<p>how would you compare the 3 schools:
WUSTL
Northwestern
UMich</p>
<p>WUSTL-much smaller intimate environment. Students are a combination of U of Chicago smarts and Reed College Liberal but with a stripe of some elitist elements. </p>
<p>Northwestern-wealthy suburban locale, Big Ten school without HUGE student population, kind of preppy-ish and a bit clique-ish. </p>
<p>Michigan-HUGE Big Ten University, Sink or swim environment. Gotta hustle to get assistance you need but it is there if you seek it out.</p>
<p>ALL are excellent choices. I would choose in order of aid and environment. What is your major?</p>
<p>thanks for the info. I am familiar with UMich (bro is there) and you are so right about sink or swim. but once he got to Ross, it was really great, though very competitive.</p>
<p>major is premed. someone posted very negative comments about Northwestern recently. He was a junior and made it sound also like sink or swim, bad profs, bad advising, kids are not nice to each other (referenced to some website). He had a number of posters tell him that they had a good experience, but it got me worried.</p>
<p>going to see WUSTL next week. is there any school spirit there, since the other 2 are both big 10</p>
<p>Premed will be sink or swim everywhere. If school spirit is want you are after, go to Michigan.</p>
<p>At WUSTL there is certainly school spirt but it does not revolve around sports (although their division III teams have done VERY well - men’s basketball Div III champs; women’s basketball placed 2nd; see <a href=“Washington University in St. Louis - Official Athletics Website”>http://bearsports.wustl.edu/</a>)! The students there have very few complaints and most rave about the school! As a parent of one D at WUSTL and another at a large Division I private - the level of attention & concern for the students AND the parents at WUSTL v. the private is like the difference between night & day.</p>
<p>Palmalk, Michigan’s school spirit has little to do with athletics. It has a lot more to do with academic excellence and alum loyalty.</p>
<p>If you’re from New York (or anywhere outside the midwest, for that matter), no one will have heard of WUSTL. People will think you’re talking about U Washington, Washington and Lee, or George Washington, etc. I don’t know how much you care about name recognition, but if you do, stick with one of the other two schools.</p>
<p>I wasn’t comparing to Michigan or meaning to imply that school spirt at the other schools was limited to sports - just stating in general re WUSTL (since OP mentioned the other 2 schools being Big 10 along with “school spirt” assumed OP was interested in part in the athletic “spirt” at WUSTL - isn’t Big 10 some athletic thing?) (haha) …</p>
<p>“If you’re from New York (or anywhere outside the midwest, for that matter), no one will have heard of WUSTL.”</p>
<p>I heard of it, growing up in New York. Knew someone who went there. We live in New york now, and one of my kids’ friends goes there. I guess he heard of it. I would guess that, as in my case, the group of people who consider applying to selective colleges outside of New york will have heard of it. “man on the street”, maybe not so much.</p>
<p>Perhaps a little less name recognition here than Northwestern, but still not nothing.</p>
<p>Re post #7; that’s simply not true among people whom know a thing or two about excellent opportunities in higher education. It’s particularly not true of potential [high caliber] employers throughout the nation. I learned about WU’s reputation as a high school underclassman 30 years ago. And the school is even better known today.</p>
<p>Mean to add that I learned of WU while growing up on the west coast.</p>
<p>The problem is, the context we might have heard of it, 30+ years ago, may not do justice to the kids coming of of there today.</p>
<p>Where I lived, back then, it was everyone’s backup school. They had an acceptance rate topping 70%. NYU and Wash U are the two schools that have made the most material change to their profiles from back then vs. now, IIRC.</p>
<p>And I guess it’s more likely that people from around here, who are not routinely exposed to the school, might be more likely to have this prior old image still in their heads.</p>
<p>Northwestern also improved a great deal since back then, but it was not starting from nearly this same point. And gets talked about a bit more, I think.</p>
<p>Michigan has a higher profile here than either, from my limited perch.</p>
<p>A few comments on the premed aspect. I’m familiar with WashU and Michigan. </p>
<p>WUST has excellent premed advising, with easy access to shadowing and other opportunities at the hospital (look up Med Prep class). They do mock interviews and carefully walk you through the whole process. Michigan, like any big state school, has much less advising and personal attention. (My son once went to an office to ask a question about a course he was taking in London and was told to look on the web site.)</p>
<p>However, WashU, on average, has a higher caliber of student, and a lot of very smart premeds, so getting the good grades in the curved premed classes will be harder at WashU than at Michigan. </p>
<p>That said, premed is a hard track, and the absolute most important factor should be finding an envirnment where you will thrive. Every other consideration is a far second. If, for example, you would love to have a football game with 100,000 people to use to blow off steam, then Michign is the choice. If you’d thrive is a smaller envirnment where you can get to know professors and get more advising and personal attention, WashU can’t be beat. </p>
<p>So my advice is forget premed; go to the place where you think you have the best chance of thriving as a person.</p>
<p>MYthreesons and everyone else</p>
<p>thank you for the advice so far. </p>
<p>Older bro is at Michigan and yes the football games dominate in the fall (even though they were miserable this year). The nightlife is very active, many parties and late night eateries. it is a small city and doesn’t seem isolated. People seem out and about even when its cold. And many wear the school apparel. I wonder if its like that at the other schools. </p>
<p>Michigan advising is a problem. He could not get an advising appt with a poli sci advisor for an entire term and ended up dropping the minor because of it. But school choice will not be based on that I think. </p>
<p>The Fiske Guide has all the schools as good for premed, so I am sure it will be excellent (and challenging) everywhere.</p>
<p>I also did not hear of WUSTL growing up in NY. But now I hear about it alot and we know kids who are very happy there. My son has friends at all 3 schools.</p>
<p>His advisor said today that they are all excellent, but he should think about going somewhere different from his brother. Not sure that’s the way to look at it. </p>
<p>Going to see WUSTL for the first time next week. But judging from the admittance package, the airfare and the welcome parents envelope with contacts, I am very impressed with the level of communication and care. All that was received from Michigan after being accepted into Honors was an email. then another email with a reminder to send in the deposit. Haven’t gotten the package from NU yet, but brother was accepted there and it wasn’t like the WUSTL package.</p>
<p>Still waiting on Cornell and Emory. It’s wonderful to have choices but very hard to decide. We like to say its about ‘fit and match’ but what if you feel you will fit in everywhere!</p>
<p>Then you go to the school you like best. Graduate school admissions from all those 5 universities you listed are practically identical, regardless of what people say of their respective advising qualities.</p>
<p>Alexandre:
just curious as to how someone in Dubai is a super moderator and that familiar with US colleges, both undergrad and graduate.</p>
<p>I know they all feed very well into graduate schools and that in many professions its where you went to graduate school that really matters.</p>
<p>There are so many factors and its really hard to prioritize. </p>
<p>I think he needs to not have any regrets, which is very hard to know. </p>
<p>Perhaps he won’t work to kill himself like he did in high school. So he needs to find out about curves. I believe that UMich honors courses do not grade to a curve (and Harvard as well as others, but those aren’t choices).</p>
<p>NYerr,
Negative people will always find ways to nitpick and exaggerate. Northwestern’s premed placement rate was 84% according to their view book and “close to 80%” according to college of arts and sciences website (84% for all majors and close to 80%for arts and sciences majors). If it’s really as bad as that person said, the rates would no way be this high. For comparison, the rates at top UCs are around 55-60%.</p>
<p>As a NYerr, you might find Chicago more to your liking. Are you paying if full or is money not a factor. Personally, I would opt for NU.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, medical school placement rates on their own aren’t telling. It would be more telling if we knew the placement rate into Medical school for students of equal calibre. For example, placement rates for students with 3.2+ GPAs and 30+ MCATs. For all we know, Cal may have a much larger percentage of Medical school applicants applying with sub 3.0 GPAs and sub 25 MCAT scores than NU.</p>
<p>NYerr,</p>
<p>I emailed the premed advising at Northwestern and here’s the response:
</p>
<p>Stats for Michigan is available here:
<a href=“http://careercenter.umich.edu/students/healthmedlaw/med/medappstats.html[/url]”>http://careercenter.umich.edu/students/healthmedlaw/med/medappstats.html</a></p>
<p>Additional info: Stats for UCB/UCLA
<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm[/url]”>http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm</a>
<a href=“http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates.aspx[/url]”>http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates.aspx</a></p>