<p>Carleton is a peer school to Northwestern. People that argue that one is "hands down" better than the other are simply delusional and self-absorbed with their own school/inferiority complex. Carleton is an EXCELLENT school, as is NU. That said, the difference of 18k a year over 4 years means you'll be in about 72k more debt if you go to NU. I personally do not think an NU degree is worth any more than one from Carleton, much less many thousands of dollars. Now if you really like Northwesten a lot, I would encourage you to attend it over Carleton as you'll be able to handle the debt and you only get to go to college once if you're an actuary. </p>
<p>One other significant point: it is always possible to transfer to Northwestern (20% transfer acceptance rate), but it is damn near impossible to transfer into Carleton (3% transfer acceptance rate).</p>
<p>^^ actually carleton's transfer acceptance rate is 11%
<a href="http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/ira/assets/CDS2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/ira/assets/CDS2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>while northwestern's is 18%
<a href="http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/commondata/2005-06/d.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/commondata/2005-06/d.htm</a></p>
<p>other than that i would agree that 3x the price is a compelling reason to choose carleton over northwestern if you are ambivalent between the environments of both schools</p>
<p>thx I was going off of older data I suppose.</p>
<p>quick,</p>
<p>Carleton is an excellent school. If your family isn't comfortable with financing NU education, don't force it. </p>
<p>That said, if you decide to come to NU, check out MMSS (or you may want to call NU now about the program. It's a great program for people interested in finance+math. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/alumni/AlumniNewsletter2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/alumni/AlumniNewsletter2006.pdf</a> Look under Alumni News; already there are two people you can probably contact especially if you are a MMSS student: Yi-Ling Lin (FSA) and Jeremy Johnson (FCAS). Since both are now Fellows, they should hold pretty senior positions (Wow..that Jeremy graduated in 2003 and achieved Fellowship 3 years after graduation. Most actuaries never get to that level, let alone achieve that in 3 years!!!).</p>