Northwestern vs. Carleton

College Search & Selection
1

I’m currently deciding between attending the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern and Carleton College. As an introverted, slightly quirky intellectual type, I’ve always envisioned myself at a small liberal arts school. Small classes and a tight-knit community appeal to me greatly. I see myself double-majoring in political science and economics. For these reasons, I feel like I’m leaning toward Carleton.

At the same time, Medill seems to offer unparalleled opportunities for aspiring journalists, and it would be easy to double major. Northwestern also seems to be a bit more practical and would jumpstart my career with amazing alumni connections. Am I crazy to turn down Medill—arguably the best journalism school in the country—because I think I would like the social vibe at Carleton more?

2

As far as I understand, Medill is a separate unit at NW of about 1,000 students, so it may still have the smaller classes and the tight-knit community. On the other hand, what sort of journalism are you envisioning for yourself? While quirky may work, being introverted may be a bigger problem in the field.

3

This is a choice a lot of kids end up having (there is s lot of crossover in the applicant pools of these two schools). NW tends to have a more pre-professional vibe. Carleton will make you a deeper thinker. Carleton sounds like a better fit for your personality, But you probably will need to do more work on your own to find internship opportunities, for example. I’d say if you are comfortable with that (and I believe the Carleton career center can help), you’d be fine at Carleton.

One note, I personally believe the alumni network concept is overrated in college selection. I wouldn’t give it big weight.

4

@intparent: “One note, I personally believe the alumni network concept is overrated in college selection.”

Depends on the field.

5

I just think that the idea that alums give a helpful hand up to students they never met is a bit of a crock. They might be willing to do informational interviews or something, but unless they know you personally it isn’t likely to help. I agree that sometimes contacts from your immediate undergrad cohort can be helpful in the long run, but that is kind of hit or miss. I’m not sure that is a reason to pick a school.

6

@intparent, the help, yes, tends to come from the people who went to school around the time you did. Friends more so than others.

7

@intparent: Until November/December, I would have agreed with your statement that “the alumni network concept in college selection is overrated.” I wouldn’t want a child of ours selecting an institution based upon that. Everyone needs to visit the campus of serious contenders and to drill down on personal fit. Even spend a half-hour just sitting quietly on an outdoors bench and watch the cast of characters pass by. It might help inform a decision.

That said, alumni contacts proved surprisingly helpful to our Carleton junior during that 6-week winter break of theirs. By personally emailing Carleton alums – all of whom graduated between 40 and 19 years ago – she organized a mini-clinical rotation of her own. She followed around 13 Minneapolis/St. Paul physicians as they went about their day (or days) and saw their patients. She even had the opportunity to stand-in on some surgery at one hospital. From observing primary-care to sub-specialties, she – on her own initiative – created her own mini-residency of sorts, all from the keyboard of her laptop but with an alumni list made available to her. Dinner and an overnight at one alum/physician’s house was another highlight of the experience.

So, yes, these Carleton alums were happy to share their work lives and their time with our daughter. But first she took the time to ask.

8

In our case, alumni connections have resulted in getting immediate interviews for premier jobs in major US cities such as DC, NYC, & some West Coast cities. (Basically, in whichever city was targeted.)

I cannot emphasize enough how important the alumni relationship is in the real world when seeking a job.

9

OP: Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism is the easy answer with respect to career prospects, and double majoring at NU is quite easy, but if you are not ready for a university environment, then Carleton College is a solid option.

10

“If you are not ready for a university environment” is a snotty dismissal of the benefits of the LAC. I’d say Carleton is probably the overall higher quality education, but NW does have some career benefits in this situation if the OP is 100% certain of their career path. Which, honestly, most students aren’t. And I definitely think the OP could pursue the same career from either school.

Also, I have degrees from 2 universities with the largest alumni networks in the US. I work in a field where connections are vital and I’m always hunting for new business. I’ve really never been able to parlay the school connections into anything substantial in spite of attempts. Now people I personally know, yes. But stranger alums? Nope. Also, I think a small school like Carleton actually has a tighter alum network that is more willing to help.

11

OP described himself as “an introverted, slightly quirky intellectual type” who wants a “tight knit community”.

P.S. Career wise NU’s Medill School combined with an econ major through Weinberg would be a very powerful combination. But, again, if not ready for a university environment, then Carleton College is a very solid option.

12

Actually OP is a girl! Thanks everyone for the advice.

13

Can’t let it go. People who attend LACs aren’t necessarily “not ready for a university environment”, @Publisher. They might like smaller class sizes, a more intellectual vs pre-professional vibe, and more direct interactions with faculty from day 1. I went to U Michigan, and I steered my kids to LACs for precisely those reasons.

14

For a long time, journalism as a college major probably wasn’t a thing. It would have been informed by a deep education, put practiced as an EC or through internships. If you go to Carleton, you can become a journalist in the Chareles Webb (Our Town) tradition.

15

Can’t comment on NW but I personally know someone who is now a successful journalist who felt the Carleton alum network helped tremendously both with internships and job opportunities. Good luck. A nice problem to have.

16

You sound much like me when I in high school. I initially considered small schools like Swat and Haverford but decided against them for several reasons, particularly because the opinions from current students on the LGB dating scenes on campus were almost uniformly negative. Ultimately I settled on a school somewhat smaller than Northwestern and similar to it in many respects. I wound up loving it, and it challenged and shaped me in ways that I never expected. College sometimes took me out of my comfort zone, which wasn’t at all a bad thing.

I think there’s no question that Carleton may be a great fit for you. On the other hand, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that being an “introverted, slightly quirky intellectual type” means you can’t be happy at Northwestern either.

There is an unfortunate tendency on CC to reduce each college to a caricature, greatly magnifying small differences between the top universities and liberal arts colleges. You should do your homework carefully to avoid falling into this. In particular, you need to visit each school if you haven’t yet, including an overnight stay if possible.

17

So, you have a choice between a top-quality pre-professional program, and a top-quality liberal arts program. Spinning this choice as a question of “readiness” makes it sound as if laying a broader liberal arts foundation were somehow a remedial option.

IMHO, your apparent gut preference for a more intimate community that’s collectively pursuing more of a “Renaissance person” style undergraduate education is not primarily about not being ready for the more pre-professional university setting. It’s about recognizing that while the profession of journalism will be there (well, there are some who question that, but dystopian projections are beyond the scope of this thread, lol), and a specific education in that field can be pursued at the graduate level, the offer to spend four years in an undergraduate-focused liberal arts setting will not come again. Not wanting to pass that up is not a matter of “readiness,” at least not entirely.

What could be construed as a matter of readiness is the aspect of narrowing down your education to a pre-professional one in a specialty area. Indeed, many 18-year-olds are not “ready” to constrain their options so quickly. Some young people are clear on a professional path and are ready to be done with broader academic exploration, and that is fine. Others want or need to go wider and deeper in their academic background, either in order to get clarity about their chosen path, or just in order to set that path in a broader intellectual perspective. That’s fine too.

Financials also come into play. If you’re under significant financial pressure and would have difficulty affording a graduate program in journalism after Carleton, then there could be a “now or never” aspect to what Northwestern is offering you, as well. A four-year liberal arts education is to some extent a luxury - you’d be spending your time and money to take a less direct path to a career. If both choices are financially feasible, then it’s about what you value - it’s quite possible to be “ready” for one thing and still to place higher priority on another.

I’m not specifically familiar with how much elective time you’d have, in the NU journalism program. Perhaps there is time built in to cover a lot of liberal arts bases. (For my daughter, the choice between a LAC and a pre-professional university program was more stark - the free electives could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. Ultimately that felt too narrow, too soon. Which… I guess “not being ready” is one way to look at that. But you know… life and education don’t always need to be a race.) No matter how much you value liberal arts breadth, though, you will still be in a far more preprofessionally-oriented peer group at Northwestern, vs. a more “life of the mind”-oriented peer group at Carleton. (Of course there will be overlap, and both values are represented at both schools - I’m just talking about which mindset is more strongly represented.)

I know several Carleton students who are involved in journalism pursuits, including both the student newspaper and outside internships. They’ve had great experiences and no shortage of opportunities, but one could not equate those experiences to what you’d get in full-blown journalism program like Medill. There’s definitely going to be a “road not taken” here, however you slice it. Ask yourself which opportunity you are more willing to give up. And, looking at what you’re giving up with each option, also ask yourself how you could best reclaim the aspects you most value in the path you’d be foregoing. Go to Carleton, get involved in student journalism, pursue internships, summer intensives, grad program…? Go to Northwestern and be deliberate about seeking out LAC-like experiences, whether through a double-major, study abroad, summer programs, residential communities…? You can tilt either experience toward the other, and meet the less-optimized needs in other ways, but the fundamental character of the experiences will still be distinct. Give some thought to how you could best cover the bases that matter to you, at each school, and then assess what would still be missing from each. Congratulations on having two enviable options - it’s a tough call but hopefully you can find clarity about which is right for you.

18

All Medill students are required to do so. In fact, it has more stringent curriculum requirements than many liberal arts colleges.

This not like choosing between physics at Grinnell and engineering at South Dakota School of Mines – one does not have to choose between a “pre-professional” and “liberal arts” education at Northwestern.

Medill requirements:

[list][li]14-18 units in Journalism (8 units in core classes, 4 in residency classes, 2-6 in electives)[/li]
[li]12 units in the arts & sciences (2 social sciences, 2 history, 1 philosophy/religion, 2 arts, 1 econ/business, 4 sciences)[/li]
[li]5 units in a concentration in Weinberg (e.g. bio, anthro, econ)[/li]
[li]10-14 units in a non-Medill college[/li]
[li]3 units in a foreign language[/li]
[*]2 units from the approved list of "Diverse Cultures and Social Inequalities"courses

19

@warblersrule : Not sure if you realize that Northwestern is on the quarter system; accordingly, the units referred to in your post are quarter units, not semester units.

Agree that to a certain extent one can find an LAC type environment at Northwestern while enjoying the benefits & resources of a national university. Probably easiest to do so in SESP & Medill & the music school. Double or triple majoring would normally be done with a major or majors in Weinberg.

While OP would enjoy small classes at Northwestern, he may not find the tight knit community he has in mind as all undergraduate schools at Northwestern are on a sizable campus with approximately 8,100 other undergraduates & thousands of graduate students. Compared to 2,050 student Carleton College which is in a small community, tight knit seems to be a more apt description for Carleton–especially in OP’s view.

Based on OP’s post starting this thread, he does not seem ready for a university setting and, most importantly, OP feels the same as his concerns are leading him to the LAC rather than the national university despite the acknowledged status of Medill.

20

@kiddie23: Do you think that you are ready for a university setting ?