<p>So, now that all of the acceptance letters have rolled in, I have basically narrowed it down to two choices.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I have Notre Dame. It's a great school, with a beautiful campus, incredible spirit, and wonderful community. I love the football team, but that's probably the least important thing.</p>
<p>My other choice is the Integrated Science Program at Northwestern. Northwestern is also a terrific school, some would say better than ND. The ISP program is incredibly small (~30 students), and would allow me to either graduate in three years or graduate in four with a double or triple major. Unfortunately, Northwestern doesn't have quite the same community, and I don't really care for the Greek life.</p>
<p>Now, the one other factor is money. ND has given me around $10,000 more a year than Northwestern. So, with the knowledge that many on CC are utterly obsessed with prestige sitting in the back of my mind, I ask for advice.</p>
<p>ND set to open an 80 million dollar science building! State of the art facility.</p>
<p>You like football, school spirit, and don't like Greek atmosphere. You are getting more money at ND, but you could do a double or triple major at NW?</p>
<p>I spoke to mother/ father last night, who took their daughter to visit NW, they are doing the college tour, Richmond, William and Mary, and she was not impressed with NW. So off they go to just "walk the ND campus" just because they were out there.</p>
<p>D was stunned, dazzled, and it is now her dream school.
I heard similar story about my s's fellow classmate.............</p>
<p>I have not walked in your moccassins, but seems to be slam dunk from my POV .......... :)</p>
<p>Well, none of us know exactly how much is $10,000/yr to your family. In 4 years (assuming you'll be doing double major, not just ISP alone), that's $40,000 total. </p>
<p>In a way, the two are pretty different. ISP is unlike anything offered in most schools. It's also a very intensive/nerdy program and is gonna be a lot harder than whatever science major you'd pick at ND or any regular science major at NU itself. It's not for everyone for sure and I knew people who dropped out of that program. But then you can always just major in one of the sciences and NU has a top-10 program in chemistry and is one of the dozen research centers in the nation for nanotechnology.</p>
<p>Yes, I know that ISP will be difficult. I would hope that my senior courseload (six APs) has done something to prepare me for it, but I won't count on it.</p>
<p>I've seen the ND campus, and while it does have some advantages over Northwestern's, NU is still a beautiful place. Plus, South Bend? Middle of no where Indiana, depressed, run-down, basically yucky. Evanston is awesome and in close proximity to Chicago. Our football team isn't bad, either, and we DO have school spirit!!! </p>
<p>If money isn't an issue and you're the kind of person who goes to college to get the best education they can, I'd say choose NU.</p>
<p>NU would cost around $140,000. Do-able, but I need to leave money for my sister. I must say, though, that South Bend is not a bad place at all. People around here seem to think it's hickstown, when the metro area has around 300,000 people. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>I know you've probably already made your decision, but as a graduate from ISP I just wanted to weigh in on this topic. I don't really know anything about Notre Dame, so I can't compare the NU to it, but I do know that ISP is really different than almost any other college experience. Being in such an intense set of classes with such a small group of students provides an instant (albeit nerdy) community that I think is unparalleled. Also, being in ISP gives you a huge advantage when it comes to looking for research opportunities both during the school year and during the summer, and it also seems to provide and edge for a lot of competitive scholarships (Gates, Goldwater, etc.)</p>