<p>I recently talked to my guidance counselor, who has about 9 years of experience dealing with top students, and told her I wanted to apply to both NU and Chicago. She basically told me not to bother, because they nearly always accept and reject the same people. As in, if one would take me, so would the other, and one did not, neither would the other. Personally, I don't understand this because I'd expect these very different schools to have very different criteria, but she said this with such strong certainty.
So, I just wanted to take your take on it. Do you think these is most usually the case? Is there in point in my applying to both of these schools if there are other top schools I'd like to squeeze into my list?</p>
<p>Your guidance councilor is waay off. I applied to both and got rejected at Northwestern and will be attending Chicago. Most of those who applied to both at my school got into one or the other, not necessarily both and not necessarily neither.</p>
<p>Apply where you know you’d be happy going. Don’t cut schools out because your list is too short and don’t add school’s for the hell of it. Trust me.</p>
<p>I completely agree with monteyy about applying to schools that are good fits. Also, I applied to both, was waitlisted at Chicago, and will be attending Northwestern (unless I am admitted to Chicago from the wait list…).</p>
<p>I got rejected from NW and accepted by Chicago also so she seems a bit off base.</p>
<p>Same thing here. S was accepted at Chicago and WL at Northwestern. Don’t really know the rhyme or reason. Guidance counselor is working with old or incomplete information.</p>
<p>Sorry but your counselor is an idiot. Even if the two schools always make the same decisions on applicants (and I doubt it), applying to one and not the other could be throwing away the chance to attend one of these fine universities if you wind up in the accept category.</p>
<p>Why would the same kid want to attend both of these schools (both as in either/or 
)</p>
<p>Their culture, approach, curricula, physical environment, sports mentality, clothing style, frat orientation and so forth are as different as night and day. </p>
<p>Can someone help me understand? Is the draw geography, as in “Chicago or bust?”</p>
<p>That’s it. If the category is “high quality private universities in the Upper Midwest”, there’s a limited selection from which to choose.</p>
<p>Sure, Chicago and Northwestern are pretty different, and I am certain many students do NOT apply to both. People here rarely do. My kids had no interest in Northwestern, and they have friends there who never even looked at the University of Chicago. But of course there’s going to be overlap in whom they attract. They’re not THAT different.</p>
<p>Do people apply to both Columbia and NYU? Harvard and Tufts? Harvard and MIT? Amherst and Smith? Penn and Princeton? Harvard and Dartmouth? None of those pairs is a lot less different than Chicago and Northwestern, and I don’t think anyone would be shocked to find them both on the same student’s list. In the end, the differences are probably a lot less significant than the similarities, and geography is pretty important to lots of applicants.</p>
<p>Also:</p>
<p>This spring, a kid I know well applied to Princeton, MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Stanford, Carleton, Macalaster, Conn College, and Pitt. Is that an incoherent list? Sure. She didn’t know what she wanted, and she didn’t know who would want her. Something about each of those colleges appealed to some part of her. Prior to applying, she didn’t really do the work of figuring out who she was and what she wanted out of college, but she was (and remains) a moving target, and there was a lot of movement between November/December and May. The school she ultimately chose wasn’t even in her top five when she applied (nor was the one she almost chose instead), and only a few failed to accept her. </p>
<p>Another kid I know less well wound up choosing a well-regarded rural LAC (but not top 5, or whatever) over Harvard. Why did she even apply to both? She wasn’t sure what she wanted, and only the concrete choice helped her make up her mind. My own kid applied only to urban research universities and . . . one artsy rural LAC. It made no sense, except something told her that maybe she would want a LAC safety hatch come spring. As it happened, she didn’t, but that didn’t mean there was something wrong with her thinking when she applied.</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>You may be overlooking a key point - the fact that many kids choose their list based on geography and prestige, forgetting that cultural factors exist and matter.</p>
<p>Or maybe you just like to play devils advocate? I don’t know, but I do think posts like yours may mislead kids by suggesting that culture does not matter. It does, and accounts for a good number of less than stellar college experiences.</p>
<p>newmassdad: I think if you read my posts fairly, they indicate substantial agreement with you. Yes, kids make application choices based on geography and prestige, and discount “fit” factors. Generally, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. However, I may not be as absolutist about it as you. I do believe that there is a substantial population of students who could be perfectly happy at either Northwestern or Chicago, and an even more substantial population of students who shouldn’t be expected to know in the fall of their last year of high school which college would fit them better. (Of course, many/most students SHOULD know which one would fit them better.)</p>
<p>This thread reminds me of the silliness that goes along with speculation. I was also rejected from northwestern and accepted at Chicago. I remember reading something similar in a Berkeley/UCLA thread where apparently you either got rejected or accepted at both, but this was obviously not the case either.</p>
<p>Just like CC posters speculate on college admissions, grown adults speculate on a lot of things too. Sometimes they base their assumptions on factual evidence and sometimes they don’t.</p>
<p>UChicago AND No********rn?!?!?!</p>
<p>BLASPHEMOUS!</p>
<p>:-P</p>
<p>I don’t understand why applying to Chicago and Northwestern at the same time is such a shocking, blasphemous thing to do. </p>
<p>I factored in “fit” and still applied to both. Some people want to be challenged in a new, unfamiliar environment for their college years. For me, I felt much more comfortable at Chicago. But that didn’t mean that N-western had nothing to offer. In a completely different way from Chicago, Northwestern would’ve opened up a new world for me. So I can completely understand why someone would apply to both schools.</p>
<p>I agree with pnb.</p>
<p>Talk about people who want to desperately fit into a university’s mold. The whole college “fit” deal is taken too far by many. I would rather consider myself to be an adaptable and fluid concept at my 18 years of age …</p>
<p>I see Chicago and Northwestern on a venn diagram with some overlap. Clearly the schools have a lot of differences, but there’s no reason that a smart student, particularly one from the midwest, has heard about both and has been attracted to both. I was one of those kids.</p>
<p>Things that appealed to me about Chicago when I visited as a prospie: distinct liberal arts emphasis, quiet/funky crowd, people who seemed to be comfortable with themselves, great bookstores, great city, and a sense of “I belong here”</p>
<p>Things that appealed to me about Northwestern: particular strengths in my then academic and extracurricular areas of interest, proximity to Chicago, diversity in personality (when I visited, I felt like I saw a lot of “geeks” and “nice kids” and not a lot of “snobs”… yes… those were important working definitions for the high school me…), mid-size</p>