<p>The thread title basically says it all. My top two choices are Yale and Brown, Brown being my first and Yale second. I was wondering if you all would compare the two and state some differences that you find significant and whatnot :).</p>
<p>The curricula at both schools differ- At Brown, you can essentially design your own concentration. You can also take all your courses pass/fail (bad idea, though). </p>
<p>A Yale education is matched by very few schools. Regardless of what you decide to study at Yale, you will have gotten the best education America has to offer when you graduate. However, at Yale you would be unable to “design” a major.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is the differences between Providence and New Haven. Although I haven’t visited either one of the schools, I am sure the respective cities they’re in differ greatly. I’ll leave this to someone who can elaborate more on specifics.</p>
<p>You can design your own concentration, but you don’t by default. You design your own general education curriculum.</p>
<p>Also, there is no reason why taking all your classes pass/fail is inherently bad.</p>
<p>Though both schools have their own zealous supporters, you will be hard pressed to find many that would choose to attend Brown over Yale; it’s hard to pass up a T3 school that has 8 times the endowment of the other.</p>
<p>Brown also has 2489675 times the intellectual freedom. I guess it depends on your priorities.</p>
<p>^Agreed. Both schools are very prestigious, have their respective strengths, and can feed you into a great grad school, but they do, in some sense, cater to different demographics. Still, in regards to the OP’s questions, in the case of those that have been accepted into both schools (in a vacuum), the majority of students will end up in New Haven.</p>
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<p>Well, it depends. But if you’re trying to get into the very competitive industries after college (ex: Finance on Wall Street), employers will need to see concrete evidence of your academic capabilities.</p>
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<p>While this is true, it doesn’t mean Yale will provide you with more opportunities than Brown will. And I’d like to amicably advise you not to refer to rankings when comparing between schools like Yale and Brown; it reflects poorly on you.</p>
<p>Brown and Yale are my top 2 choices as well, and I did ED to Brown. Enough said.</p>
<p>Haha I don’t know if that helps, but the overall culture and academic philosophy @ Brown makes me love it even more than Yale. Good luck!</p>
<p>For grad, Yale would be the choice hands down. However, for undergrad (which unfortunately is not included as much as graduate in the rankings) Brown is just as good as Yale if not better. I mean, no Brown doesn’t have the endowment of Yale, but you’re not looking to win a Nobel Prize as an undergrad. At Brown, all of the professors are REQUIRED to teach at least one undergraduate class, so if there’s a famous professor at Brown, theres a chance you can take one of his/her classes. At Yale, this doesn’t hold true. It’s also a matter of personal preference. Some want the freedom of Brown while some prefer the structure of Yale. New Haven is also a *****ty city but theres enough around the campus that you don’t need to venture into it too much. Providence is a small city which isn’t too overwhelming, but if you’re into NYC then Providence probably wouldn’t cut it for you.
I applied ED to Brown but I would be more than happy to attend Yale :P</p>
<p>In general though, the two schools seem to have the same stereotype for slightly artsy, intellectual students. You really can’t go wrong with either.</p>
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<p>I agree. I fail to see how a prospective undergraduate can deduce any meaningful conclusion (other than FA, which isn’t MUCH better at Yale than it is at Brown, assuming you’re a U.S Citizen) by comparing between the two schools’ endowments.</p>
<p>“At Brown, all of the professors are REQUIRED to teach at least one undergraduate class, so if there’s a famous professor at Brown, theres a chance you can take one of his/her classes. At Yale, this doesn’t hold true.”</p>
<p>Yale says all their profs teach as well.</p>
<p>@lucyloves
[Undergraduate</a> teaching requirement a myth | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/oct/15/undergraduate-teaching-requirement-a-myth/]Undergraduate”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/oct/15/undergraduate-teaching-requirement-a-myth/)</p>
<p>I know people are trying to be helpful but I was actually a person who faced your hypothetical situation by being accepted at both B and Y. I wrote about my decision process over on the Yale forum where you posted this same question.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1038022-yale-brown-my-top-2-choices-how-would-you-compare-them.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1038022-yale-brown-my-top-2-choices-how-would-you-compare-them.html</a></p>
<p>Here’s my take. For the connections, Yale. However, the person who said that a Yale undergraduate education was so amazing, give me a break. W. went to Yale and never read a book. His father H.W. wasn’t a particularly bright light either, and John Kerry is average normal at best. The “rigor” of Yale is highly overrated. So, to sum up my opinion. For a genuine, finely crafted, undergraduate education, Brown. For the prestige and job connections, Yale. It’s that simple. Determine which is more important to you and roll with the decision is the best fit for you.</p>
<p>Certain people, such as those mentioned by Galanter, can get into either school and not do much work. otoh, the reputations of both schools and many others are sustained by the hard working intellectually curious students who come from families that mandated study, the doing of homework, etc. </p>
<p>With both schools, your education will be determined by you—you can take advantage of the terrific opportunities or you can blow them, just as easily at Yale as at Brown. </p>
<p>Yale is not in the nicest neighborhood. Brown is on top of a hill with a very well off residential area on one side and the formerly working class Portugese-now-slowly-gentrifying Fox Point on the other. If you are very into the NYC type experience, Providence will be too slow for you. New Haven won’t be any better but it is closer to NY.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Galanter: for you to bash Yale’s educational quality based on the anecdotes of forty years ago when “gentleman C’s” were commonplace betrays your obvious bias about Yale’s well established reputation.</p>
<p>Like JRZMom said, the rigor can be had at either institution – based on the students’ own motivations. I saw the whole spectrum.</p>
<p>For you to categorically state that Yale is less rigorous than Brown is bewildering.</p>
<p>Yeah, when you get to Ivy League educational standards, it’s damn hard all around. Kinda ridiculous to contend otherwise. That’s why it’s the Ivy League.</p>
<p>The truth is that most of the filtering at the Ivy League (Etc.) schools happens at the front-end, in admissions. Other than at schools with a concerted stance against grade inflation (e.g., Princeton) or a proud tradition of misery (e.g., Chicago), things aren’t so bad once you get there.</p>
<p>The idea is that you select a diverse pool of students who all pass a very high threshold test for academic capacity, and then you don’t expend too much effort trying to make (largely false) distinctions among those students while they’re in college. Particularly at a place like Brown, the level of challenge is really up to the individual student. Picking and choosing famous dumb alums is just silly – you can find people who are less interested in learning at every single school. Saying that “when you get to Ivy League educational standards, it’s damn hard all around . . . . That’s why it’s the Ivy League” is almost as silly, for the same reason. The experience is what you make of it.</p>
<p>As for Yale, I have heard and seen nothing but wonderful things about the quality of the academic experience there. Yale alums are some of the most intellectually nimble people I know in law school. While I would argue (quite forcefully) that students at Brown and other schools with open curricula gain something valuable that you can’t get elsewhere, I think it’s ridiculous to compare Yale so disfavorably with Brown.</p>
<p>mgcsinc: What I meant by my statement that “it’s hard all around” was that the intellectual experience at every Ivy League school is demanding. For some, who are talented/priveledged, coasting at an Ivy might be possible (George W. Bush, C’s at Yale anyone?"). But for the majority of people who take pride in their education—I was assuming that most do—the experience is demanding. Students come to schools like Brown and Yale to have such an experience. </p>
<p>You’re right that the statement “That’s why it’s the Ivy League” was a bit dull of me. </p>
<p>However, the one thing that Ivies—and other HSC’s—do is recruit great professors. That is the filtering and maintenance of the academic experience once students are already attending.</p>
<p>I think you are not making a clear enough distinction between the students who attend and the educational quality. Great students do not a good educational quality make; as much as one relies on peers, great professors are the key to the intellectual experience—and educational quality.</p>
<p>That’s why Ivies are comparable; most of the professors are spectacular.</p>
<p>jjjjoseph: I completely agree.</p>