Colby or Brown: which has a better open curriculum for students who want flexibility?

Brown has the clearer edge for true academic freedom. Its Open Curriculum is one of the most expansive in the country, with no general education core and no distribution requirements, so students have unusually broad control over what they take each semester. Brown also lets students explore classes with a lot of flexibility in grading options, which reinforces that freedom in practice.

At Brown, that freedom is structural, not just cultural. Outside of concentration requirements, students are not being steered through a checklist of subject areas, which means a student can build a very interdisciplinary path or dive deeply into one field without spending much time on unrelated requirements.

Colby is flexible, but it is not open in the same way. Colby still has distribution-style expectations tied to its liberal arts model, so students usually need to take courses across different areas of study even if they have a strong sense of their main interests. That can be a good thing for students who want breadth, but it is less pure freedom than Brown offers.

Another practical difference is scale and course ecosystem. Brown’s university setting and larger range of departments, centers, and cross-disciplinary offerings make it easier to use an open curriculum in ambitious ways, especially if your interests cross fields like public policy, cognitive science, visual art, entrepreneurship, or computer science. Colby offers strong access to faculty and a close academic community, but the menu is naturally smaller.

Brown is the more open system by design, while Colby offers flexibility within a more guided liberal arts framework.