiness because their goal is gone.”.

I don’t want to be argumentative and I can only speak to my own observations. The kids I know who attend and are successful at super elite schools were all highly motivated in HS but never approached college admissions as a stand alone goal. They all have lifetime, academic or specific near term ambitions but view HS, college and beyond as stepping stones for learning or achievement on a continuum.

Stated differently their goal isn’t to get in, but to take full advantage once in of whatever resources and opportunities are available to advance their personal broader goals and ambitions.

I am sure they all take pride in their achievements but the “victory” college sweatshirt selfie doesn’t for them symbolize an end but a continued opportunity.

Stated more eloquently and succinctly by Compmom…

“Yes, ironically, schools want authenticity”

103

@ellelakes. Congratulations to you and your daughter. All her schools seem to be competitive to get into. I forgot where you are from but any instate public schools she is considering. Also can you easily afford the OOS tuition at these schools?

Here is an amazing school for film/arts much like Emerson. We know personally people working in the industry that taught or went to school here and you still have time. Think February first is the last date if I read this correctly. Like Emerson it is a conservatory style school.

https://www.uncsa.edu/

I would think she would get some merit money also.

104

Restating: “even some of the kids who do get in may suffer emptiness if getting in was a main goal in hs.” I have read that many Ivy League students suffer depression from living with external motivators for too long and some solve it by going on to the next one. On a personal level, I had two kids who went to mediocre low stress high schools who went to Ivies and they found friends who were not like this, but I think that many students at Ivies are relatively “externally motivated.” It affects the culture of the place. Drew Faust, who has left, was intent on changing that at Harvard by increasing focus on the applied arts and trying to decrease focus on future careers in finances and consulting etc.

105

There are many kids whose authenticity is working to their max level. And they’re grounded, have friends and social strengths, a variety of interests, resilience, etc. They have experience stretching, beyond academics.

The issue can be more when that’s not so. And when they’re running to catch up, through the 4 years, or struggle to cement a new direction. Not just the college dreams in hs senior year. “Fit” matters, not just future goals

OP, she does have other ECs, right, a balance? And some film work of her own?
Plus. Please be realistic about affordability.

106

@ElleLakes - just checking again b/c I don’t want you to get blindsided - is your D going for a major at Tisch that requires an artistic review? All majors require one except Drama, Interactive Media Arts, Collaborative Arts, and Dance - which require a review AND an in person component (audition, interview etc)

107

I agree with most of what has been said previously. My suggestion would be to drop half of the remaining schools on the list. You can remove some based on net cost, and perhaps others that are just not so great a fit.

My daughter was also deferred from a very selective school in the December round. She had submitted 4 or 5 applications before the first decision came out. Based on the deferral, she added a couple of applications to colleges that were less selective than the school that deferred her application. Ultimately, she was admitted to 7 of the 8 schools where she applied–not the one that deferred her, but several of equal selectivity.

As someone pointed out earlier, the odds for deferred students are not that good. This can be hard to accept, but it seems to be the case. Also, if the school says that they may be waiting to see first semester grades, this may give a false impression: All grades of A in difficult classes (the ones originally listed on the application) may have no impact at all. If some aspect of the application really changes, and it’s major, the outcome could be different after deferral, but otherwise, it’s not likely.

108

Not sure if this has already been posted, but have your daughter read this table, showing last year’s ED/RD admissions rates: http://www.personalcollegeadmissions.com/early-decision. Last year Brown admitted almost half of its freshman class with ED applicants, dropping the RD admission rate to 6%.

It sounds like they may have admitted an even higher percent of the incoming freshman class in the ED round, so getting in RD will be extremely tough. While your daughter’s chances are not zero, they are extremely low. She must show not only her continuing strong grades (first semester senior year grades) but show something additional that she has accomplished since she submitted her application shat makes her a stronger candidate that could possibly, possibly tip her into the admissions pile. Has she won additional honors or awards? Had any additional accomplishments? Higher test scores? If she wasn’t a strong enough candidate for them to accept her in ED, she will need to be a stronger candidate now or she will not get in.

If she did not submit additional applications that were due today, or is not getting any others submitted that may be due shortly, she is likely looking at a gap year, CC, or selecting a school from the NACAC clearinghouse pool with available spots after admissions are completed. From what you’ve shared, she may benefit from a gap year for some emotional growth. Good luck.

109

“The schools want kids who are actually enthusiastic and who pursue their various pursuits because of inherent interest and a keen curiosity about the world-not”

So why are these kids forced into taking subjects that don’t interest them at all, because guess what, they need to get into selective colleges. Your statement makes sense for ECs, but not for academics, which is still the most important criteria in these places. Kids take courses for the specific reason of getting into good colleges. Otherwise someone who loved foreign languages could take those and skip math and science right? They’re enthusiastic about it, curious, but they can’t, because they have selective colleges as their goal.

“Stated differently their goal isn’t to get in, but to take full advantage once in of whatever resources and opportunities are available to advance their personal broader goals and ambitions.”

I’ll bring up Deresiewicz (Yale professor of English) he says most of these kids pick econ to get into banking or consulting, as compmom also noted, pretty much going through the motions while they’re there. Econ is still the number one major, with Comp Sci also popular, meaning their goals are to get a job after graduation.

110

I have posted last spring the RD admitted rate for ED deferred students for class of 2021.

See http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21370405/#Comment_21370405

Among all the Ivies using ED, Brown has consistently admitted the lowest percentage of students in ED. I have seen many RD admits who applied to other non-ED top schools due to financial or other reasons.

111

Fordham extended its RD application deadline this year to Jan 11. With your D’s stats I think it’s likely that she will receive some merit money.

112

In post #81, OP states they can only afford to pay about 10k/year max. That does not mean that the school will determine that this is all that they can afford to pay.

This means that D would need minimally a full tuition scholarship or OP needs to run the net price calculator to see if D really has any financially feasible options

113

I agree with everyone who says Brown is very hard to get into. My son had really, really high stats and was deferred ED, and later outright rejected, even though he had been invited to a special CS program before applying. My advice is to tell her to move on. Hope for the best but expect the worst.

114

Of course, private preps want kids to go where they want. But Brown is considered the ultimate open curriculum by many exclusive prep kids whose education so far has been non STEM, liberal, open curriculum. I guess they like and are used to open curriculum. I wouldn’t know because I didn’t go to Brown.

115

That’s a mighty generalization. The best preps are strong in STEM. Not all have the range of fluffy elecives. Nor do all kids have the sort of intellectual curiosity Brown wants.

116

Yes, some generalization by default due to the nature of this forum. But many exclusive prep kids look to Brown as THE private college they want to go to. I didn’t say anything about fluffy electives. Many private preps do good jobs of giving a very strong education in Humanities and writing. I would say for non-STEM kids, if you write well, college academics will be easy.

117

I dealt with this common misconception a lot when I interviewed for Brown- people hear “open curriculum” and assume they are taking fly-fishing, yoga, and aromatherapy to get a degree in something or other.

There have been numerous analyses by the university which show that virtually all students end up taking a similar program as they would at another US university. Engineering majors take writing courses because they know communicating is an important part of teamwork and innovation; philosophy majors take math because advanced level philosophy requires great skill in logic; history majors take foreign languages, Art History majors take econ, Classics majors take statistics. Just like anywhere else.

The difference is that because there is no mandated core, students pick their own “Gen Ed’s”. And like any other university, these courses can be broad and designed for someone with no previous experience in the subject (survey courses) or highly technical and advanced but quite narrow in scope. The student decides- a seminar on Pliny, read in the original, or a survey course on “Literary themes in the Ancient World” where all works are read in English. And you will find STEM students taking both of those classes.

The notion that prep school students are picking Brown because of the open curriculum is not borne out by any application or admissions stats that I have ever seen from the University.

As a former Classics major, I can tell you that most prep school students came in with more advanced “dead foreign language” skills than the public school kids (Latin, Greek, sometimes both) and the Jewish Day School kids came in with advanced skills in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. And rather than finding college easy, those kids started in more advanced classes right off the bat, as you would expect.

But that’s hardly the point Websensation is trying to make. And I don’t believe his final point- that if you have a strong base in humanities and writing that college academics will be easy. If a kid is finding college easy, he or she is just not taking challenging classes and that’s on the STUDENT, not the college, and not the high school. You are skating through Spanish 3 in college? You should have taken the seminar on Cervantes, not Spanish 3. You are sleeping through Calculus because you already took it in HS? Why aren’t you taking a more advanced math track? You are a great writer and are finding your Lit classes easy? Brown has graduate level departments and professors who are happy to have a talented undergrad.

College shouldn’t be easy. And fortunately for most kids- it’s not, no matter how well prepared they were in HS, prep or otherwise.

118

It strikes me that if the OP’s D had an application strong enough to be deferred from Brown ED and financial constraints, that she should be concentrating on getting some apps into schools with deep pockets that tend to meet need without a lot of loans. Schools like Pomona, for example.

119

Amen to post #116 by blossom!

It seems to me that some students take the most rigorous courses they can in high school, in order to have the “most rigorous curriculum” box checked. But when they arrive in college, the course selection is mostly about GPA maximization.

I understand how plans for law school and med school can drive this, but I wish that admissions committees in both areas would look more closely at the quality of courses on the transcript, and not just the summative GPA number. (This opinion is not based on family-member applications in either area.)

120

Many employers, too, have minimum gpa cutoffs for internships and applicants.