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<p>i was going to say this too but i figured i’d let someone else take it haha</p>
<p>and yes northwestern is in evanston but it’s easier to get to chicago than you think, they literally border each other. and culture permeates</p>
<p>My friends at Northwestern go to Chicago all the time on weekends. Its a short train/car ride. </p>
<p>and they actually have a REAL athletic program. Whether they’re good or not they’re still big 10.</p>
<p>I know people who mix up Northwestern and Northeastern… I do not think most educated people overseas would have heard of Northwestern</p>
<p>^look up his posts; this guy is turning nasty to Northwestern all of a sudden. Very interesting.</p>
<p>it’s good that you’re considering both despite yale’s “prestige”</p>
<p>he’s not considering NU. it’s just a game. we’ve been all wasting time trying to help him.</p>
<p>Hahaha. Maybe he got rejected by NU and has now moved on to bashing the school. I wonder…</p>
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lol, I didn’t even apply to NU, it didn’t seem all that great to me. I applied to johns hopkins, WUSTL, and georgetown instead :)</p>
<p>…wat about yale?</p>
<p>so did u just make this thread for nothing</p>
<p>^no, I also applied to yale (and other schools)… I just applied to those three schools around NU’s level</p>
<p>what about majors?</p>
<p>WUSTL = USNWR whore.</p>
<p>Ok, not to sound nasty, but it bugs me a little when students who have just visited Yale or Northwestern post their very strong opinions on the quality of academics and student life at the two schools. I’m a student at Yale, and one of my best friends is a sophomore at Northwestern. She’s having a great time, and she’s a teetotaler – apparently the party scene is pretty big, but it is absolutely possible to have a very active social life without drinking.</p>
<p>As for Yale…for once and for all, New Haven is actually not that bad. It is certainly no Chicago, but the crime rate isn’t higher than most cities of comparable size, and there is quite a bit to do in the 'Have. In fact, the upside to NOT living in a bustling metropolis is that much of New Haven “revolves” around Yale and the other colleges located in the city. Shops, activities, restaurants and bars are all geared toward college students, which means that hanging out in New Haven can be a lot of fun. Besides, Yale’s campus life is incredible – and when I need a break from the “ivory tower,” New York is only a little over an hour train ride away.</p>
<p>“Northwestern and Yale (I’ve visited both) are very much different schools. They are academically comparable, but Northwestern seemed, at least, to me, a much happier, more well-rounded, less WASP-y and less snooty place.”</p>
<p>Huh? I think your (obviously very short) visit gave you a very wrong impression of Yale. Yale is known for having extremely happy students…everyone I know here absolutely adores the school, its environment, the professors and the students. Plus, Yale is ranked every year by the Princeton review as one of the schools with the happiest students.
I’m not sure what you mean by “well-rounded”…Yale and Northwestern are both academically excellent, have great extracurricular opportunities, and great social lives…if you weren’t invited to an on-campus party at Yale on a Friday or Saturday night you probably missed out on a lot of the social scene. Yale’s greek life is not huge, and while students absolutely go out and “have fun” on weekends, most parties are not huge blowouts at the frat houses.</p>
<p>Yale is WASP-y? That could be one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while…my class at Yale is made up of 40% ethnic minorities, and on top of that about 25% Jewish, and 15% international students…that doesn’t leave a lot of room for WASPs. Northwestern’s diversity is about the same! </p>
<p>Yale is also not very snooty and not at all cutthroat. I have no facts to back this statement up, but trust me, it’s true…people here certainly care about their grades, but there’s not a sense of elitism or competition. </p>
<p>Please don’t let the remnants of pre-1970s Yale that colour stereotypes or some high school student’s profound judgments after a one-day visit to each school affect your impression of either…obviously I’m biased toward Yale, but either school could be amazing, depending on what you’re looking for!</p>
<p>i got to Yale as well and can confirm everything that mochamaven said.</p>
<p>when i turned down northwestern, i was very annoyed by their countless surveys about why i rejected them. i filled out one and they then sent me two more! THEN, my alumni interviewer called me to ask me the reasons for choosing another school. it was all very irritating and gave me the impression that northwestern admissions is very insecure.</p>
<p>huh? how is that insecure anyway? first of all, nu admission tends to be a bit disorganized sometime. for example, numerous people on here said they submitted everything but the computer showed their applications were incomplete. maybe your repsonse got lost so they resent? or they just resent without knowing you’ve already sent it? i also don’t get how getting feedback = insecure. couple years ago, stanford published an analysis on who the major competitors were and whom they lost most cross-admits to. is doing such analysis = insecure? i am sorry that it was “very” irritating to you but just like mochamaven said, people post strong opinions based on very little.</p>
<p>Couple things:</p>
<p>Thanks to the Yale posters for making this a more well balanced thread (i.e. actually useful) :)</p>
<p>Re: NU’s admissions being insecure: they are. A professors once said to me over lunch: “Northwestern’s problem is that we hover near the top, but when Harvard offers one of our faculty a job, they will always leave.” (roughly). NU suffers from a perceived inferiority/ slight lack of cache compared to its peers, so it can’t quite compete at the same level because of that. Its an unfortunate cycle they’re trying to break, and so when top students turn them down, they want to know why.</p>
<p>I would much rather go to Yale than Northwestern, for every possible reason</p>
<p>arbiter213, i disagree. what you said is true for any school that’s a notch below harvard/yale, not just northwestern. </p>
<p>everyone knows why a cross-admit would pick yale or harvard. there’s no mystery there. but nu wouldn’t know rd31 got into yale if they didn’t ask, would they? as far as nu is concerned, they want to see who the real rivals are and also what they can do to improve their yield against those competitors. on the other hand, no matter what nu does, they can’t match harvard/yale. so they aren’t really focusing on HY anyway. every college is looking to get better in the game and nu is no special.</p>
<p>As someone who turned down Yale for Northwestern and has great fondness for both schools I’ll offer my 2 cents.</p>
<p>Yale is not snooty, cutthroat or WASPy. It is certainly no laid back place, but welcome to the reality of most top tier competitive American student mindsets. There is a great social life to be found at both schools that although different, is very inclusive of all types - options abound. I will argue with mochamaven about New Haven. The town’s come a long way in the last decade or so. But it had a long way to climb from the pit it occupied prior to this. Yale’s perimeter is now bounded by fun, interesting restaurants and retail. There is an identifiable downtown, though small, and safety is much improved. But you hang out, especially at night, with the understanding that all of 2 blocks away from the Thai place you love a drug deal may be going down. You know where not to venture, and that is usually not too far from where you are. With all going on on campus, this is not much of a problem, but New Haven, having come far, still has far to go. Evanston/Chicago still offer vastly better opportunities. Not so the two schools on campus action (comparable).</p>
<p>Academically, Northwestern offers selective draws that probably one-up Yale in engineering, journalism, HPME (Honors Program Medical Education), communications, music (undergrad, remember), chemistry, nanotechnology, education, dance, etc. In the basic social sciences and humanities, Yale remains hard to beat. Overall academics are incredible at Yale. My 2 cents.</p>
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<p>Uhm - I went to Chicago pretty much every weekend.</p>
<p>As for “inferiority” - the non-HYP Ivies, Duke, UChicago, etc. all have an “inferiority complex”.</p>