<p>One of the few downsides I see about NU as compared to other schools I'm thinking of is the lack of good sports teams. Is there still a lot of school spirit and pride or is it more like an individualistic kind of school?</p>
<p>Depends who you compare us to. We play in the Big Ten, not the Ivy League and not D3. </p>
<p>Football suffered a huge loss with the tragic death of Coach Randy Walker less than 2 years ago. In the previous decade, Northwestern earned 5 bowl berths, including one appearance at the Rose Bowl. There is real hope the program will rebuild itself quickly with recruitment success up this year. Home football games remain enormous fun.</p>
<p>Outside of football, the school has won the last 3 Women's Lacrosse national D1 titles and is establishing a veritable dynasty. Women's tennis, softball, men's wrestling, etc. are all top ranked year after year. </p>
<p>Beyond sports, school spirit is very strong. People have a real sense of belonging and pride in this place. From Dance Marathon to painting the rock to theater productions people are involved and excited to be here.</p>
<p>It's not like the teams are terrible, they're just in the Big Ten and competing against state schools which have the enrollment count near the size of the entire town of Evanston.</p>
<p>It's like a 2A school competing against 5A. You may be good for your division, but it's just difficult to compare against a school who can pool from so many places and they spend more on recruiting athletes.</p>
<p>Hey - I'm a graduate and we lost every game but two (one win, and one 0-0 tie) during my four years of undergrad and I loved going to the football games! I went to every one (though rarely staying through the entire four quarters.) If you asked me whether I had school spirit, I'd say YEAH!!!! I loved Northwestern, loved going to the games, and there was a ton of school spirit. We rejoiced over our losses, though we'd prefer to win... it was still fun to chant "That's alright, that's okay, you're going to work for us some day" and "Our SAT's are higher!" and "Let's Go... Study."</p>
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<p>Haha, that sounds like fun! :)</p>
<p>That's not nice</p>