In any case, my take is that the Ivy League is a sports league. The colleges you are considering are pretty different in character. Unless you are an athlete, what sports league your school belongs to just won’t be a big determinant in your life, but fit does matter. In terms of alumni achievements and opportunities, Northwestern is on par with the Ivies you listed (and they are with each other as well):
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1-p1.html
@PurpleTitan You and a lot of others try to quantify the Ivy league as just a sports league…which is an injustice. The reason people say they are looking at Ivy league schools and Stanford, MIT etc… are simply incorporating all 8 schools into 1 category(which is all top 15) as top colleges. Instead of listing each college by name one by one, it is much more efficient to simply say Ivy league schools. Is the Ivy league a sports league…absolutely…but no other sports league(or non) encompasses every school into the top 15 academically. Thus when people are saying they are looking into Ivy league schools they simply mean top 15 colleges. Now I realize each Ivy school is unique and different but there is a reason people use the term.
@moscott that may be true, but not in the OPs case. He’s strictly differentiating Northwestern (a top 15 school) from the 8 physical Ivy League schools.
@moscott: @Jpgranier covered it, and in any case, if you want to refer to the top 16 or so, it’s more accurate to use the term “Ivies/equivalents” or"Ivies+".
Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Northwestern, Duke, Rice, Georgetown, and Caltech aren’t any lesser merely because they don’t all play in the same sports league, and it’s inaccurate to refer to them all as Ivies.
The title says Ivy league vs Northwestern…people then try to say “well Ivy league is just a sports league”. So what exactly do you mean Ivy league is a sports league when you know full well what they mean?
@moscott: That the Ivy League is just a sports league.
What do you think they meant?
What point are you trying to make?
So not correct…it isn’t simply a sports league obviously. You are minimizing the term. I told you what they mean…8 colleges ranked in the top 15 academically. My point is when kids come on and use the term apply to Ivy schools they are simply encompassing top schools into 1 word without listing them one by one. Then people respond with…oh the Ivy league is just a sports league knowing the student isn’t looking at them in regards to sports.
@moscott Almost everyone knows that Ivy League is practically synonymous for elite school.
@PurpleTitan Ivy League also refers to a sports league.
Y’all are both right.
I don’t see what you’re arguing. Are you arguing that Northwestern isn’t a top school? Why did the OP not say in his title “Ivy League vs Ivy League” when talking about Northwestern?
@swagnation234 I take back my previous post saying NU is a no brainer because I thought it was 20k debt per year.
5k/yr is completely manageable, and you shouldn’t let that amount hold you back from going to the school you like the most. For us to help you, we need some more info.
- What is your intended major?
- Have you actually been accepted to these schools? I'm not sure if admissions decisions for RD applicants are even out yet...
- Which school do YOU like the most? Don't let the 20k total in loans scare you off.
- How did you receive a full ride to NU but not the Ivy League schools you mentioned? Was this all needs-based aid?
Yes the Ivy league is a sports league…so is the ACC, SEC etc. When kids go on CC and use the term Ivy league schools they are referring to them as top academic institutions not sports teams. So instead of listing every college one by one the term Ivy league covers all 8. They will also add Stanford, MIT etc…many times as well but since they aren’t in the Ivy you have to list them by name. Of course Northwestern is a top school. The original title is Ivy vs Northwestern which is much more efficient than saying Dartmouth, Brown, UPENN, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia vs Northwestern.
Northwestern, Cornell and Penn are peers. Brown, Dartmouth are not better, but they are different. If admitted into all 5 of those amazing universities, go for the school that you can most easily afford, and if cost of attendance is not a concern, go for fit. None of those schools has more to offer than any of the others, although they will each have their own unique programs and special resources.
They’d seem to be in the ~top 28:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10
@swagnation234. $5,000 per year is not enough of a difference to base your decision on. Figure out where you prefer to study, Evanston/Chicago, NYC, New Hampshire or Philadelphia. And what you want to study. Which school has academic strength in the area you want to study and which overall atmosphere you prefer. Since you asked for advice, I’ll tell you that I personally would prefer Evanston/Chicago over the other cities. Evanston and the Northwestern campus are beautiful and an easy, short train ride via CTA or Metra to Chicago. But I also love Hanover, NH and Dartmouth, which is rural so has a different feel. I would choose between those two. If you are into USNWR rankings and you can stand NYC (I can’t), then choose Columbia if they have a strength in the area you want to study. I would not consider UPenn unless you were in love with Phili. It is overrated and I’d choose Northwestern or Dartmouth over it by a large margin. Congratulations and good luck making your decision!
@moscott, if you read through the thread, you would have seen that he meant specific Ivies. Considering that almost everyone differentiates between the Ivies (as seen on this thread) and that the main difference between the Ivies and Northwestern are the sports leagues they belong to (and the region they are in), then
- Yes, in this case, the Ivies are just a sports league.
- Yes, it would have made more sense for the OP to title it “Northwestern vs. UPenn/Dartmouth/Columbia”.
@merc81 Ugh…seriously. USNWR.
There is NOTHING in this entire thread having to do with sports or sport conferences. It’s a lazy way to describe what kids are intending as top academic schools encompassed in one word(Ivy) where you and others espouse oh it’s simply a sports league. Nowhere near the context of the conversation unless in the athletic recruits forum.
To put it in simple terms, IF one of the Ivy schools weren’t in the top 100 academically you wouldn’t see kids using the universal term as Ivy league in regards to top schools. Same for why they don’t for any other league be it Pac 12 or Patriot league. In those cases they specifically label Stanford, UCL, USC or William & Mary by name.
@PurpleTitan What alumni achievements are you looking at? Also HYP was still king in the 80s. Stanford was almost on the same league, but HYP still had the edge. So you are saying revealed preference has no significance at all? it is not like HS kids make a random decision on their own. They and their parents weigh their options based on the information available. Also are you saying that none of the many rankings out there matter?
Some thoughts:
1 - The OP clearly said that the question was hypothetical. People should stop questioning the OP for that.
2 - Take a good look as to where you want to live in the future. There was a survey recently of Ivy graduates that showed that 75 percent of them lived in the MidAtlantic or Northeast. At the same time, most NU grads live in the midwest.
3 - Academically, NU is on par with the “middle” Ivy’s of Penn and Columbia. All of these schools have excellent reputations and placement.
4 - Our HS sends alot of kids to NU, and the more time I spend talking to their parents, the more impressed I am with the school. All of these kids had the opportunity to attend a flagship Big 10 school for less money, but the parents believed that NU, despite the higher tuition, offered a significant ROI. Most of the students from our HS who attend NU are very serious, pre-professional students who have a firm idea of what they want to do in their four years on campus and where they want to be when they graduate. In comparison, some kids from our HS who chase an Ivy acceptance seem to be chasing prestige or external validation of their academic success rather than looking at fit or professional goals.
@Penn95: I do believe that many rankings, while OK in general terms, don’t tell you much about schools that are within 10 or so places of each other. Also, I look at PhD rates, prestigious scholarships earned, “American leaders”, and placement in to top professional schools. Penn does very well in the last 2 categories. Not at HYPSM levels in the first 2.
@moscott: The OP was comparing NU with Ivies. What, besides the sports conference (and region) differentiates the two (bearing in mind that differences between different Ivies are often greater)?
If the OP was using “Ivy” to mean “elite private” (as you seem to think he is) instead of a sports conference, then does not comparing NU to “Ivies” make zero sense, considering that NU is also an elite private? Does that then not lead one to conclude that he was referring to the Ivy League sports conference?