Notre Dame vs. Northwestern

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Notre Dame
1

I was recently accepted into both Notre Dame and Northwestern and even though I initially thought this decision would be easy, I’m clueless as to where I’d like to enroll.

I am a prospective business major (I’d like to go into management consulting) and am specially interested in hearing about both universities relating to studies in such area, however I’d still appreciate any retellings of personal experiences at either school.

I did a summer program at Notre Dame earlier this year and I had a great time, but I haven’t been able to visit Northwestern yet and probably won´t be able to. In the end, I’m trying to get a better feel for both schools and while I will ultimately decide for myself where I want to attend, I’m open to hear any and all opinions.

2

I can only speak anecdotally but I’ve heard countless stories (including from my father) that the connections he made as a result of being a part of the Mendoza College of Business were the key to his long and successful career. He said the education was incredible but the alumni community was what allowed him to get ahead in life.

3

Presumably it would be difficult to take a final decision with confidence on this matter, without visiting Northwestern and their business school. Also, while you know Notre Dame from your summer program, it would be advantageous to schedule another visit focused on Mendoza and all it has to offer. If you won’t be able to resolve this important decision based on first-hand personal experiences and information, you might end up asking yourself “what-if” for a long time. You have until May 1st to tackle this, if at all possible get Admitted Student Day programs at both universities scheduled in April, attend and take your decision from there. Good luck!

4

NU does not have a business school.

5

Northwestern has an economics major.

Northwestern also has an outstanding graduate business school–the Kellogg School.

6

@Publisher Correct. And the econ majors are recruited by consulting forms and investment banks for sure. OP just said he wanted to be a business major and that makes me think that he is not very familiar with NU.

7

@homerdog: I did not mean my above post as a correction. You are right regarding both your post & in regard to your impression.

8

@Publisher LOL. I hope so. My husband and I are NU grads and he was an Econ major.:slight_smile:

9

OP: I encourage you to look into some joint double major type programs at Northwestern. I haven’t researched them in years, but will try to do so today. One such program is by invitation only–the joint BA/MA degree in Economics in 4 years. Otherwise look at the economics course offerings to see if they are of interest to you.

10

@Hopefulish: I understand your dilemma both as a Catholic & as a person with several family members holding degrees from Northwestern University as well as from the Kellogg School of Business (MBA).

Is there a significant cost difference ?

Consider undergrad at Notre Dame & after a few years of work experience an MBA program at Northwestern.

11

A fortunate dilemma to have! Both great universities. Mendoza is one of the top biz schools in the country, and I know the econ program at ND is rigorous. I imagine the econ program at NU is excellent. You certainly don’t have to attend an undergrad business school to go into a business career or get recruited by a top firm, many employers look for econ majors. I was an econ major and my husband was a finance major at ND but we worked in the same field, in the same trading room.

I definitely agree with the above poster who said you should try to visit NU if possible, this is a very important decision and tougher to make when you haven’t been on campus. Sometimes how you feel at the school truly is the decision maker, for better or worse. Especially when one is torn between two very good schools.

And I feel a little like a broken record saying this to another applicant, but the below link is to an interesting post on ND from years ago. If you look at reply #5 from someone called docmom, that tells you a lot about the feel of life at Notre Dame. Good luck with your decision!

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-notre-dame/7427-why-notre-dame-p1.html

12

No business school at NW. No comparison- go to ND.

13

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about.
I figured I should also clarify, I do realize there is no undergrad business school at Northwestern, but if I were to attend the plan would be something along the lines of majoring in econ and maybe doing the undergraduate certificate program with Kellogg. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to visit Northwestern at all but I know I will be able to visit ND and Mendoza one last time before May 1.

14

Both schools are decent. My daughter had similar choices five years ago. She graduated from NU (Econ + Kellogg CPU + others) and currently is in consulting. Our family is well-connected with ND and my daughter knows at least 50 ND students. She is the only one in her high school class of 800+ to attend NU. Here are my two cents.

  1. NU provides better training in consulting but the competition is also fierce. It is easier (not easy) to be in consulting (especially MBB) through ND.
  2. If you know what you want to do pick NU. In Mendoza (and Notre Dame in general), you have to take all kinds of requirements to give you a taste of different business fields. For students who know what they want to do (such as my daughter) it is waste of time. For example, ask Mendoza students about Foresight. There are too many unnecessary requirements. If you have no clue ND is good for you.
  3. If you don’t care about Catholic missions stay away from a school with 80%+ Catholic students. If you do care, ND is home. Also, my daughter played several high school sports but she never enjoys watching football so the decision was not that difficult.

One of my best decisions was to allow my daughter to leave the comfort zone to attend NU. Good luck!!

15

@Hopefulish: @Indycat provides valuable insights into both programs. A very important point is how ready & willing are you to leave your comfort zone ?

Success at Northwestern requires one to engage in a very demanding academic culture while simultaneously meshing with a variety of cultures & beliefs. It is a competitive environment that prepares one well for the real world. It is not easy–that’s why they are referred to as growing pains. My strongest impression regarding Northwestern University is that the undergraduates undergo a graduate school experience. While great for future employment, not so great for an undergraduate student in search of fun & camaraderie.

Alternatively, Notre Dame provides a comfortable & familiar environment which requires one to explore academic direction while reaffirming one’s most deeply held beliefs.

No wrong choice between the two options.

P.S. FWIW Northwestern’s setting is spectacular, and the campus is attractive in some spots & breathtaking in other areas. Evanston is an upscale suburb with easy access to Chicago & the North Shore. Notre Dame’s campus is very attractive, but surrounded by a depressed community. Regardless, Notre Dame offers an unparalleled experience for Catholics.

16

@Hopefulish I’m seeing the same kind of language in some responses here as I did on your other thread on the NU page. It makes me uncomfortable so I want to respond again for your benefit and that of other students. Yes, ND is a family and few schools rival it in that regard. However, any insinuation that ND is some comfort zone or sea of sameness where you won’t be challenged – academically or socially – is nonsense.

Academically, both ND and NU are top tier universities where you will be challenged and receive an excellent education from a prestige name. The MBB firms all recruit at ND also.Yes, you can major in econ at either school. As someone with an econ degree, I know that value. However, you can also major in management consulting at Mendoza. If there wasn’t value in that degree, ND wouldn’t offer it. They are not in the business of wasting people’s time. And FYI, many students enter college believing they know what they want to do, but after they arrive - if they are exposed to different subject areas - find that a different major/career interests them. So just because you think you know what you want to do does not necessarily mean that’s how it will work out in the end.

Socially, 42% of those accepted into your class are students of color, international students or those living abroad. My daughter is a current student, neither her roommate nor her best friend are Catholic. In her immediate friend group are students of several racial backgrounds - African American, Asian, Hispanic, white. From every corner of this country, Canada, Central America and Europe. To say you won’t be exposed to a variety of cultures & beliefs is, again, nonsense. Yes, ND students (not faculty) are mostly Catholic. But I’m sure you have heard that will not be shoved down your throat should you decide to attend, and the philosophy and theology classes at ND offer subject matter for all belief systems, including atheists. As with the other thread, the “real world” language offends me. To suggest that students that graduate from ND are somehow less prepared for the real world because it is a Catholic school is akin to suggesting that students that graduate from a women’s college or HBCU are less prepared for the “real world”. I noticed the language is not so blunt here as it was on the NU page, but the idea is offensive nonetheless. Again, please read between the lines and try not to listen to language like that.

I’m not sure what to make of the comment re Catholic missions. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would find helping those who are poor, sick, discriminated against or disabled a negative. You don’t have to be Catholic to want to help those less fortunate than you. You can come to ND and not do any of that if you so choose. But if you want to help make the world a better place, there are plenty of opportunities there. It is part of the school’s mission and proudly so.

Again, they are both well-regarded, extremely challenging schools. This decision should come down to finances and fit.

17

@waitingmomla
Of all the ones that got into MBB, none of them majored in management consulting. There’s a reason why none of the elite schools, not even Wharton offer this kind of major.
https://careercenter.nd.edu/assets/242756/full_report_final.pdf

18

@IWannaHelp Thank you for the link. I see the MBB hires from the ND econ program. That’s an interesting report, and I personally will look through it further out of curiosity for my daughter’s major. I will say though that it is only one year’s worth of data, so for OP’s purposes I would suggest that they look for more history than just 2016 (I don’t know if one year proves MBB never hires out of the mgmt program). Just my opinion, but I think an easier way for OP to find this information is to take a suggestion I made on their other thread — There is contact information for MBB’s recruiters for ND on their websites (and I’m sure the same info exists for their NU recruiters). I suggested to OP that they try to reach out to those recruiters to get their feedback on the two majors and the two schools. Not sure if they took my advice, but I think it’s worth a shot since it’s never too early to work on improving self-advocacy and networking skills. This is advice I would give my own daughter. As I told OP, they can elicit the opinions of people on this site, but those opinions are often subjective and sometimes in these “vs” threads people make comments on schools that they really know nothing about. In any case, those opinions do not match the value of those that come from the horse’s mouth. If OP comes to the conclusion that there’s not as much value in the mgmt degree, then of course they have the opportunity to major in a challenging economics program at either school.

19

@Publisher Thank you for reminding me of the differences between Evanston and South Bend.

Both ND students (80%+) and ND faculty (56% and rising; 2011) are mostly Catholic.

https://irishrover.net/2012/04/faculty-strength-in-catholic-numbers/

At ND, it is quite common to start classes, meetings and events with Catholic prayers. If you are not comfortable with this you should stay away.

Anyone who is interested in ND’s diversity can take a look at the common data set and compare it with the information of the other top 20 universities (e.g., NU). I was shocked when I first saw the data.

http://ospir.nd.edu/institutional-research/common-data-set-cds/common-data-set/

20

Congratulations on having two great choices. You can’t go wrong with either and yet they are different enough that it should come down to your own assessment of culture, fit and finances.

College is so expensive now you need to get your own feet on the ground and assess a campus personally. You can tell a lot by the way the students there interact and the events on campus and the articles in the student newspaper and the things pasted to the bulletin boards. Watch how the students and profs interact. Assess the town-versus-gown. Ignore the rankings and make your own independent assessments.

If you are able to get to ND to revisit, might it be possible to also make a detour to Evanston to check out Northwestern too? They are pretty close together and this is a big decision. Some of this you can do online, but at the tippy-top schools you need to see for yourself. Often, it makes the decision easy.

Our child was also accepted to both schools and chose ND and has had an off-the-charts experience there. I cannot speak highly enough about ND’s complete undergrad experience and to say it has opened doors we did not expect when we committed would be an understatement. As my child prepares to graduate I look back on these 4 years and am just thankful she chose ND and will benefit from it for the next 50 years.

I also lived in Evanston for 4 years after relocating to Chicago and have worked with dozens of Northwestern grads. My dad is an NU grad.

I cold tell you my biases or my child’s but the opinions that matter are yours… College will be so much sweeter if you can find the best fit for you… then commit to wringing every single available drop from the opportunity in your 4 years. Best of luck to you!!