<p>Between Northwestern, Rice, and Vanderbilt, what do you prefer and why? If you go to any of these, please brag about your school, but be honest!</p>
<p>Also, some things that are important to me that I would love for people to touch on if possible (but certainly not limited to) are:</p>
<p>-Academics (How are the engineering programs at these colleges? Impossibly hard even with intense hard work? Good teachers? Etc.)</p>
<p>-Study Abroad (Can you and still graduate in 4 years?)</p>
<p>-Weather (I HATE the cold, since I find it difficult to run, which I love. I pretty much only run outdoors, so please don't suggest a treadmill/indoor track. If you go to NW or another northern school, please please comment on how it is getting adjusted to cold weather running/constant snow and sub-freezing temperatures)</p>
<p>-Overall friendliness (I don't like competition. I know obviously there's going to be competition, but I'm not pre-med (engineering instead), but I would like to go to the most generally friendly/happy school.)</p>
<p>-Hillel (If anybody knows anything about Jewish life at any of these colleges, that would be awesome. Relatively speaking, this isn't a necessity, but I'm curious)</p>
<p>NU is freezing (its on Lake Michigan). Sub zero temperatures in the winter.
I've lived around there all my life though so I'm used to it, but if you're coming from a warm area you might not adjust.</p>
<p>However that doesn't stop most people from running, though. I actually prefer running in the cold. As long as you wear layers its not a big deal</p>
<p>My parents are from Chicago and twin brother is going there, so I unfortunately do know how cold it gets. I know running in the cold isn't that terrible if you wear layers, but knowing myself, it'd be difficult to keep motivated to do those extra miles, as I don't do well with the cold. Thank you, though!</p>
<p>The first-year engineering curriculum at Northwestern is awesome and is a totally different animal (the closest curriculum is Olin's). But if you hate the cold, you will hate Chicago.</p>
<p>The problem with running in Chicago (which I did) is that there is snow and ice and the conditions can be really bad. It isn't just the cold.
I now run in Nashville, and while we had a cold winter, there were only a few days (cold rain) where I was on the treadmill instead of outdoors.
I don't know much about engineering, but my daughter is a Rice grad and is now a Vandy grad student, and she feels the schools are quite different. She likes the athletics at Vanderbilt (SEC sports), but liked the non-frat culture at Rice.<br>
For a runner, I would go with Rice or Vandy. I personally think Nashville is running heaven. We have places to train here that are absolutely fantastic. Rice is flat, and a lot of the runners do the "loop" which is a three mile path around the Rice campus.</p>
<p>Just came back from a visit to Vanderbilt last week. The first student we saw when driving onto campus was running. :) Although my S would not be an engineering major, I did hear questions about the major, and I recall the dean of the undergrad engineering school answering a question about study abroad. I believe he said it is possible, but it does take some planning. </p>
<p>As for the Hillel, we stopped inside to take a look because we have heard much about Vanderbilt's attempt to increase it's Jewish population. Around 2003, the Jewish population was about 3%. This year's graduating class is about 10% and the entering class has about 18%, according to someone I spoke with at Hillel. They have a very nice building with a kosher vegetarian restaurant on the main level. The restaurant was packed when we visited. Some of the restaurant meals are on the Vandy dining plan, so I'm sure that there are also some non-Jewish students who are vegetarians who eat there. They had several hundred students attend services for the High Holidays. </p>
<p>One of my kids attend school in Chicago, and it is brutally cold for long periods of time.</p>
<p>Looking purely at the social aspect, Rice is different from the other two schools in a very big way: we have a residential college system. The entire culture at Rice revolves around the colleges. We have no greek life, but the colleges host their own parties and organize a lot of the events that greeks would on other campuses. Because all students are randomly assigned to a college as entering freshmen, the atmosphere is very welcoming and friendly. I could go on for quite some time about the joys of the residential college system, but I'm not sure how much you know about it already. If you have any specific questions, though, feel free to shoot me a private message.</p>
<p>^^ I have decided that it is deceptive to rely on percentages of students who go Greek to assess whether Greek life is a big part of the culture. My son's school (Ivy) supposedly doesn't have a huge percentage, yet the social scene is very heavily Greek-centered. He did NOT realize that going in. I think Vanderbilt may be similar. I know from living here, spending a lot of time on campus and having a daughter who is a grad student there and works on campus that the Greek scene is huge. If you are a social person, odds are you will pledge. In fact, a girl at my son's school left Vanderbilt because the Greek scene was so intense and she felt her sorority was particularly so.<br>
I am not saying this is a bad thing- just keep it in mind when choosing.</p>
<p>No affiliation with any of these schools. But Northwestern is the most prestigious of the three, at least in the Northeast (which is ironic, I guess, given its name).</p>
<p>^^Fortunately, the northeast is not the whole country. The prestige difference between these three schools is not significant. I happen to think Rice is the strongest academically, but not by enough to rule out the other two if something about them appeals more.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the advice everybody! Does anybody have anything in particular they really like/dislike about any of those schools that hasn't been mentioned yet (or elaborated on?)</p>
<p>I don't know about you, but I prefer Vanderbilt because it is the most conservative of the three. Northwestern is quite liberal being in Chicago, although not too terribly so.</p>
<p>Northwestern is NOT in Chicago, it is in Evanston. It is suburban.</p>
<p>To be brutally frank, Northwestern struck me as excessively white bread, pre-professional, frat-ridden, big-time sports oriented, and generally unintellectual. It would be great if you were interested in a few fields in which it has great programs that emphasize internships, such as journalism. On the other hand, I love the U of C. Different strokes, and all that.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild's ongoing slams against the Northeast prompt me to be equally blunt. Although I am prejudiced against schools located in the slave states, Rice seems like a great place. Vanderbilt never interested me at all, although Nashville is probably a better place to live than many other cities in the Bible Belt. At one point we were faced with a potential corporate move to Chattanooga, and spent some time there investigating the schools and the general social climate. We decided to risk poverty here instead. And, of course, they shoot people like us in Tennessee.</p>
<p>Consolation, I've always enjoyed your posts because they're articulate and insightful. It's sad for me to read your last sentence. It makes me feel as if the notion of mutual tolerance is just a pipe dream.</p>
<p>I have a politically liberal d who attends Vanderbilt, where she's received a great education, enjoyed extraordinary opportunities for mentoring and service, and has been very happy. She's not religious, but hasn't found that Nashville's location in the Bible Belt in any way impedes her success. Of course, I'm not saying that Vanderbilt or Nashville is the promised land for every student or family. But my d has found the social and religious differences between her and some of her classmates to be enriching. It's far more diverse than her high school in upstate New York, and the community we live in, ever were. She's made full use of the opportunities at Vanderbilt to develop an open mind. </p>
<p>This is a gun-toting nation, sad to say. I don't know what you mean by "people like us," but they probably shoot whoever that is pretty much anywhere. Yes, you can find bigots in Tennessee - you can find them wherever you live, as well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Northwestern struck me as excessively white bread, pre-professional, frat-ridden, big-time sports oriented, and generally unintellectual. It would be great if you were interested in a few fields in which it has great programs that emphasize internships, such as journalism. On the other hand, I love the U of C. Different strokes, and all that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Consolation, just because you were "blunt" doesn't make your statement and generalization credible. The fact that you had to bring up University of Chicago to support your point shows that you were aware of your prejudice. Just about every school is going to look "big-time sports oriented (are you serious?), preprofessional and unintellectual" when compared to University of Chicago. If you really knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't use such convenient tool.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the following suggests Northwestern is no more "generally unintellectual" than most schools including Rice.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Integrated</a> Science Department An unintellectual and preprofessional school probably wouldn't have arguably the most rigorous and intense science program in the country.</p></li>
<li><p>Kaplan</a> Humanities Scholars Program wouldn't be popular at an unintellectual school.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago</a> Area Undergraduate Research Symposium (CAURS) Unintellectual and preprofessional students wouldn't have dominated the awards at the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium because very few of them would be interested in academic research. </p></li>
<li><p>An unintellectual school would only have top-ranked programs in preprofessional fields, not academic fields like English, chemistry, economics, history, and social sciences.</p></li>
<li><p>An unintellectual and preprofessional school wouldn't have the 3rd highest number of Fulbright award winners in the past 2 years because few students would be interested in graduate studies (behind Yale/Brown in 2007 and behind Harvard/Yale in 2008).</p></li>
<li><p>Last but not least, an unintellectual and preprofessional school wouldn't have 2 Rhodes, 1 Marshall, 1 Mitchell, 5 Gates, and 2 Churchill scholars in one single year. Four</a> Awarded Rhodes, Other Top Scholarships Five</a> Northwestern Students Awarded Gates Scholarships Two</a> Northwestern Students Awarded Churchill Scholarships</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Just thought of another one: an intellectual school wouldn't bother to have a freshman/sophomore program in MENU</a> Program: Math Department, WCAS, Northwestern University because too few students would be interested in anything theoretical and abstract.</p>