Hello. I am a senior and am awaiting the Regular Decision from NU. I will be pursuing engineering and have already been accepted into UIUC and Purdue. Obviously, engineering is a really tough field no matter where you go, but I’m just wondering if I decided to go to NU if I would be so overwhelmed by the academic rigor and competition there, or would it be pretty much the same as at UIUC and/ or Purdue? I want to feel confident if I get into NU that I can handle it. Any advice would help. Thanks.
RELAX. As the proud father of 2 NU Engineers, I can tell you it is not easy, but if you qualify for NU, chances are pretty good you will graduate! I don’t have figures for just Engineering, but overall Grad Rates are as follows:
NU 6 year graduation rate @ 94% https://www.univstats.com/colleges/northwestern-university/graduation-rate/
Purdue is @ 78% https://www.univstats.com/colleges/purdue-university-main-campus/graduation-rate/
UIUC is @ 85% https://www.univstats.com/colleges/university-of-illinois-at-urbana-champaign/graduation-rate
Good Luck!
As a current student, you don’t really feel the grade competition-- it’s not really cut-throat atmosphere at all. Yes though, the academic rigor is tough. I feel like NU has overwhelming grade deflation-- you can tank in some classes (especially exam-based classes) so easily if you aren’t 100% efforting it.
If you’re like me and aren’t willing to put in full effort because you have a life, you can get by okay in the 3.0-3.6 GPA range depending on what you’re taking, but it’s going to suck at times when you’re in a hard class and like for the first time in your life you’re getting like a B- or worse. But tbh unless you’re like a superstar I think that’s the normal experience at any top-class college.
In addition to graduation rate percentages, first year retention rate is an important consideration.
Northwestern University’s first year retention rate is an outstanding 98%.
Purdue is at 93%.
Illinois is also at 93%.
Keep in mind the ones with grade deflation tend to be the freshmen/sophomore level science/engineering and econ classes and a lot of people take them to fulfill their distro or premed requirements. So they get the reputation. But the higher level classes, even in engineering, are more grade inflated.