Pomona v Yale v Brown in a STEM field

jonri
Mon, 02 Apr 2018 01:02:20 +0000

I am very biased. I went to Brown–back when dinosaurs roamed the earth–and have a kid who graduated from Yale more than a decade ago. So I may be out of date.

That said…unless the financial difference is enormous…I would pick Brown in a heartbeat. Brown is very good in Computer Science. For graduate school in CS, it is ranked just below Yale https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings But for UG, I think Brown has a clear advantage.

I have to admit that I find @preppedparent 's comment that Yale is “ugly” beyond my comprehension. IMO, Yale is one of the most beautiful campuses in the US–if not the world. I love Brown and love its campus…but prettier? Advantage Yale. Location? Advantage, Brown. Providence’s East Side --again in the opinion of a NYC resident–just “feels” safer. I actually doubt it really IS safer than Yale, but it FEELS safer.

There are LOTS of Californians at both Yale and Brown, so I wouldn’t worry about fitting in. Yale and Brown are a bit different socially. And, of course, Yale has distributional requirements that Brown doesn’t have. IMO, one of the worst parts of my own kid’s experience at Yale was the distributional requirements. They really distorted my kid’s course selection.

Amherst, like Brown, has a pretty open curriculum. That’s a giant plus, IMO.

Pomona is on the West Coast and I admit I know a lot less about it. But one question I would ask is whether Pomona students really have equal access to classes at Harvey Mudd. One of my kid’s classmates–and see above , this was a long time ago–went to Claremont McKenna and couldn’t get into the classes he wanted to take at Harvey Mudd. Again, this was a LONG time ago and maybe now Pomona students can get into those classes, but back then they only had access to classes that weren’t filled in the first round of registration by Harvey Mudd student. So, I would REALLY investigate before going to Pomona as a student relying on taking classes a others in the consortium.