<p>NU is more known for preprofessionalism than nerdiness, which applies more to its neighbor 20 miles south (U Chicago). It has more ranked departments than other two but it doesn't necessarily mean it's more "academically oriented". Unless a person went to undergrad at two or all three of them, I don't think he/she can say which one is more demanding. Even within NU, the difficulty varies significantly among different majors. ChemE is a lot harder than envE within the engineering school. The engineering school is more demanding than music or education & social policy schools. The average GPA also varies quite a bit among the six schools, ranging from 3.1/3.2 for engineering to 3.6/3.7 (no kidding) for music. As far as econ goes, it depends on which classes you take though in general it's never considered a walk in the park but it surely isn't as bad as ChemE/EE.</p>