Seeking to increase Brown's reputation as a leader in math and sciences, the Office of Admission now hosts math and science-oriented tours for prospective first-years that highlight undergraduate research opportunities and the University's resources in those fields.
Subjects highlighted on the tours are applied mathematics, chemistry, computer science, engineering, environmental science, geology, physics and mathematics - or pure math, as the tour guides refer to it. Life sciences, such as biology, are not included.
Associate Director of College Admission Elisha Anderson said these tours are not in response to any previous lack of math or science talent on campus, but instead part of a larger push by Brown to gain recognition across fields rather than simply as a humanities powerhouse.
"It seems that when I travel, Brown is thought of as a school that's really good at the humanities," said Anderson.
Since they began in the fall of 2005, Anderson said, the tours have been a success. Anderson said the tours have led to an increase in math and science-oriented applicants at all skill levels, so the number of talented applicants has increased.
Prospective students considering concentrating in these subjects generally attend the science tours in addition to the general campus tours, which, as science tour guide Deborah Vacs Renwick '09 said, don't provide a full picture of the resources Brown has to offer.
"Regular tours just point to the science buildings," Vacs Renwick said. "With these (science) tours you get to go inside buildings, peek inside a lab. It's very interactive. And they're led by people who know the departments."
Individual students' accounts of their experience, especially with research and lab work, are especially effective, Anderson said. Still, the tours are constantly under revision.
"We're trying to think of ways to include examples of undergraduate research and integrate student speakers who talk about what they're doing on campus," Anderson said. "I have this sort of idea in my mind where in each individual building on the science tour, they would talk to a student doing lab or research projects in that area."
Current students' individual stories and tales of research experience elicit better visitor responses than scripted information, he added.
In her tours, Vacs Renwick emphasizes how easily her science concentrator friends have found research opportunities with enthusiastic faculty.
Vacs Renwick told The Herald the tours are increasingly popular. Like the regular campus tours, she said, they spike around Columbus Day weekend and high schools' spring breaks.
Prospective science students and parents' questions focus on the workload in these concentrations, adviser-student relations, class size and undergraduate research.
"We try to stay away from pointing out architecture on the tours," Vacs Renwick said. "Instead we focus on the curriculum and resources available, especially for research."
Thanks to their small size, the tours are tailored to prospective students' individual interests. On a tour last week, Vacs Renwick asked visitors about their prospective concentrations and dedicated extra attention to those fields represented.
Tour stops include lecture halls, classrooms and labs, but the tour augmented this overview of Brown's resources with amusing, quirky facts. One Barus and Holley lecture hall, Vacs Renwick notes, was featured on an episode of "Family Guy." And a group of engineers made a car for last weekend's Red Bull Soapbox Race, which touring students on Friday got to see just a day before the race.
On Friday's tour, prospective first-years seemed impressed.
"It seemed really similar to pure engineering schools like Cal Tech in resources," said high school senior Theodore Frelinghuysen, who was on Friday's tour. "But the sciences still seem really close to the rest of the college."
High school senior Julia Massey, another prospective applicant on Friday's tour, noted that Brown's resources in engineering are so impressive that if she comes here, she'll be more likely to concentrate in engineering.
The one concern expressed by prospective students was that the tour doesn't touch on the life sciences.
Anderson is optimistic about the tours' ability to attract science applicants. "People mention them in their applications," he said. "I think they'll definitely stay as part of our admissions repertoire in the future."
