<p>There’s no definitive answer that anyone other than yourself can provide in this situation. As other posters have said, you should visit and ignore the prestige factor when you do, mainly asking yourself where you feel more comfortable. Just look around at the students and although you can’t judge an individual without having a conversation with them, if you see enough people you can get a pretty good idea of common personality traits and interests of kids at NU. Try to strike up a conversation with a few student when you’re here, and I’m sure most of them here would be happy to meet you and share their opinions–we do have that midwestern friendliness here. </p>
<p>That being said, there are many things you won’t be able to gauge from just visiting, so I’ll give you a couple of my observations during my time here. As somebody else mentioned, there is an unbelievable range of academic interests and therefore personalities on campus. Yale will have this as well, but at Northwestern people with less mainstream academic interests will be better represented. This has its pros and cons. On the plus side, since college is the perfect time to “find yourself” and explore your interests to mold yourself into the adult you want to be, at Northwestern you’ll be presented with all different types of people and scenes to involve yourself in. On the down side, once students find their group here, which usually happens during freshman year, they tend to stick together. NU gets this reputation for being cliquey; in reality, if you’re outgoing and you put yourself out there, you’ll be able to make friends after freshman year. It’s really a matter of people feeling satisfied with the group of people they meet in the early parts of college and not having the desire to look elsewhere for friends, so I definitely wouldn’t say it’s cliquey in the way that high school is cliquey. Athletes, for example, have a tendency to only hang out with athletes, which is understandable since they have similar interests. If you want to meet people outside of that circle, you can; just don’t expect people trying to befriend you after freshman year. I’m not sure if Yale is like this, but I think a lot of people would agree that Northwestern is. Just something to consider. In terms of social life, it’s the same kind of thing; you’ll have the option to do anything, whether it’s pretending you’re at a state school and going to bars and frats every night or discussing Sartre on a Friday night with a couple friends. Granted, I would say Northwestern kids have pretty eclectic interests so with a lot of people, you could find yourself doing both these things. </p>
<p>Another thing I want to point out that a lot of prospective students don’t fully acknowledge is that it gets REALLY ****ing cold here during the winter. Trust me. You’ll have to take into account how much the cold bothers you. If you’re looking for that iconic college brochure scene of students studying in the quad, you may only get it for 2 months of the school year. </p>
<p>Another thing: if you want to major in something more math/science oriented like econ, bio, engineering, etc, expect large lectures for the first two years. You’ll definitely have to make the effort to reach out to the professors if you want help. Usually they’re happy to help, but you have to take the initiative. For other fields, professors will seem more available and there to teach rather than do research. However, there are several selective programs within Northwestern that you apply for once you’re a student, and these programs are pretty much impossible to beat. For instance, there’s a Kellogg certificate program that allows you to use the resources of the Kellogg career center–can’t top that. But the difference between going to Northwestern and going to U of I isn’t really about what you’ll learn in class for these math/science fields; it’s more about the students you interact with and the standards they set in classes. Same thing with Northwestern v ivys–it’s not like Harvard econ professors will have special secrets that aren’t being told at Northwestern. It’s more about your interactions with the students when comparing schools of this caliber, and obviously, if you thing you’d get along better with them, you’ll be able to learn more from them. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t think prestige should be a factor in your decision, though. If you want to work in Chicago, for example, you’d actually probably be better off going to NU because of all the NU grads and connections in the city. Once you actually get to school, you don’t even think about what some magazine thinks about your school. Also, I wouldn’t base your judgments of a campus on architecture of the campus–the aesthetically pleasing things and the not-so-pleasing things just become “normal” very quickly. </p>
<p>I can’t say much about Yale, but the kids I know who go there are imho pretentious and are very focused on their futures, for better or worse. Northwestern students are definitely driven and get to work when they need to, but they also set aside time to pursue other interests and enjoy living in the moment, which probably makes them more interesting. But I only know a couple kids that go to Yale so it’s not really a fair generalization. One of my good friends always dreamed of going to Harvard, and he’s there now but complains about the social scene and the difficulty of making friends since people are SO focused on what they’ll be doing after they graduate. </p>
<p>Anyways, I realize I’ve been rambling, but this is one of the most important decisions of your life, so I figured I’d just get my opinion out there. Good luck!</p>
That’s very true though, if you don’t have need then you’re paying a lot (However there are a lot of other scholarships that are independent of NU)</p>