<p>Just to add to the discussion, brownieboy don’t forget that you still have to complete a concentration (aka a major), so this doesn’t mean that you have 8 semesters of all courses you selected (then again you can always make your own concentration). To me, the Open Curriculum, Pass/Fail Option, and other similar policies create a great environment of intellectualism where students learn for the sake of learning. Brown puts your education in their students’ hands giving each student the chance to explore their academic interests even if these interests may be completely unrelated to their concentration or prospective career. With a small grad student population, Brown is truly one of the most undergrad-focused research universities and this means that research is readily available to undergraduates (when I visited Brown my friend took me into the chemistry building to meet 3 of his other undergrad friends who were doing p-chem research, they all had publications which is amazing!)</p>
<p>In the spring I was in a somewhat similar situation as you as I had to choose between JHU and Brown, in the end I chose Brown for a variety of reasons. Other than the reasons posted above, Brown’s location was a major plus for me because in the spectrum of my top 3 choices: Brown, JHU, and Umich, I had Baltimore, a major city, Ann Arbor, a typical collegetown, and Providence seemed like the intermediate, a type of place that you can make into both a college town and a city. Secondly, it seemed to me that JHU and Umich seemed to really flaunt their research opps as a way to compensate for a lack of undergrad focus (which I suspect might also correspond to Penn, another major research u). In the end, I chose the university that provided me with the best undergraduate education and experience!</p>
<p>To end this long post/ramble, of my friends that were accepted to Penn all were accepted to Wharton but when someone asks them where they go they usually say Wharton (but maybe that’s to escape the UPenn, Penn State confusion). It just seems to me like the separate schools creates disunity within the school because when I tend to think of Wharton as the sort of Honors College of UPenn in the sense that it attracts the best students. But realize I’m basing this off my Upenn friends’ stories and experiences, so this is just my thoughts.</p>