A complete guide to Brown University

About Brown university 

Found in 1764, Brown University was the first Ivy League school to admit students regardless of religious affiliation. It is a renowned research university with an outstanding faculty and a student-centered learning model. For over 2.5 centuries, the university has been located in Providence, Rhode Island, providing memorable academic and student-life experiences in a healthy environment. Brown University adheres to an open curriculum and a flexible education approach that assists students in developing their potential, creativity, and entrepreneurial outlook.

Brown university | An overview

The College Hill campus offers a classic New England college experience, with spectacular scenic beauty, modern architecture, the latest infrastructure, state-of-the-art labs, and world-class libraries. Students from Boston and New York can quickly get to campus. Prospective students can tour the university in person or online at their leisure.

Brown University’s main campus in Providence is near Rhode Island’s College Hill neighborhood. The university is surrounded by a federally designated architectural district filled with Colonial-era structures. Benefit Street, which runs along the western edge of campus, has one of the country’s most diverse collections of 17th and 18th-century architecture.

Campus

Brown is Providence’s largest institutional landowner, with properties on College Hill and in the Jewelry District. Brown’s campus is tightly integrated into Providence’s urban fabric because it was built concurrently with the eighteenth and nineteenth-century precincts surrounding it. McKim, Mead & White, Philip Johnson, Rafael Violy, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Robert A. M. Stern are notable architects shaping Brown’s campus.

Main campus

Brown’s main campus spans 143 acres (0.58 km2) in the East Side neighborhood of College Hill. The university’s central campus is located on a 15-acre (6.1-hectare) block bound by Waterman, Prospect, George, and Thayer Streets, with newer buildings extending northward, eastward, and southward. The Front or Quiet Green, the Middle or College Green, and the Ruth J. Simmons Quadrangle define Brown’s core. It is a historic campus built primarily between 1770 and 1926. (historically known as Lincoln Fields).

A brick and wrought-iron fence with decorative gates and arches mark the block’s perimeter. The architectural style of this section of campus is primarily Georgian and Richardsonian romanesque.

Academic buildings and residential quadrangles, such as Wriston, Keeney, and Gregorian, are located south of the central campus. Sciences Park and Brown’s School of Engineering are located immediately east of the campus core. The performing and visual arts facilities, life sciences labs, and the Pembroke Campus, which houses both dormitories and academic buildings, are located north of the central campus.

The John Hay Library and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, which face the western edge of the central campus, are two of Brown’s seven libraries.

The campus of Brown University connects to that of the Rhode Island School of Design, which is located immediately to Brown’s west, along the slope of College Hill.

John Hay Library

The John Hay Library is the second oldest library on campus. Opened in 1910, the library is named for John Hay (class of 1858), private secretary to Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. The construction of the building was funded in large part by Hay’s friend, Andrew Carnegie, who contributed half of the $300,000 cost of the construction.

John Carter Brown Library

The John Carter Brown Library, founded in 1846, is widely regarded as the world’s leading collection of primary historical sources relating to the exploration and colonization of the Americas. While administered and funded independently of the university, Brown has owned and operated the library on its campus since 1904.

Haffenreffer Museum

Manning Hall on campus’ leading green houses the exhibition galleries of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown’s teaching museum. Its one million artifacts are housed at the Collections Research Center in Bristol, Rhode Island, and are available for research and education. The museum’s mission is to foster an interdisciplinary understanding of the material world to inspire creative and critical thinking about culture.

Annmary Brown Memorial

General Rush Hawkins, a politician, Civil War veteran, and book collector, built the Annmary Brown Memorial from 1903 to 1907 as a mausoleum for his wife, Annmary Brown, a member of the Brown family.

The Memorial includes works of art from Hawkins’ private collection, including paintings by Angelica Kauffman, Peter Paul Rubens, Gilbert Stuart, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Benjamin West, and Eastman Johnson, among others, in addition to its crypt, which serves as the final resting place for Brown and Hawkins.

The Walk

The Walk connects the Pembroke Campus to the main campus via a landscaped pedestrian corridor. It runs parallel to Thayer Street and serves as a primary campus axis, extending from the Ruth Simmons Quadrangle in the south to the Meeting Street entrance to the Pembroke Campus in the north.

Pembroke campus

Brown University’s Women’s College, known as Pembroke College, was founded in October 1891. The larger Brown campus absorbed Pembroke’s campus following its 1971 merger with the College of Brown University. Meeting, Brown, Bowen, and Thayer Streets surround the Pembroke campus, three blocks north of Brown’s main campus. Brick architecture dominates the campus, primarily in the Georgian and Victorian styles. Pembroke Hall (1897), Smith-Buonanno Hall (1907), and Metcalf Hall (1919) are on the west side of the quadrangle, while Alumnae Hall (1927) and Miller Hall are on the east side (1910).

Admissions 

A total of 7,043 students are enrolled in undergraduate courses, while 2,629 are enrolled in graduate courses. 95% of chosen students are among the top 10% of their graduating class. 70% of university classes have fewer than 20 students, with a student-faculty ratio of 6:1. Brown University’s acceptance rate is around 5.0%.

At Brown University, 74% of the undergraduate population, including all first-year students, lives on campus. A large number of faculty and staff members live on campus. Close-knit residence halls with 50-60 students have been established for first-year UG students. Returning students can choose from private single rooms, suites, or apartments. These are distributed via a lottery system. Those who want to live off-campus can get help from the University Auxiliary Housing Office.

Scholarships and alums

International students are eligible for financial aid if they meet the criteria and apply for it at the time of admission application submission. You should note that funding is currently limited.

Most of these awards are credited to students’ accounts as credit toward tuition, room and board, or meals. Among these are the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships, the Gilman-McCain Scholarship, the Boren Scholarship, and others.

Brown University has been blessed with alums who have made a name for themselves as academics, actors, filmmakers, writers, and so on. Among the notable alums is actress Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films. John F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy’s son, also passed out from Brown.

Julie Bowen (American actress), Marin Hinkle (American actress), Tim Blake (American actor and filmmaker), Bobby Jindal (American politician), Max Joseph (American filmmaker and television host), and Ted Turner (Media mogul) are some other well-known people.

Key takeaways

• Brown University, established in 1764, was the first Ivy League school to admit students irrespective of their religious affiliation. Well-known for its research, the university has an outstanding faculty and a student-centered learning model. 
• Brown university’s campus is heavily integrated into Providence’s urban fabric. It was built concurrently with the eighteenth and nineteenth-century precincts that surround it.
• International students can get financial aid or scholarships if they meet the criteria and apply for it at the time of admission. The university funding is said to be limited currently.

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FAQs

Q1. Which universities are a part of the Ivy League?

Ans- Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale are part of the Ivy League universities.

Q2. Is Brown University ranked among the top 10 schools in the US?

Ans- Brown University is ranked 13th out of 443 nationally recognized universities.

Q3. What SAT scores are necessary for Brown?

Ans- Brown University has no absolute SAT requirement, but they want to see at least 1420 to consider your application.