Emory Vs. Northwestern PLEASE HELP! :)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>Could you all help me out? Because I'm finding it REALLY difficult to decide between Emory and Northwestern! So can someone (a current student of either/people who know a lot about these 2 places) answer some of the following questions like comparing both the schools? It would be REALLY helpful! So Academics, Social Scene, People and Theatre scene matter the most to me.</p>

<p>1) The Academics? Is NU better or Emory? Or are they at par? I'm not too sure, but I've heard NU is better.. Also, I've heard NU becomes really tough with the quarter system so that's why I'd rather go to Emory as well.. (I think it's pretty stressful)
2) Social scene. Like when it comes to parties and general fun/atmosphere of the place. Which one do you guys think is more relaxed and a bit competitive? And also, like the partying scene is better where?
3) How are the people? Like even with diversity? Lots of different people?
4) Theatre scene. Of course NU wins in this hands down, but I would choose Emory because I've heard the theatre scene is strong if you want it to be, like if you want to be really involved in it, there's a lot to do. And NUs is very dominating. I want to be in plays in college and stuff but it sounds really hard with the quarter system :P So that's a big drawback for me. So what do you guys think? I really just want to do Theater as an EC in college.</p>

<p>Also, I want to know at which school is the Pre-Med program better? What are your views on this? Emory has a low Medical school acceptance rate for it's Pre-Meds but that's because it's saturated. But NU Pre-Med is VERY rigorous (not saying that Emory's isn't) especially with the quarter system. Deadlines/Mid-terms/Hw and stuff piles up fast, and it's bad if you fall behind (have a brother who's on the quarter system in college). So quarter system is the big no-no about NU, especially since I want to do a lot more than just study at college!</p>

<p>I know it's a lot of questions but PLEASE if someone can just take a few minutes to answer these questions comparing the 2 schools, I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it I really want to apply to either of these places ED and it's such a tough task to choose. Thanks so much! :)</p>

2

<p>No thoughts anyone?</p>

3

<p>See where you get in first.</p>

4

<p>Yeah, but I’m talking about ED…</p>

5

<p>I noticed you did posts in NU thread also. Let me warn you about the rigor issue. This gets tricky. I have seen coursework at various peers, and you hardly notice a difference in the level of work or material in classes typically taken by pre-meds. For example, it is unfair to say that NU’s chem. program being ranked higher translates into more rigor. That may certainly be the case beyond organic chemistry (most pre-meds do not go beyond this), but both of us are notoriously hard for organic chem., the difference would be the pace if anything else due to the quarter system. The students tried to convince you that all of the classes at NU are hard, while ours are easy. My roommate last year told me he doesn’t feel the difference (he transferred from there), and feels that we actually take non-sciences more serious. His workload increased infinitely this year, and he’s a political science major that now spends about as much time in the library as I do now. Needless to say, he would make no such claims about the rigor. Gen. Bio at nearly all peer institutions is hardly different in the material covered. And despite this “rigor” at NU, the grading is still about the same as us and the other peers. I’m willing to bet that they even grade. gen. chem and bio on a curve (most private schools, would curve up if average is not a B- in these, but profs. here care less in intro). Hardly no profs. do that here. If the courses average is C+, it’s C+. NU always has at least a B-. Surprisingly, I also found that some of the gen. chem. sections (friend sent an exam) here are actually tougher than theirs in terms of exam content/style. However, the lab component of theirs is much tougher from what my roommate told me (he watched his friends go through it). Point is, avoid these assumptions made by some posters unless they attended both. Neither of these schools are going to feel but so easy or rigorous when you get there. Again, unless you are a chem. major or wanting to get really serious with theater, don’t easily sway based upon these. Worry about what type of atmosphere you want. Do you want Chicago, do you want the sense of pride garnered by D1 sports? These were all valid points stressed over there. </p>

<p>Also, grad/prof. school rankings will not help w/ur undergrad. experience, so remove hype associated with such differences. All that should matter is that you can be connected with these somehow. For example, many undergrads. here do research via the med. school, and many do serious volunteer work at Grady (one of my friends was a counselor there when he was a freshman, which was last year). I’d imagine NU students may have easy access to such opps. too. This is even unfair given Emory’s youth (which is exactly why we lack respect from students who attend NU) as a big player.<br>
The schools are very different in feel and focus perhaps, but one with common sense should recognize that the two are academically on par at the undergrad level. Some of those folks thought it was ridiculous to even compare that. I think ppl let ranks fool them.<br>
As the young one, we have the most difficulty garnering respect, and the rank suffers accordingly. Also, Emory is new to marketing, so that affects applicant numbers and stuff. In reality, the school has not actually gotten worse I think. </p>

<p>However, don’t take my word from it. I’ve had an amazing experience partially due to the connections and friends I’ve made. I also refuse to intentionally enroll in easier courses and claim “the school is easy”. However, many students don’t like it here b/c they really don’t have connections or they came in with the preconceived notion that the higher ranked schools are actually far different from Emory. There are even some convinced, b/c of rankings, that Vandy’s courses, faculty and academic environment are actually significantly stronger for example b/c they now rank 3 spots above, even though we were tied for the past 3 years. Amazing that students believe those rankings actually depict the intrinsic academic quality of a school (pretty tough to do on a yearly basis anyway). That makes a lot of sense. “Emory’s courses and profs. just turned crappy in 2010. Dr. Weinschenk must of taught poorly last year. I hope it’s alright in 2011” lol. All of this and we’re still a top 20. Guess not even that is good enough for some folks here.</p>

<p>It would really be best for some freshmen to give their experiences so far. Surely some will dislike/hate it (again, like all the school has its flaws which will affect some more than others) and some will have enjoyed it so far.</p>

6

<p>It would really be best for some freshmen to give their experiences so far. Surely some will dislike/hate it (again, like all the school has its flaws which will affect some more than others) and some will have enjoyed it so far.</p>

<p>Okay, well I love it. I chose Emory over other prestigious schools because it didn’t have a huge sports scene. I didn’t want to be distracted by that stuff. Atlanta is a fun city, but I wish I had a car. There’s plenty of people who dont drink and plenty that do. Weather is good (I’m from a very cold region. People from Fl. disagree with me). Classes for me are pretty easy, but I’m also putting in work. My high school preparation was great in terms of it prepared me to think the right way when given a challenging question. While most of the material in Bio I am new to, I can figure out the answer. Lots of Premeds here. Most people here didnt get into their top choices. I actually dont know anyone except myself that couldve gone to a more “prestigious” place… Ive only been here 5 weeks though. And we tend not to talk about it after the first week of school. If you have anything in particular to ask, PM me.</p>

7

<p>I think you’re right on target. You’d actually be surprise at the number of students cross-admitted into say Duke, Vandy, and Chicago (don’t know if these were top choices, but they were admitted) aluminum. Normally the price vs. fin. aid offer becomes an issue. But yeah, bluntly, it’ll be a while before a significant portion of the school wants to attend Emory and count it amongst top choices. Doesn’t have the lay prestige necessary to convince people its solid compared to peers. Very unfortunate. Oh well, many people’s trash is my treasure, so w/e. They make it all the more better for me when they fail to even try access the resources available here, b/c they believe we don’t have that much. This simply means more access for me. You’d actually be surprised how little some freshmen and sophomores know about the opps. here. They believe (or want to believe) that only X( insert any higher ranked schools) has it.<br>
Amazing thing here is, it’s not unbelievably difficult to be admitted, but it’s a great school. Some schools admissions don’t reflect how good the academics are. Vandy, for example, has a much lower admission rate now (versus 3-4 years ago I guess), but the SAT scores of the enrolling students have changed only marginally. I’d imagine that there have not been much changes in the curriculum throughout the depts. either since then. So, in reality, the selectivity didn’t change the actual quality school that much or at all. There are merely more apps. and less admitted. This is rank-gaming if nothing else. Most do this.<br>
The only thing weird about Emory is that it is clear that, relatively speaking, it does better outside of the U.S., with international students being like the 3rd largest “regional” demographic. Probably b/c those folks just really want a good school to attend outside of their country, so they are more apt in finding out about and considering all of them as opposed to assuming that they will only be happy with, say, Harvard. When you live in the U.S., it’s a different mentality I guess. </p>

<p>Oh, and aluminum, my first year, it took folks 3 weeks to get over it lol. Glad I didn’t apply to those. Actually, in my area/schools, only Ivies (lets be non-PC and lump MIT, Caltech, Stanford into that) and the top southeasternish (including publics) schools were well-known. I never really knew about NU, WashU, Rice, and Chicago for that matter until coming here, so I care less about them even though I imagine they are solid (but over-rated like all top privates, or top schools in general, including us). Knew some LACs though. I can actually truly respect them after visiting Swarthmore (fail at spelling).<br>
So I must always wonder if I would be different if I were in their situation (having been part of an elite community/school system of some sort). Perhaps I’m not being entirely fair, but I still claim that their bitterness has its benefits for those who are not (including myself).</p>

8

<p>Hey vnd1994,</p>

<p>A friend from my high school went to Northwestern. Here are my impressions on the differences:</p>

<p>Academic Quality - Tie (Both are great schools)
Academic Rigor - Advantage Northwestern (The quarter system makes NW more stressful. Personally I find Emory’s atmosphere pretty relaxed).
Social - Emory (ATL has tons to do and Emory has a very strong Greek system that can be a lot of fun even if you don’t go Greek)
Diversity - Northwestern has a bit more people, but Emory is the most diverse top 20 school both ethnically and religiously.
Athletics - DI vs. DIII is sorta like comparing apples and oranges-- keep in mind this is a matter of philosophy. Emory has the most academic all-americans of any DI, DII, or DIII school. Emory’s DIII which leaves us a little bit lacking in spirit, but our DIII programs are consistently among the top in the nation.
Theater scene - I have a few friends in the stagecraft class, but other than that, really no clue.</p>

<p>One thing to be wary of… people will say Emory’s med-school acceptance rates for pre-med students are really low (>50%), and then compare that to other schools rates. Emory reports their overall med-school acceptance rates for all pre-med students whereas most schools only report for students with a MCAT > 30, GPA > 3.5.</p>

9

<p>I’ll agree with the rigor thing. But be sure to not equate “relaxed” with easy. The slower pace of the semester system probably makes the workload more manageable here, but you’ll find that NU and Emory grade about the same. Or perhaps students here simply don’t do as well. Either way, the grades appear to be very similar so obviously NU students can face the additional stress well. You would actually be surprised if you compared some of the material/exams in pre-med courses to peers on the semester system. For example, my friend (he gave me his login stuff. I don’t have an account) told me to check out Vandy’s crap on course heroes one time, I was shocked to find out that our gen. chem and orgo. courses (many of Vandy’s use multiple choice for most of the exam) were a bit more difficult. However, their gen. bio blows many of our sections of gen. bio out b/c of the free response sections. Anyway, what else I noticed is that, in gen. chem (it seems as if our courses would cover material of 2 exams there in one here. perhaps that’s just the spacing of exams though) and orgo. here, they are more likely to ask for serious extrapolation as to why certain phenomenons occur, whereas Vandy’s were more like do this computation (not use a computation to explain something), or predict this product, or do this basic mechanism (the mechanisms in orgo. here are hardly basic).<br>
While I think the school is a somewhat rough ride in the sciences personally, I still didn’t think many of the courses could be even a tad bit more difficult than any of our peers. However, in fairness, I could also see Vandy’s math classes being far more difficult. I won’t comment on physics here b/c there seems to be an effort to make it tougher.</p>

<p>Diversity: another Tibetan scholar/monk allusion. I was doing unofficial training for nmr machine use, and I needed to go back down to the lab to get the sample. I walk out, and I see 5-6 Tibetan monks at the door of Dr. Morkin (gen. chem and organic chem. prof. Amazing prof.!). That doesn’t happen at a school that isn’t diverse.</p>

10

<p>Northwestern has more academic prestige as well as more social prestige. Northwestern also has a better reputation among graduate/professional school admission offices and does a better job placing its undergraduates on Wall Street and in the performing arts/film world.</p>

11

<p>This is true. But I think this poster knows this. They are clearly interested in Emory for more complex reasons. First of all, the person is pre-health. They, however, also want to delve into the theater scene. Going to NU over Emory will not provide a significant advantage to a pre-health student. Prestige weighs less when it comes to med. school admissions. However, it helps if they are pre-law. However, Emory is supposedly really solid at placing people into law school (at one time, ranked third I believe).
In fact, regarding their pre-health interests, some have already argued to them that the OP may not have time to do both at NU, b/c both are extremely intensive programs that consume a lot of time. Emory’s theater is solid (though no NU), and will probably be more manageable with her pre-health schedule. Vnd1994, if you still feel it’s a tie after visiting both, decide how serious you want to be with theater. If you are considering it as a career, I would definitely choose NU. Also, I have no idea if you are interested in Wall Street, but if so, hoyasaxa1 has a point. Social prestige doesn’t help with your pre-med/med. school training. Only your level of motivation, commitment, and ability to learn/retain ideas will help your chances there. Both schools can help you with that.</p>

12

<p>Sorry hoyasaxa1, that’s not the whole story.</p>

<p>Emory’s business school is consistently ranked in the top 10 (is currently ranked 7), and has been ranked as high as 4 in the past few years by BusinessWeek. Although Northwestern has a highly ranked and prestigious MBA program, they have no undergraduate business program. Emory does a very good job placing its business students on Wall Street and in the business world.</p>

<p>Scott Budnick, Emory BBA class of 1999, produced the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever, the Hangover.</p>

<p>It’s true that Emory isn’t as well known as Northwestern, but that pretty much boils down to the fact that Northwestern is D1 and Emory is D3. Emory is a great school, and is on the move. It was one of only two schools, the other being Rice, ranked by U.S. News and World Reports as both a top 20 school AND an “Up-and-Coming” school. For the Up-and-Coming rankings, college presidents, provosts, and admissions deans were asked to nominate up to 10 colleges in their U.S. News Best Colleges ranking category “that are making improvements in academics, faculty, students, campus life, diversity, and facilities. These schools are worth watching because they are making promising and innovative changes.”</p>

13

<p>Good point, it could be considered impressive when you are already a top 20 and are considered “up and coming”. I forgot that ranking. Yeah, but such a ranking indicates the lack of complacency at even said top 20s. Also, according to Wagner at the little Emory townhall thing (me and a friend attended), Emory has only had an official marketing dept. for 5 years. We’ve been doing really well considering that. That means for a while, we let the quality speak for itself.</p>

14

<p>Well, obviously I’m biased since I go to Emory, but Emory & Northwestern are pretty similar in regard to their proximity to a large city, campus feel, academic atmosphere, and student body. You can’t go wrong with both, but choose Emory anyway. :).</p>

15

<p>Actually, I think Emory’s campus feel is kind of unique (this can be good or bad) because of the architecture (NU keeps it classic w/Gothic) and layout (not really planned, lots of curves, which is weird since the buildings are square). Emory as a whole, kind of feels like a city, with the core of the campus employing a kind of post-modern architecture/path and walkways with lots of green space. Also, the campus isn’t but so flat I guess (nothing like the other schools in N. Georgia, but still not but so flat), there are many “speedhumps” that make the geography slightly interesting. The campus is kind of the embodiment of metro Atlanta.</p>

16

<p>Although I went to Emory, I would say Northwestern is a better school. I hadn’t heard a lot about it in high school but the people I know who went there all loved it. A lot of kids at Emory got rejected from there. Emory has barely any school spirit, while Northwestern has a lot of school spirit. Also, it is a much more widely known school than Emory. It’s one of the few top academic schools that is also considered fun. As far as medical school admissions, it turned out to be easier than I thought to get into med school. I don’t have any friends from Emory who applied and got rejected. I even know one kid who was academic probation freshman year and dropped out of Organic chemistry but ended up getting into med school. He pulled his act together of course. I’m just saying if you’re smart and work hard you can get into a medical school from either school.</p>

17

<p>Dude, the whole “no school spirit” thing/argument is annoying. It’s true, but I hate when students, for example (observed this one day), are passing under cannon chapel, look over at the Soccer game and look at the bleachers (which are not even 1/4 filled) and say stuff like “no school spirit”. I was kind of like, if you cared enough to make a comment/complain about it, you should take you a** over there to the game and contribute some of the school spirit that you want so bad. Emory students have this bandwagon thing going on (“well, if they don’t show pride, why should I”). So stupid. Don’t complain about stuff in which you are an integral part, and choose to be immobile. If you don’t want to contribute the spirit, then shut up. Also, Vandy and many other top 20s are considered at least somewhat fun. I think Emory could be if it weren’t for such attitudes like this amongst the student body, and if there was perhaps an attempt to make for more non-athletic recreational facilities (DUC is kind of lame).</p>

18

<p>Emory has pretty much the same student body size and endowment as Duke. There’s no reason we couldn’t have great D1 sports– D3 is a choice and a philosophy that athletes should be integrated into the college environment and experience. And Emory’s athletic programs are among the best within D3– our volleyball team is vying for the national championship tomorrow night. Women’s soccer made it to the quarterfinals. Emory Swimming and Diving constantly dominate (the women won nationals last year).</p>

<p>Emory could have better school spirit and I think having a least one D1 sport would help. Unfortunately current NCAA regulation prevents schools from playing up (being D1) in either football or basketball while being D3 in other sports, so Emory would have to go all-D1, which is not a choice I think Emory would make.</p>

<p>The DUC could definitely be a much cooler student hangout if it were renovated.</p>

19

<p>IC: You’re kind of right. As a Georgia resident, I was annoyed to hear that Mercer will be getting its football team back (but then again, all of its sports are already D-1). They have an endowment even smaller than Georgia State (who now has a football team). The endowments are about 250million and 400million respectively. Emory admins are full of bull when it comes to this. I’m trying to figure out the logic behind the NCAA regulations. Then again, NCAA isn’t very logical. look at how confusing college football/basketball rankings are.</p>

<p>By the way, it seems Mercer is more effective when marketing to higher performing Ga. residents. They do have D-1 sports and an engineering school, so they have something going for them. They at least get an application from some. Seems Emory just assumes that people would want to apply.</p>