Northwestern Integrated Science Program (ISP)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
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<p>i’ve looked into several national fellowships and know they entail an internal competition in addition to the external one. interviews, 4+ recommendation letters, extensive essays. definitely a lot of work. the type of students drawn to an institution like Northwestern known for its laidbackness are probably less likely to try out for such fellowships if they have a lot of other things on their plate and prefer to use their downtime for relaxation.</p>

<p>

your misinterpreted my statement. i’m saying winning is a reflection of BOTH the student AND the institution (students’ investment in the application process AND the fellowship office’s guidance).</p>

<p>as far as the numbers being a “statistical artifact,” I doubt many of us even care. I myself don’t even know what our trend has been over the years and am baffled that you care so much. </p>

<p>i love how UChicago people monitor the Northwestern threads like crazy and comment on every little thing haha.</p>

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<p>

newsmassdad,
11 Gates Cambridge winners between 2006 and 2009, 4th highest #Fulbrights not just this year but the year before, 10 Marshall scholars between 2000 and 2009, and 10 Goldwater scholars between 2006 and 2009. They look like more than “one (data) point” to me.</p>

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<p>Sam Lee:</p>

<p>3 Rhodes winners between 1998 and 2009 (the range of my data.)</p>

<p>Even UVA and Georgetown had 4 in the same time period. Brown had 12, U Chi and Duke 15, Harvard 26 in the same time period.</p>

<p>Goldwaters? If 2006 to 2009 means four years, that’s 2.5 per year. An OK but not spectacular showing. </p>

<p>Looks to me like Northwestern started to invest in this area in recent years. Did they hire a new National Scholarships advisor? That would be consistent with some of your theories. </p>

<p>I have no beef with Northwestern other than the fact that my wife went there. (just joking :slight_smile: ). It is an excellent place. But let’s keep the boosterism in perspective, please. </p>

<p>BTW, brebeuff, where did you get that screen name? I recognize the name without the second “f”…</p>

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<p>newmassdad,</p>

<p>I don’t believe there’s a long list of schools that have 3 or more (capped at 4) Goldwaters per year. I think 2.5 is pretty good; it’s certainly not the best but I would put it better than “ok”. Perhaps it’s more difficult to please you.</p>

<p>The director has been there for years. But she was pretty much the only one (or + 1 staff; I don’t remember) in the office not long ago. They had added some staff to help her.</p>

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<p>Newmassdad,</p>

<p>It’s highly doubtful that NU students have been less intelligent or less accomplished if its numbers lagged at any point in the past. Its student body has historically been very strong by standard academic measures (stronger than, say, Chicago). </p>

<p>Yep, that’s what the sn is in reference to.</p>

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<p>brebeuff,</p>

<p>So you’re from Indy?</p>

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<p>yep, why?</p>

<p>10 chars</p>

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<p>Let me chime in to the original question (ISP vs. traditional science-oriented program such as Caltech, the other institute of technology out east, and etc.) Sorry for a lengthy post.</p>

<p>–> From my understanding, the ISP program is very comparable. In fact, anywhere you go for top schools is comparable. (Most) top research professors don’t necessarily have the ability to teach. So if you want to learn science in undergrad, I found that it makes little difference whether the professor is a Nobel prize winner or not (but if he/she has a teaching award–that may make a difference.) I personally hate classes with world class professors who all they do is talk about their research and how the class materials are related to their works.</p>

<p>Graduate school of course is an entirely different story.</p>

<p>Ok that does not help, so let me try to count what I think are the biggest differences between ISP and other programs that I can think of are:
(1) Smaller class size (ISP average is like < 20? Caltech is definitely close to this but not MIT, on average)
(2) Broader variety of classes offered at NU. NU has like gazillions of departments, so taking classes in ancient China history is probably possible there. This is probably appealing to people who are not 100% sure they want to be scientist, or want to be a part of a decent musical show during their undergraduate (before heading off in the eternal land of science.) If you are dead set on science and care for nothing else, this point does not apply to you.
(3) I also personally found that undergraduate research at NU is more meaningful than (some) other top research schools because NU is a rather undergraduate-centric school. Other schools, the PIs are more concerned about the graduate students; hence you are just a lab worker and don’t get much personal attention, which is crucial in the early stage of learning how to do research. But this is just my experience, yours may be different.
(4) While NU has a more meaningful undergraduate research, Caltech, on average, has more famous faculty members, whom if you manage to get a smile on their face, will get you into any graduate school you wish. Then again, not that by going to NU will put you at any disadvantage, especially if you work for like Chad Mirkin, but on average, Caltech faculty letters will probably catch more attention of the graduate admission in general.
(5) If you ever travel to Asia, Caltech/MIT carries more significant bragging right than NU. I believe this also applies to Boston, where NU stands for Northeastern :-)</p>

<p>FYI, the majority of ISP dropouts is neither stupid nor failed people. They are in the (2) category, whether they rather focus on one discipline, or found something else more meaningful to life, than being forced to take a bunch of interdisciplinary science classes.</p>

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<p>newmassdad,</p>

<p>Your point is good. NU has only recently gained more attention as a powerhouse for producing scholars. But I have to disagree with your other 2 points. First, it is only the present that counts. I don’t care much about US News Ranking but I hate when people go bashing at UC for being “lower” 5 years ago. I used to think Windows was better than Mac, you know :-)</p>

<p>Second point, the # of awards, in my opinion, is a representation of the strength of the school fellowship program. Some schools with many many many winners start preparing their top students by their 2nd year. Once in a while, you of course get self-motivated student who is assertive enough to do everything on their own like you said. But I don’t think this is the majority. My personal experience coming out of a fellowship program is (1) everyone has a story (2) fellowship program will train you to present it well.</p>

<p>But on this point, I believe we can argue forever. If you count an effort a student takes to show up at a fellowship office a “reflection of his/her character”, I already lost to your argument that fellowship winning is about a student, not a fellowship program :-D</p>

<p>Sam Lee, if you would so kindly look up the Goldwater data for all the top schools for this old man, I am sure 2.5 is pretty darn good, if not above average.</p>

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<p>catchtheball,</p>

<p>You youngsters (:)) need to figure out how to use the internet, not rely on someone else like Sam Lee.</p>

<p>You can find the Goldwater data for the past year here: <a href=“http://www.act.org/goldwater/pdfdoc/2009scholars.pdf[/url]”>http://www.act.org/goldwater/pdfdoc/2009scholars.pdf&lt;/a&gt; I’ll leave it to you to do the counting, but give you a hint: use the search function…</p>

<p>You can find historic data here: [Four</a> K-State students win 2006 Goldwater Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/Goldwater32206.html]Four”>http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/Goldwater32206.html) but to make it easier for you internet challenged types (I guess age has its advantages - we “old” guys know how to use the internet…) I’ll post the relevant numbers:</p>

<p>Goldwater Scholars
Top 20 of the 2,000 four-year colleges in America:
March 2006</p>

<ol>
<li>Princeton University 64</li>
<li>Harvard University 60</li>
<li>Duke University 58</li>
<li>K-STATE* 57</li>
<li>University of Chicago 53</li>
<li>Penn State University* 52</li>
<li>University of Illinois-Urbana* 51</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 51</li>
<li>Stanford 49</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 46</li>
<li>University of Virginia* 45</li>
<li>Washington University (St. Louis) 45</li>
<li>Montana State University* 45</li>
<li>Cornell University 43</li>
<li>University of Michigan* 43</li>
<li>Brown 43</li>
<li>Northwestern University 41</li>
<li>University of Tulsa 41</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 41</li>
<li>University of Kansas* 41
Yale 41</li>
</ol>

<p>Northwestern did barely make the list. Not bad.</p>

<p>But I can only repeat that one year (one data point) does not make a trend.</p>

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<p>Didn’t know Kansas State is a much stronger science powerhouse than MIT /sarcasm/</p>

<p>This list is clearly not reflective of the university’s strength in the sciences if MIT barely squeaked into the top 20</p>

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<p>Newmassdad, if UChicago people are as obsessed about these fellowships as you, then no wonder more of you are winning them.</p>

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<p>brebeuff, </p>

<p>Who is obsessed? I have never made a post about how great they are. It is actually one of your Northwestern colleagues who made such a claim.</p>

<p>You must be confusing various posters. </p>

<p>and what is this “Chicago” business about? You keep raising this issue? Why? No one but you seems to be making any comparison. why so defensive?</p>

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<p>Newmassdad, your post history has shown you take great interest in these fellowships, and your tracking of various figures confirms that.</p>

<p>Of course, you will not bring up UChicago explicitly as it will make it painfully obvious that that was the comparison you were trying to make. However, you monitor the Northwestern board like no other and it’s clear what your business is. The fact that you make the trek here time and again and make these little comments show you are the defensive one. </p>

<p>What is the significance of having a certain # of Goldwater winners anyway?</p>

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<p>Newmassdad – absolutely, one point makes no difference, but past 4-5 years is definitely relevant, would not you agree? Of course, if we take it to the extreme, 300 years ago, Yale was the worst college in the US (since there were just two!!) So I would not use the old data to make a quick judgment about anything.</p>

<p>Now on to the hard fact, I think the Kansas table is published in 2006. The number of Princeton winner is 64, which would suggest the data is a compilation of at least 16 years (assuming Princeton has 4 winners every year for nearly two decades straight, which is probably not true, and thus the actual age of the data is probably 20 years old more likely.) I therefore would not use this table to make an argument that NU # of winner for this year is a statistical artifact. So to make it relevant to your argument, which is that NU has been poor in the national fellowship performance, without waiting for Sam, I used your website to look up the # of winners in the past 4 years of NU, Caltech, MIT (since we talked about these 3 in the thread), Chicago (since it is involved in the thread somehow), and Harvard (as a reference for excellence, no pun intended.)</p>

<p>2009, NU 3, Caltech 4, MIT 4, Chicago 2, Harvard 2
2008, NU 3, Caltech 3, MIT 3, Chicago 2, Harvard 3
2007, NU 3, Caltech 1, MIT 2, Chicago 4, Harvard 4
2006, NU 1, Caltech 2, MIT 3, Chicago 3, Harvard 2</p>

<p>Total NU 10, Caltech 10, MIT 12, Chicago 11, Harvard 11 – I don’t think NU “barely made” the list per your earlier comment. Caltech for sure would not agree :-P</p>

<p>Anyway, I agree with your other points that NU just has gotten better in the past few years. But just because the number may have been sub-par in the early days (may be the money went to football team for Rose Bowl instead of fellowship), I would not rush to the conclusion so easily.</p>

<p>FYI, I think if my source is correct, about 70-80% of Goldwater at NU is ISP</p>

<p>brebeuff – I have no idea why # of Goldwater matters. I am sort of playing devil’s advocate ha ha. We can start a new thread on statistical data :-)</p>

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<p>newmassdad,
is it really appropriate to tell someone that they need therapy? i think that comment was uncalled for.</p>

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<p>Hey does anyone know what the word limits are supposed to be for the ISP app? Especially the “interest in science and maths” and “why ISP” questions.</p>

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<p>I got an email saying I should apply. I wanna do biomedical engineering and then go to med school. Is it worth it for me?</p>

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<p>My son has filled out his NW ISP application. I am pretty sure that he will get in before his freshman year. Should he visit this spring?</p>

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<p>My son was accepted to Weinberg. Does anybody know when ISP decisions are expected? I know the site says April 1st, but then again regular decisions were supposed to come out “early April.”</p>