<p>While NU is a great school, most of the Ivies are better than NU.</p>
<p>Well, Merit Scholarships are unfair in schools with such good students, because why does one student with a 1600 and a 4.0 deserve a scholarship but a 1550 and 3.9 doesn’t? When the standards for admission are that high, merit scholarships become trivial.</p>
<p>Again Classclown? You seem really preoccupied with rankings and this subjective “better.” First of all, according to the “holy grail” of college rankings (I don’t really care about them, though), the USNWR, has NU at #12, above 1/4 of the Ivy League schools (Cornell and Brown) which isn’t “most.” Secondly, there is a very small difference between the top schools, that really ends up being fairly trivial. The difference between Harvard in their ranking could be they get a little more money from their alumni, and some peer reviews say they’re better. Don’t place so much weight on rankings and saying something’s better than another. If someone said Harvard vs University of Kentucky, then you can point out Harvard is better (although, who wouldn’t realize that) but the difference between #1 and #12 isn’t that important.</p>
<p>Crimson, I find your reply about being swayed by the rankings prett ironic. Often when somebody posts something about another school People jump to point out where NU fits in the rankings. I am confused. Should I listen to the rankings or not?</p>
<p>Don’t feed the trolls guys. Classclown has his schtick.</p>
<p>@MitchKreyben</p>
<p>“For example stats show that NW is the #3 or #4 most popular school for freshmen of the Jewish faith.” I don’t know that I could affirm this quantitation of the Jewish population at NU, but there certainly is a strong presence. </p>
<p>“Also, that NW students are on average coming from extreme wealth.” Maybe not extreme wealth, but the overwhelming majority of undergraduates do come from very privileged backgrounds. For example, only 13% of undergraduates received federal Pell grants last year. I don’t know that the upper-middle class is entirely cut out, but either way, wealth is the status quo on campus. Not a bad thing, as it is, like you said, just the way it works at a lot of top colleges.</p>
<p>@Crimsonstained7 and classclown</p>
<p>Obviously, a lot of us are biased. However, I think that through the public eye (and this is obviously dependent on geographic location), NU is probably viewed as a Tier 2 school, with Tier 1 = HYPMS and maybe Columbia and UChicago. However, if you’re talking journalism or theater, NU certainly deserves more credit. Honestly, I think it’s trivial to distinguish between the educational quality at any of the Top-20 schools. Rather, I believe that it’s the varying educational and extracurricular opportunity that makes schools of an already-amazing caliber “better” than the others.</p>
<p>Having a D who went to an Ivy and S who chose NU over other top schools, all I can say it is different strokes for different snowflakes 
S will never trade NU for any other and so will D. NU may be viewed as tier #2 school by some…those who haven’t gone through NU academics, its rigor and its overall environment and culture, buy in all honesty, I find it hard to rank one over the other (Ivies Vs NU)</p>
<p>By snowflakes do you mean that both are vast majority white? I agree.</p>
<p>I’m going to go ahead and post this, so no one else does. DON’T FEED THE ■■■■■.</p>
<p>This thread is months old, and nothing relevant was added, just ignore. I know I’m not following my own advice, but we don’t need this coming back up over and over again.</p>
<p>If money is a big factor, there is NO WAY it’d choose an ivy over NU. If you work hard, there is no doubt you can get into an ivy for grad school</p>
<p>Ivy’s definitely not worth the money nor the aggravation of keeping “Muffy and Biff” happy.</p>
<p>Northwestern is respected as much as any of the Ivies by employers who matter. Unfortunately, it is completely unknown outside of that circle, so if you need public recognition for what’s on your sweatshirt, you won’t get it for Northwestern.</p>
<p>Good point Karenhan. It’s not completely unknown (I’ve gotten people saying, “Wow, that’s a good school” and I’m in SC), but in general you’re right. If you want the “wow” factor, and you’re into prestige, NU won’t do much for you except for in the midwest.</p>
<p>But seriously, this thread is old, let it die. It just got bumped by Mr. “Haha, they’re all white” even though that’s not true.</p>
<p>Northwestern is very well-known among employers because of Kellogg and its reputation for graduating well-rounded intelligent people. It’s well-known among the masses because it’s part of the Big Ten and the fact that many many alumni become celebrities. Northwestern’s reputation has grown on the coasts (esp the west coast) as well as internationally, especially in Asia.</p>
<p>Wildcatalum, while it’s reputation is growing, I still have plenty of people say where’s that, and such. Growing, but still not Ivy level recognition everywhere.</p>
<p>And some of the Ivies don’t have name recognition everywhere either. Some of you are projecting that what is known in your area is what is known everywhere. Don’t even kid yourself that in the greater Chicago area, for example, a place like Dartmouth has any kind of broad recognition by the general public. Which doesn’t make it not a fine school - it just means that ultimately, it’s all regional, and yes, that includes Ivies too. Too many of you extrapolate the Northeast or California to the rest of the country.</p>
<p>You hit the nail on the head, Pizzagirl ;-)</p>
<p>Dartmouth? What’s that? ;-)</p>
<p>It’s a bar game where someone throws a dart straight into someone else’s mouth. It’s a stupid game, but you know… :-D</p>
<p>By the way before anyways takes offense, my comment about Dartmouth was obviously a joke on a previous comment. Dartmouth is obviously a fine institution.</p>
<p>Money should definitely play a role when you are already talking about top ranked schools. However, for middle class families, Harvard is a way better deal than NU. Starting in 2007, they revamped their definition of “need”, and families earning between $70,000 to $180,000 a year (the numbers have probably changed since then) have only had to pay 10% of their income as tuition. They no longer give loans - it’s aid that you don’t need to pay back in any form. For my son’s freshman year at Harvard, we got $1000 in aid (and we don’t know why because no one else gave us anything). Then after the policy change the following year, we got $28,000. When my daughter was a freshman at NU and her brother was a senior at Harvard, Harvard tacked on more aid because we had two kids in college. They do this because they can. Their endowment, even after they lost billions in the 2008 crash, is still enormous. This is not NU’s fault. Anyway, the only reason we wanted our daughter to go to Harvard was the money, but deep down we knew it was the wrong place for her, and NU was most definitely the right place. Well, she got wait-listed at Harvard, so that was that, and she, like many here, has never looked back.<br>
There is a perception about Harvard that it is only full of rich kids, but actually, that’s not true. Because of the aid they now give, things are much more balanced. The kids my son knew were, on average, from much less monied backgrounds than the kids my daughter knows at NU. Anyway, they are both GREAT schools, and you certainly get a much more directed education in areas such as journalism, engineering, and communications (to name just a few fields) at NU than you would at Harvard.<br>
I’m still curious about the Jewish comment. What did that have to do with anything? It really came off as “beware of the Jews at NU”, which I find kind of offensive.</p>