Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. One of nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution,[6] it was the first US college to codify that admission and instruction of students was to be equal regardless of their religion.[7]
The university is home to the oldest applied mathematics program in the country and oldest engineering program in the Ivy League.[a][8][9][10] It was one of the early doctoral-granting US institutions, adding masters and doctoral studies in 1887.[11] In 1969, it adopted its Open Curriculum after student lobbying, which eliminated mandatory general education distribution requirements.[12][13] In 1971, Brown's coordinate women's institution, Pembroke College, was fully merged into the university.
The university comprises the College, the Graduate School, Alpert Medical School, the School of Engineering, the School of Public Health and the School of Professional Studies. Its international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and it is academically affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rhode Island School of Design; with the latter, it offers undergraduate and graduate dual degree programs. Brown's main campus is in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence. The university is surrounded by a federally listed architectural district with a concentration of Colonial-era buildings. Benefit Street has one of America's richest concentrations of 17th- and 18th-century architecture.[14][15] Undergraduate admissions are among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 5% for the class of 2026.[16][17]
As of March 2022, 11 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with Brown as alumni, faculty, or researchers, as well as 1 Fields Medalist, 7 National Humanities Medalists[b] and 11 National Medal of Science laureates. Alumni include 27 Pulitzer Prize winners,[c] 21 billionaires,[d] 4 U.S. Secretaries of State, over 100 members of the United States Congress,[24] 58 Rhodes Scholars,[25] 22 MacArthur Genius Fellows,[e] and 38 Olympic medalists.[26]
n 1761, three residents of Newport, Rhode Island, drafted a petition to the colony's General Assembly:[27]
That your Petitioners propose to open a literary institution or School for instructing young Gentlemen in the Languages, Mathematics, Geography & History, & such other branches of Knowledge as shall be desired. That for this End... it will be necessary... to erect a public Building or Buildings for the boarding of the youth & the Residence of the Professors.
The three petitioners were Ezra Stiles, pastor of Newport's Second Congregational Church and future president of Yale University; William Ellery Jr., future signer of the United States Declaration of Independence; and Josias Lyndon, future governor of the colony. Stiles and Ellery later served as co-authors of the college's charter two years later. The editor of Stiles's papers observes, "This draft of a petition connects itself with other evidence of Dr. Stiles's project for a Collegiate Institution in Rhode Island, before the charter of what became Brown University."[27][28][11]
The Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches was also interested in establishing a college in Rhode Island—home of the mother church of their denomination. At the time, the Baptists were unrepresented among the colonial colleges; the Congregationalists had Harvard and Yale, the Presbyterians had the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), and the Episcopalians had the College of William and Mary and King's College (later Columbia) while their local University of Pennsylvania was specifically founded without direct association with any particular denomination.[29] Isaac Backus, a historian of the New England Baptists and an inaugural trustee of Brown, wrote of the October 1762 resolution taken at Philadelphia:[11]
The Philadelphia Association obtained such an acquaintance with our affairs, as to bring them to an apprehension that it was practicable and expedient to erect a college in the Colony of Rhode-Island, under the chief direction of the Baptists; ... Mr. James Manning, who took his first degree in New-Jersey college in September, 1762, was esteemed a suitable leader in this important work.
James Manning arrived at Newport in July 1763 and was introduced to Stiles, who agreed to write the charter for the college. Stiles' first draft was read to the General Assembly in August 1763, and rejected by Baptist members who worried that their denomination would be underrepresented in the College Board of Fellows. A revised charter written by Stiles and Ellery was adopted by the Rhode Island General Assembly on March 3, 1764, in East Greenwich.[30]
In September 1764, the inaugural meeting of the corporation—the college's governing body—was held in Newport's Old Colony House. Governor Stephen Hopkins was chosen chancellor, former and future governor Samuel Ward vice chancellor, John Tillinghast treasurer, and Thomas Eyres secretary. The charter stipulated that the board of trustees should be composed of 22 Baptists, five Quakers, five Episcopalians, and four Congregationalists. Of the 12 Fellows, eight should be Baptists—including the college president—"and the rest indifferently of any or all Denominations."[11]
At the time of its creation, Brown's charter was a uniquely progressive document.[31] Other colleges had curricular strictures against opposing doctrines, while Brown's charter asserted, "Sectarian differences of opinions, shall not make any Part of the Public and Classical Instruction." The document additionally "recognized more broadly and fundamentally than any other [university charter] the principle of denominational cooperation."[11] The oft-repeated statement that Brown's charter alone prohibited a religious test for College membership is inaccurate; other college charters were similarly liberal in that particular.[32]
The college was founded as Rhode Island College, at the site of the First Baptist Church in Warren, Rhode Island.[33] Manning was sworn in as the college's first president in 1765 and remained in the role until 1791. In 1766, the college authorized the Reverend Morgan Edwards to travel to Europe to "solicit Benefactions for this Institution".[32] During his year-and-a-half stay in the British Isles, Edwards secured funding from benefactors including Thomas Penn and Benjamin Franklin.[32]
In 1770, the college moved from Warren to Providence. To establish a campus, John and Moses Brown purchased a four-acre lot on the crest of College Hill on behalf of the school. The majority of the property fell within the bounds of the original home lot of Chad Brown, an ancestor of the Browns and one of the original proprietors of Providence Plantations.[34] After the college was relocated to the city, work began on constructing its first building.
A building committee, organized by the corporation, developed plans for the college's first purpose-built edifice, finalizing a design on February 9, 1770. The subsequent structure, referred to as "The College Edifice" and later as University Hall, may have been modeled on Nassau Hall, built 14 years prior at the College of New Jersey. President Manning, an active member of the building process, was educated at Princeton and might have suggested that Brown's first building resemble that of his alma mater.[35]
Undergraduate admission to Brown University is considered "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report.[145] For the undergraduate class of 2026, Brown received 50,649 applications—the largest applicant pool in the university's history and a 9% increase from the prior year. Of these applicants, 2,560 were admitted for an acceptance rate of 5.0%, the lowest in the university's history.[146]
In 2021, the university reported a yield rate of 69%.[147] For the academic year 2019–20 the university received 2,030 transfer applications, of which 5.8% were accepted.[148]
Brown's admissions policy is currently stipulated need-blind for all domestic first-year applicants,[149] but will be extended to international first-year applicants starting with the Class of 2029.[150] In 2017, Brown announced that loans would be eliminated from all undergraduate financial aid awards starting in 2018–2019, as part of a new $30 million campaign called the Brown Promise.[151] In 2016–17, the university awarded need-based scholarships worth $120.5 million. The average need-based award for the class of 2020 was $47,940.[152]
In 2017, the Graduate School accepted 11% of 9,215 applicants.[153] In 2021, Brown received a record 948 applications for roughly 90 spots in its Master of Public Health Degree.[154]
In 2020, U.S. News ranked Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School the 9th most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 2.8 percent.[155]
Brown University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.[166] For their 2021 rankings, The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranked Brown 5th in the "Best Colleges 2021" edition.[167]
The Forbes magazine annual ranking of "America's Top Colleges 2022"—which ranked 600 research universities, liberal arts colleges and service academies—ranked Brown 19th overall and 18th among universities.[168]
U.S. News & World Report ranked Brown 9th among national universities in its 2023 edition.[169] The 2022 edition also ranked Brown 2nd for undergraduate teaching, 25th in Most Innovative Schools, and 14th in Best Value Schools.[170]
Washington Monthly ranked Brown 40th in 2022 among 442 national universities in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.[171]
In 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranks Brown 129th globally.
In 2014, Forbes magazine ranked Brown 7th on its list of "America's Most Entrepreneurial Universities."[172] The Forbes analysis looked at the ratio of "alumni and students who have identified themselves as founders and business owners on LinkedIn" and the total number of alumni and students. LinkedIn particularized the Forbes rankings, placing Brown third (between MIT and Princeton) among "Best Undergraduate Universities for Software Developers at Startups." LinkedIn's methodology involved a career-path examination of "millions of alumni profiles" in its membership database.[173]
In 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2021 the university produced the most Fulbright recipients of any university in the nation.[174][175][176] Brown has also produced the 7th most Rhodes Scholars of all colleges and universities in the United States.[177]