Brown University vs. Dartmouth College

Effectively a tie, with Dartmouth's headline rate a hair lower. Dartmouth admitted about 6.0% of applicants in its most recent cycle and Brown about 6.3%, both ranking among the most selective rates in the country. The pools differ sharply in size: Brown drew roughly 42,800 applications to Dartmouth's 28,200. Admitted-student academics run a touch higher at Brown, whose middle-50% SAT spanned 1470–1550 against 1440–1550 at Dartmouth.

They fix different problems. Brown's Open Curriculum frees what you study; the D-Plan frees when. Brown imposes no general-education or distribution requirements, so undergraduates design their own concentration path, which suits its breadth (the social sciences lead at about 27% of degrees, with computer science close behind near 13%). Dartmouth keeps a liberal-arts core but runs a year-round quarter calendar that sends students off-term to study, intern, or travel, and its social sciences dominate even more heavily at about 30% of degrees.

Brown has the larger CS footprint, but Dartmouth offers the undergraduate engineering. Computer science ranks second at Brown, about 13% of degrees conferred. At Dartmouth, computer science accounts for about 10%, and engineering (anchored by the Thayer School) adds another 8%, a track that never surfaces as a separate concentration in Brown's degree mix. Both run an 8:1 student-faculty ratio, so class access tracks closely.

Brown wins on size, and Dartmouth holds the title of smallest Ivy. Brown enrolls about 7,196 undergraduates to Dartmouth's roughly 4,715. Both keep students close to home: about 98% live on campus at Brown, and essentially all do at Dartmouth, and each reports an 8:1 student-faculty ratio. The gap shows up in overall scale, not class size.

Dartmouth runs the larger Greek scene by a wide margin, and it sits far closer to the center of campus life. About 26% of Dartmouth men join a fraternity and 29% of women a sorority, against roughly 3% each at Brown. Pair that with rural Hanover and near-total on-campus residency, and Greek organizations anchor much of Dartmouth's social calendar, whereas Brown's social life disperses across student groups and the city of Providence.

Net cost lands in roughly the same place. Both schools stay need-blind for domestic applicants and meet 100% of demonstrated need, with about 49% of first-years receiving need-based aid at each, averaging near $72,838 at Brown and $73,208 at Dartmouth. Dartmouth pushes further on its own terms, eliminating loans and waiving the parent contribution for families earning $65,000 or less. Brown's sticker tuition and required fees run about $77,552 to Dartmouth's $71,525, though aid determines what families actually pay.