<p>A kid from my school was accepted to NU last year. He had good scores, but I just thought that NU was more competitive than his 'stats' (rank was kinda poor) Can someone tell me if this is a typical NU student.
Male, White, Midwest
GPA: 3.8 UW 12% of class
ACT:34</p>
<p>ECs:
varsity xc and track (4 years, captain)
150 hrs of volunteering</p>
<p>Awards:
national merit semifinalist.</p>
<p>He had no connection to the school nor amazing recs/essays, etc</p>
<p>How do you know so much about him? (i.e. that his essays and recs weren't amazing)</p>
<p>He is lazy in class hence his rank and he told me that he did the application the night before it was due. He's not the kind of kid who would put too much effort into that sort of thing. Plus, he turned down NU bc he thought it was too competitive and opted for a school where he could have 'more fun.'</p>
<p>Northwestern is less competitive than the Ivy League. Not being in the 10%, not having a 4.0 GPA, and not having amazing extracurricular activities are acceptable.</p>
<p>My critique:
I'm not going to bother with average SAT/ACT and GPA or where students come from. It's all there. You can look it up, so hard factors aren't hard to generalize.</p>
<p>The only thing I disagree with is that NU students wouldn't have amazing essays or a relation to the school. Students here really, really want to be here. The unique combo of B10 athletics and ivy league athletics makes for a very unique envrionment. Applicants are self-selecting. It is decidedly midwestern in culture, and I don't think its the ivy-league reject school that people claim it to be. There is a lot of school pride, largely derived from athletics.</p>
<p>Gaffe,</p>
<p>NU has higher average SAT than one of the Ivies.</p>
<p>Only one?</p>
<p>SATs are not the most important part of an application. Once you are in the 'range', other factors come into play.</p>
<p>As if most of us don't already know that? When you said NU is less competitive the "Ivy League", be specific which Ivy schools you are talking about if you can't prove that NU is less competitive than Cornell. To me, NU is as competitive as Cornell which is one of the Ivies.</p>
<p>No no, what was meant by 'competitive' was (I think) the admissions process in general, ie. it's alright if you haven't cured cancer. FWIW, SAT's are one of the least important things.</p>
<p>And most of us know that NU has a higher average in the SAT than Cornell?</p>
<p>When I mentioned the Ivy League, I referred to all 8.</p>
<p>It's the luck of the draw.</p>
<p>The Ivies, Stanford, etc. also have their share of such applicants.</p>
<p>Don't be too quick to judge, not all good essays are written over a long period of time. In my case, I remember working on my main essay for almost a month over the summer of my senior year only to start all over a couple days before my applications were due. Spending days over an essay can make the writing very contrived as opposed to genuine and spontaneous. Such was the case for me.</p>
<p>At any rate, unless you were there to review his application as a whole, it's hard to make the judgement that your friend didn't have an 'it-factor' that adcoms seek in an applicant. I can confidently say every student who gets into a university of NU's caliber has something adcoms want from their students, whether or not it's something that objectively shows (ie. figures, accomplishments).</p>
<p>I wrote my essays in the span of about 30-40 minutes. I think they were some of the best I wrote for any school BECAUSE of that, as they were the most candid.</p>
<p>He "turned down NU bc he thought it was too competitive"?
Are you sure this guy was accepted to NU?
Maybe he was lying about his admittance from the start. ;)</p>
<p>Ooh yeah, that's a possibility.</p>
<p>I'm curious, where did he end up going, considering he 'turned down' NU?</p>
<p>I mean, I know people who have gone to UMich instead of NU because they wanted a more state school atmosphere for college</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely juliusmonky. Plus UMich may be much cheaper for some people. But guess what, UMich is a great school too.</p>
<p>I mean...this thread would be completely s*** if that guy ended up going to Appalachian State University or something. :)</p>
<p>If I were instate, I would go to michigan too. It's a great school, and I'm also curious where this kid ended up =)</p>