Brown University

🎓 Academic Program

Open Curriculum — design your own track. Economics with accounting/finance courses. No prescribed major.

🎯 Admissions

📊 Exam Requirements

📅 Deadlines

💰 Financial Aid & Scholarships

📑 Scholarship requirements

• CSS Profile required
• Need-blind for international starting Fall 2025
• 100% need met with grants, no loans

🔄 Scholarship maintenance

Annual renewal. Family financial documents resubmitted.

⚠️ Conditions & restrictions

• No loans in aid packages
• Aid changes with family income
• Outside scholarships may reduce institutional grant

📝 Application requirements

• 2 teacher recommendations
• Counselor recommendation
• Common App essay
• Brown supplemental essays (3 short + 3 short answers)

✍️ Supplemental essay prompts (2025-2026)

1. Brown's Open Curriculum allows students to explore broadly while also diving deeply. Tell us about any academic interests that excite you, and how you might pursue them at Brown. (200-250 words)
2. Students entering Brown often find that making their home on College Hill naturally invites reflection on where they came from. Share how an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you, and what you have gained, or what you have learned to do without. (200-250 words)
3. Brown students care deeply about their work and the world around them. Students find contentment, satisfaction, and meaning in daily interactions and major discoveries. Whether big or small, mundane or spectacular, tell us about something that brings you joy. (200-250 words)
4. What three words best describe you? (3 words)
5. What is your most meaningful extracurricular commitment, and what would you like us to know about it? (100 words)
6. If you could teach a class on any one thing, whether academic or otherwise, what would it be? (100 words)
7. In one sentence, Why Brown? (50 words)

⭐ "Why Us?" — Essay hooks & school personality

Famous Open Curriculum (no general education requirements). Brown/RISD dual degree program. SHARP performing arts. Watson Institute for International Studies. Native American and Indigenous Studies. Sciences Library. Strong undergraduate teaching focus.

🏆 Unique advantages

Most flexible Ivy curriculum. Pass/Fail option available. Concentrations (not majors). Independent Concentration. Cross-registration with RISD.

💼 Career outlook

Strong consulting/finance recruitment. Open Curriculum may favor non-traditional career paths. Strong startup ecosystem.

⏰ Work while studying

F-1: 20 hrs/week on-campus. Work-study in aid. Brown Career Lab funds unpaid internships ~$3,000.

🎯 Backup plans

• Apply ED I (4x acceptance boost)
• ED II if RD seems risky
• Look at Wesleyan/Vassar for similar curriculum philosophy
• Gap year + reapply

🔗 Official sources

• admission.brown.edu
• brown.edu/financial-aid