Getting into Brown is tough these days: fewer than one in nine made the cut last year. It obviously makes little sense to dispense advice along the lines of "ensure that the previous four generations of your family attended Brown," "be the child of a famous parent," "captain three varsity sports," "have your parents build Brown an arts center," or "change your skin color." Nonetheless, there are time-tested strategies that have proved surprisingly successful.
#1) Join an expedition to the Galapagos and discover a new plant or insect. While others are enjoying a naturalist's lecture aboard your "floating classroom," hop out with an empty mayonnaise jar, capture the freakiest-looking specimen you can, and upon returning to upstate New York, tell your local vet or florist you found it in nearby woods while "exploring" and get him or her to inform Brown. Failing that, order something exotic through the mail and follow the same procedure.
#2) Find a new bird. The larger the thing you discover, the more impressive. If you're handy with scissors and surgical thread, or know someone who is, you can attach the head of one bird to the body of another and then "scan" the resulting creature so that a vet who has seen the image can testify to your powers of detection.
#3) Write a book. Brown long ago ceased caring about students who read books; they're now interested in those who write them. A girl who collected stories from women about their first menstrual periods will enroll at Yale this fall. So that one's taken, but what about "First Spankings," "First Wet Dreams," "First Divorces," "Second Divorces," etc.? Remember, you simply require an English teacher or other adult not related to you to verify that you've written a book. It doesn't have to be any good or actually make it to market (just list a publication date beyond April).
#4) Have a teacher claim that you're "the most outstanding college candidate I've seen in all my years of teaching." This phrase has become almost mandatory. It will obviously be easier to meet the criterion if you approach a first-year teacher, but if necessary, you can always become extremely close to or sleep with a veteran teacher so that they'll lie.
#5) Be yourself in your essays. But first ensure that "yourself" is someone else. Find a peer who's a more talented writer, has more varied interests, and is not also applying to Brown and ask him or her to pen your essays. You may have to sleep with this person as well, but if your board scores are high enough and he or she's not too unattractive, it's probably worth a shot.
#6) Become a hero. Remember that movie "The Contender" starring Joan Allen in which a politician stages an auto crash and attempts to "save" a drowning woman in order to enhance his reputation? Do something similar. Even if you don't have ready access to a bridge, a car which can be submerged in a river, or a willing victim, you can be heroic on a smaller scale. If you inhabit a house that's not too valuable or doesn't contain objects of beauty, set a small fire which escalates into a dramatic conflagration which you then single-handedly extinguish. An infant or toddler sleeping upstairs and media coverage are a must on this one. Don't screw up.
#7) Submit an art portfolio or musical tape compiled by a lavishly gifted cousin. How's Brown to know you can't hold a crayon when they're looking at intricate silhouettes depicting the downside of globalization? For aspiring musicians, it's better to claim you play a stringed instrument than a woodwind (it indicates more practice). Drums are a no-no.
#8) Do something at "the state or national level." Telling Brown you won a local diving competition is like announcing that you breathe. Participate in a regional or national contest even if the thing you're doing is idiotic or borderline offensive. "I was one of 16 selected from 3,400 nationally given the privilege of recently journeying to Atlantic City, N.J." catches Brown's eyes because these are numbers they can relate to. It doesn't really matter if your achievement concludes "to take part in the rapid doughnut-eating contest." It's merely important you appear well-rounded (i.e., good at something not having to do with school).
#9) Identify others erroneously accepted by Brown. As Gore Vidal famously wrote, "It's not enough to succeed: others must fail." Here's a way to mesh the two: trawl Facebook, MySpace, the Internet, and even back issues of your local newspaper to see if you can nab anyone who's currently undeservedly on the Brown campus. (Think Prince Harry in Nazi regalia.) Someone who's committed murder or manslaughter, flashed their breasts at a party, vomited on someone else, written an obscene slogan on an intimate part of their body with a Sharpie, or been to Cuba in contravention of U.S. travel regulations does not deserve your place at Brown.
