“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.”
My D is a junior there and I just asked her about this. She says she’s never had a single class or meeting start with a prayer. We are not Catholic - not religious at all - and it has never been even a slight issue for my D.
“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.”
This is not true. My husband is an alum and my daughter a current student. Neither has ever experienced this in class or at a meeting.
And yes ND has a lot of Catholic students. That’s no secret, since it is a Catholic university. The percentage of Catholic faculty was once over 80% but has fallen over the years to around 50%. (I wouldn’t classify a 2 tick increase from 2006 to 2011 as “rising”). This fact is a positive or a negative, depending on one’s perspective. Regardless, there are many types of diversity that add to one’s life experience such as race, ethnicity, nationality, home state, country of residence, etc. Religion is not the sole determinant of one’s belief set, opinions, world view. Perhaps ND isn’t as diverse as NU, but that doesn’t mean there is not a sufficient level of diversity there to expose students to a variety of cultures and opinions.
OP - remember what I mentioned about some posters on these “vs” threads that make comments about schools that they really know nothing about.
MBB didn’t hire any management consulting major in 2015 and 2014. It looks to me most management consulting majors were not hired by consulting firms after all. I can see how people, let alone elite employers would frown upon such major. I think if you are a ND student interested in management consulting, you are better off majoring in finance or econ.
As for recruiting, Northwestern is a major target for MBB. However, many NU students also want to get into them. It’s not clear if you’d end up facing more competition at NU. However, once you look beyond MBB and consider other top consulting firms outside of MBB, NU seems to be the clear choice. It looks like A.T. Kearney, Strategy&, Oliver Wyman, Navigant, and Bates White didn’t hire any from ND while LEK and ZS Associates hired just a couple.
@IWannaHelp I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject of “mgmt. vs econ degrees” for mgmt. consulting jobs, so I don’t have more to say on that subject beyond what I’ve already advised the OP. I’m not sure what value statements like “I can see how people, let alone elite employers would frown upon such a major” really have for the OP. What is that based on? If you are an expert on the subject, I’m sure OP would appreciate knowing your credentials.
I’ve also seen multiple comments re how NU is a major target for MBB, either stating or implying that ND is not. Per the respective school pages on the MBB websites – the number of recruiters assigned for undergrad/non-business masters programs is the same for ND and NU. Some elite schools (Georgetown, Rice) have less recruiters assigned. In some cases, good schools (Wake) don’t even have their own school page on the site. So given that, it’s hard to imagine that ND is not also a target for those firms. Maybe not as much as NU, I honestly don’t know, but certainly up there as well. If you have a link that verifies MBB has - as a trend for years - hired significantly more students from NU vs ND specifically for mgmt. consulting, then please post that for the OP. I’m sure they would find that information useful as part of their decision-making process.
At this point, I’m not sure how much this continued back and forth serves the OP. They know your opinion and they know mine – these are both excellent schools academically, targeted by top firms. Assuming finances are the same, this decision should come down to fit.
I have a bit of perspective on this from two angles - my oldest is in business consulting but went to a state school, and my youngest is a freshman at ND signing up for his sophomore level classes today. His plan is to dual-major in business and economics.
It’s true, business consultants are not all business majors. I met an ND grad recently who consults in the Seattle area and she came out of Arts and Letters, not Mendoza. What you will see, especially in the travelling consultants, is attractiveness, conversation skills, critical thinking, and motivation. Both colleges will get you exceptionally prepared for consulting work but most of getting hired is up to you.
As a group, ND grads are S1’s favorite and he has been universally impressed. He went through training with new hires from all over the US and gets assigned to national and international teams. It is one of the reasons our youngest applied early. Graduates of other colleges have been more of a mixed bag, including places like Yale. Realistically, this is a wash. I’m sure that 98% of NU grads have been impressive as well.
From S2’s perspective, there were a few things that put ND ahead of Northwestern and others:
Many of the other items people have listed really didn’t matter to him. He had football tickets but only went to three games. He almost never leaves campus. Northwestern has it’s clear advantages if they are important like a better city and more openly accepting of LGBTQ students.
You have the best dilemma ever, one without a bad choice. My advice is to ignore the sniping and think about the day-to-day things most important to you. Trust your instincts.
I didn’t imply ND isn’t a target for MBB; it probably is. I am just more sure about NU because it is said to be a target in any forum you find. Also, I presented 3-yr stats that show none of the management consulting major was hired by MBB during that 3-year period. That’s not my opinion but facts
I did a search on LinkedIn and 428 people currently at MBB went to NU while for ND, the number is 175. MBB is so large these days that they probably have 40 schools to recruit from. It may be more telling by looking at the smaller firms because they are actually more selective on where they go to recruit. There are only so many slots for MBB after all; it is important that other firms also come to recruit. In that regard, NU seems to have the edge. Strategy& and Oliver Wyman have only a handful of schools as their targets and NU is on both of their list.
https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/careers/students
http://www.oliverwyman.com/careers/recruiting-events.html
http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/story/why-do-so-many-nu-students-become-consultants/
@Hopefulish Congratulations on acceptances to two great schools. I don’t have anything to contribute in regard to your question re: business or econ, but I’m intrigued by your first post. You stated that you initially thought the decision between NU and ND would be easy. It sounds like you were leaning more toward one school, which I’m guessing is ND because you were able to spend the summer there. Since you’re pretty much out of time to visit NU, it’s hard to make a side by side comparison – Decision Day is about a week away!
It does seem that all the posters here agree that you’d get a fine education and great job opportunities at either school. (Certainly, some favor one school over the other!). But I have to agree with @waitingmomla on this, and say it comes down to finances and fit. There’s a lot of discussion about which school will get you where you want to be careerwise, and I don’t discount this information. But I also firmly believe that “life is a journey, not a destination.” So do think about where you want to spend your four years of college. Best wishes as you make your final decision.
@IWannaHelp Other than the link you sent to the 2016 ND majors, I feel a lot of what you’ve said is opinion or unsubstantiated facts. Such as the “frown upon” comment. Or whether NU is “said to be a target in any forum you find”. I’ve also seen those kind of statements. Often made by people who are obviously alums of said school. I’m not saying in this case it’s completely untrue (or that such bias is unique to NU), but whatever level of discussion that exists is certainly comprised of a healthy portion of NU alums touting their alma mater. That’s fine, as long as OP sees it for what it is. And also realizes it has no bearing on whether other schools, like ND, are also targets.
Regarding your claim about LinkedIn, I’ll leave it to OP to determine what value that has to them and take their own time to verify it if they wish. The links you do provide show two smaller firms that list NU on their site (and a consulting story in an NU publication). I am honestly perplexed because, for most of this discussion, it is largely your posts that have pointed to the interest/opinion of MBB as the metric future consultants should focus on (at least 4 such posts on the OP’s two threads prior to my reply to you). Then when I pointed out that MBB devotes equal staff & website real estate to recruiting at both schools, the focus of your posts changed direction to the smaller firms. No offense but I’d like to get off this carousel. So let’s assume you are correct that NU is more heavily recruited in this field to some degree, but that both are target schools. Then OP should weigh that as part of their decision-making process. Along with many other things. That’s where the finances and fit come in…And football. 
@waitingmomla: “And football.”
Chicago Tribune: Northwestern University will host Notre Dame on November 3, 2018.
Also noted, to my surprise, that Northwestern University beat Notre Dame in football in their only two meetings including an overtime win in 2014 (43-40).
Absent of detailed reports, the next best is to look at LinkedIn data or whatever you can find. There used to be a report by Vault that lists the recruiting for top-6 firms and NU was one of the half dozen that shows up on most of the list.
I was trying to give OP as much useful info as I could. I already explained to you that one needs to look beyond MBB to get the full scope of the recruiting. There are few other top firms out there that sometime provide better compensation than MBB. Strategy& and Oliver Wyman are top firms, just right below MBB, much like the “lower Ivies” vs HYP. Strategy& was formerly Booz & Co, founded by a NU grad. Because it’s past the recruiting season, there’s nothing on LEK consulting and few others top firms but I’d expect NU would be there. According to the link to the NU article above, 18 of the top consulting firms recruit at NU.
MMSS is the only major at NU that lists the placement; but at least you can get some idea. Note the placement particularly in 2015.
http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/employment-placements.html
FWIW the OP hasn’t been back since April 5.
Sorry, no, ND leads the series with Northwestern 37 wins, 9 losses and 2 ties. Northwestern did win the last game in 2014 in OT. And the one before that too in 1995.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwestern%E2%80%93Notre_Dame_football_rivalry
@happy1 Lol, good point!
@happy1 Lol, thanks. My own D didn’t decide until May 1st, so it’s possible that OP might be back in the next week. If not, hopefully some of the 2000+ other people who viewed the thread were helped by the discussion. I know I learned something from our Northwestern friends here and I regularly learn things from threads that aren’t my own.
@sushiritto Thanks for the stats!