I would be surprised if NU’s aid matches Amherst’s in this case, but it may be possible. While I do feel NU will have some advantages in terms of cognitive research – you may also find some interesting research connections housed within Northwestern’s School of Communications, for example – I would think that Amherst’s atmosphere will offer a more supportive, collegial experience overall. If it hasn’t been mentioned, the five-college system, and having UMass nearby can supplement the experience, as well as provide certain classes or opportunities that Amherst may not have directly on hand. What country are you coming from?
“While I do feel NU will have some advantages in terms of cognitive research”
Perhaps. The NU professors will have grad students helping with the overwhelming majority of their research. The Amherst professors have no grad students, so they have to use undergrads exclusively.
@anhydrite Hello! I’m actually not an international student. I am from California 
Ah, OK. Your comment in the original post, “and one in America!” threw me off. Have you received your aid packages yet?
There are some – not me, incidentally – who would consider California a form of a different country.
Sorry about that. My entire family lives in another country, so that’s what I meant! Still haven’t received Amherst FA package.
Oh, that’s interesting. o.o Why is that?
@anhydrite
As a current student, I will say that we don’t go into the city nearly as often as a prospective student might believe, but we definitely have fun. Northwestern is a work hard-play hard school, but that by no means means that we’re too busy to have fun and socialize. It’s all about time management.
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I reckon that reputation of “another country” is more of a historical perception of California, vis-a-vis other states and mindsets, mainly in the latter half of the twentieth century. It was based upon a number of lifestyle choices, and perhaps freedom of expression, that California represented – from counter-cultural Berkeley communities, to some of the lifestyles surrounding Los Angeles, out into the desert, and also reflected in certain pockets of film and mass media. Notions ranging from spirituality, to architecture, to food choices, to environment … I would also gather that if one hails from California, it may be more difficult to recognize that California was at one time (and may be still in some ways) a pioneer. There has been some scholarship on this, but some of the reputation is more of a pop cultural phenomenon. I remember, for example, reading Tom Wolfe’s essays chronicling surfer culture, etc. in the '60s, in his “The Pump House Gang,” as one of many literary examples.
NU is definitely an academically serious school. Then again, so is Amherst.
As for fin aid, a lot would depend on your income level, etc. If you hang around CC long enough, you may realize that certain terms are more marketing tools (so a “meets full need” school may actually cost more than a school that doesn’t say it meets full need to a particular individual).
I think the elephant-in-the-room remains small school-rural location vs mid sized university-suburban/urban dichotomy - no one on this thread can resolve that for you.
I’m a fan of LACs, but Amherst is not a science-strong LAC. As far as neuroscience, and for that matter all sciences are concerned, there is little question of NUs significant advantage.
Chicago poses a wide variable for students. Most make use of the city pretty extensively as upperclassman, much more rarely in their 1st two years. But very large %s are now doing 1-2 term for-credit internships downtown. It’s proven a very popular way to gain experience in a potential future career and demonstrate real world work experience when recruiters come to call. Many of these are opportunities with top firms available thanks to Chicago’s size and Northwestern’s connections/alumni base. Many would be out of reach for summer internships, competitiveness being what it is. A big plus for the school.
http://www.internships.northwestern.edu/program/process.html
Bala said: “I’m a fan of LACs, but Amherst is not a science-strong LAC. As far as neuroscience, and for that matter all sciences are concerned, there is little question of NUs significant advantage.”
Without intending to slight Northwestern in any way, I’m not sure that’s accurate. I posted this in a different thread, but it fits here as well.
"[Northwestern] is a great college,and would be a great choice. I just thought I would clarify something from the last post. Amherst actually was the first college in America to have a neuroscience major, and it is a particular area of program strength there. This article ranks it as the best undergrad neuroscience program in the nation.
http://study.com/articles/Best_Neuroscience_Undergraduate_Programs_List_of_Top_Schools.html
Both of them are great choices, and there are plenty of reasons to choose one over another. Just not that one."
Amherst’s program is smaller than NU’s, of course, and the course offerings will be more limited. But for an undergraduate education, it’s very strong in this area.
The entire neuroscience department at Amherst consists of 5 professors, 2 on leave currently, only 3 on campus (a common problem when studying a narrow field at a small school).
https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/neuroscience/faculty
Northwestern has 16 dedicated neuroscience faculty currently in Evanston, more than 100 at Feinberg downtown.
http://nuin.northwestern.edu/members-2/?upage=1
http://www.neurobiology.northwestern.edu/people/core-faculty/
The opportunities for research in the field are endless at Northwestern. Yes, there is a “significant advantage” studying at an institution with this sort of depth and breadth. Quoting a list from “study.com” to argue otherwise is a bit less than compelling.
ThankYouforHelp,
That article is silly. All it did seemed to be judging schools by surfing schools’ websites. At the first glance, Amherst website looks sharp. After all, not many schools have a separate neuroscience major. But once you dig just a little deeper, the major is nothing more than taking courses from OTHER departments. All the professors (and there aren’t that many) are from other departments. There are less than 4 courses with the “neuro-science” course code.
speaking of neuroscience:
http://dailynorthwestern.com/2015/04/12/campus/northwestern-adds-neuroscience-major-for-next-fall/
You are missing the point. I was not criticizing Northwestern in any way, and I was fully acknowledging that Northwestern’s program is larger. But this is a question about undergraduate education, not grad school. Amherst is tiny and its class offerings are limited, but those limited offerings are strong, and those are the classes that undergraduates actually take to get their grounding in this interdisciplinary field. Neuroscience is a small and elite program at Amherst, you have to apply specially to get in to it, and the students who do it all get the opportunity to do original research because there are no grad students to do that research.
Northwestern is a great university, doing cutting edge research. However, the argument that Northwestern automatically has a significant advantage FOR AN UNDERGRADUATE due to a larger program would apply equally to, say Ohio State or the University of Minnesota or University of Florida, all of which have huge programs.
Anyhow, I only interjected myself because Bala said that Amherst was not a science strong LAC. That’s not really true, unless you discount entirely the idea that a LAC can be good at, well, anything.
I’d just like to point out, in support of @ThankYouforHelp, that Amherst ranks very high in terms of the percentage of its graduates that receive a PHD in science or technology fields, just not as high as it does in the humanities fields.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/
Not that it means anything for professional (ie, MD) degrees.
^Well, people that choose LACs are the very types that would want to go to grad schools anyway. That’s why the absence of pre-professional programs and name recognition don’t stop them from choosing LACs at the first place. The LACs are gonna rank high in any field for this kind of stats.
Why don’t we look at this list of NSF fellowship awardees:
https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList
Among the LACs, Amherst is not as well represented as its peers or ones considered a notch below. It’s not a surprise to me because I considered LACs before and intended to major in natural sciences. It’s pretty cool to see the only two LACs I applied - Carleton and Oberlin are well represented.
Among the private universities, Northwestern is pretty well represented both as an undergrad institution (where the recipients went) and “current” institution (where the recipients currently pursue their graduate studies).
Oberlin and Amherst undergrads go on to get phds in science and tech fields at about the same rate (7.5%). Carleton is right up there with Reed and Swarthmore at 12.5%. Of course, none of them come close to caltech (35%) and Harvey Mudd (24%)!
Northwestern is a large research institution, and many of it’s undergrads go on to get phds. But percentage-wise, it’s not in the top 50.
I just don’t think you can say that Amherst is weak in science.
All these stats are for those undergrads who go straight to graduate schools for their Phds or whatever; there might be quite a few who will enter the workforce for sometime and then move on to graduate schools. Those numbers will never get reflected though.
No, they are the baccalaureate origins of phds received over some period divided by everybody who graduated from the entire university (or college) for some period prior, irrespective of their major or career interest (or ability).
Not many humanities majors or future lawyers attending Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd, I’m guessing…
I wonder if Oberlin’s conservatory students are backed out from its denominator. My guess is no. No college of my multi-college alma mater is backed out from its denominator, regardless of how unlikely it may be for some of those college’s graduates to ever earn science phDs.
Probably not many students in Northwestern’s colleges of Journalism, Education, Communications, or Music are high contenders for science Phds either. Yet all these irrelevant students are probably shoved into Northwestern’s denominator. To give you a feeling for how insightful those statistics can be.
Plus Northwestern gets a lot of on-campus recruiting.
What might be interesting to see is a denominator consisting of the students who were academically capable of getting a science PhD, actually wanted one, and prepared for same.
You don’t have that.
FWIW my D2 went to a different LAC that happened to make some noise about its prowess in neuroscience. Someone came on CC, some years ago, asking to compare it Northwestern in that field, so I looked. It turned out that it was, or seemed to me, all smoke & mirrors. Yes they had students doing research, but they had like no courses! Whereas Northwestern had lots of courses. There was no comparison.
So one suggestion would be look at the registrar’s list of courses actually given over the last two semesters at each institution and compare. It’s a lot easier to learn something if they actually teach it there.