<p>I've always heard that Northwestern has extremely strong academics. I also heard that it is extremely difficult to keep an A average. My question is--are the rigor of NU academics exaggerated or are they actually THAT hard?
Of course, I realize that this is pretty subjective. My highschool background is 4yrs. of college prep independent boarding school, I'm taking all APs, A student, etc.
I am not planning on pulling all-nighters, and I would like to sleep before midnight. Is this possible? Thank you.</p>
<p>IF you are not planning on pulling all-nighters, and would like to sleep before midnight…the flippant answer is to bypass college altogether…
However…to your question-if you consider the caliber of the matriculated students, where do you fit into that profile? That might give you a better insight as to whether you will “be pulling all-nighters” .
IF you have been accepted this year, the admissions office feels you are qualified to do well at NU-the question really is-do YOU feel you will do well.</p>
<p>It depends on how smart you are. But I’d say in general, if you are not pursuing premed, engineering, econ (workload is ok but grading isn’t the most generous for intro courses), MMSS, ISP, or Kellogg cert, it shouldn’t be too difficult.</p>
<p>Add Kaplan Scholars program, and the above is the credited response.</p>
<p>If your prep is Andover or Exeter, you’ll definitely be fine. If you’re at the very top of the class and know you’re brilliant, you’ll be fine.</p>
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<p>What’s that leave? Ten percent of the class?</p>
<p>:-P</p>
<p>More like 40-50%, but point taken.</p>
<p>Seriously? You go to a prep boarding school with an A average and are taking all APs and you’re concerned?</p>
<p>And of course, pulling all nighters or going to sleep after midnight has something to do with time management skills as well. For some students, especially the freshman, there are major temptations, now that they are away from home, to deprioritize the studies to the point they get slammed.</p>
<p>The impression I get from my S (one of the ISPers who absolutely does need a certain amount of sleep for peak performance) is that the peak periods around mid-terms and finals are the big time crunch. Clearly, that’s not all the time. However, with a quarter school, you’ll get to visit this six times (twice a quarter ) in the academic year.</p>
<p>So is Econ really that hard or competitive? That’s what I keep hearing… Is it that hard to get an A or A- in Econ? And is the Kellogg certificate also extremely hard?</p>
<p>Econ is easy, the curve is not. Therefore, you need to be near perfect to be at the top of the curve.</p>
<p>As for mid-terms and time crunches: Midterms are not all synched. It may be you are in “mid-terms mode” from week 3 to week 7, straight through. That’s a rough quarter, but it happens.</p>
<p>So most kids get B’s…?</p>
<p>Well, that is how a curve works, if it’s centered on B. The average GPA in Weinberg is something like 3.36</p>
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<p>This is no longer high school, where you can squeak out a 4.0 just by doing extra credit and turning in your homework on time.</p>
<p>A good anecdote:</p>
<p>At the admitted student day for Wash U Law, the dean asked the audience:</p>
<p>“How many of you were in the top 10% of your high school?” (almost everyone raises their hands).</p>
<p>“Now how many were in the top 10% of your college class?” (almost everyone raises their hands).</p>
<p>“Now how many of you will be in the top 10% of your law school class?” (everyone looks unnerved)</p>
<p>Now, I’m not going there, and I actually wasn’t in the top 10% of my HS class, but I think that illustrates the point?</p>
<p>Some programs are harder than others. One graduates with honors as an Integrated Science Program major with a 3.2 (or even a 3.0 if significant research is done.)</p>
<p>lol @ all nighters being common. I had to do maybe 2 all nighters all of college and that was because I procrastinated as it was the middle of my senior year.</p>
<p>Econ? Certainly difficult in the advance courses (c’mon arbs, a philosophy major calling something else easy?) but you can nab a B+ or better average by not slacking off a ton.</p>
<p>If you are smart enough to get in to Northwestern, you are smart enough to succeed here.</p>
<p>Suppa, how’d you do in our shared philosophy courses again? 
Zoloth doesn’t count…</p>
<p>One of the things that you have to be careful about during your freshman year is the number of extra-curricular activities you get involved with. My D always wants to sign up for everything, and that really wore her down during the first quarter. I think that kids who typically did EVERYTHING in high school have to make serious choices about what they want to do with the little bit of spare time that they get.</p>