@IsaacTheFuture You clearly didn’t take the time to read my post…you were just presumptuous and generalized an asian. FYI. I had mentioned that apart from my scores, etc I had great essays & recommendations. And its nice to say that only ADMISSIONS will know what a great fit is but if I remember you were the one suggesting that maybe I wasn’t a good fit. Your comments were just plain rude. So, please stop commenting if you do not have anything valuable or constructive to say. I was merely making a statement about my admission status.
@WGSK88 It is pretty clear to me the games NU is playing to up its yield and artificially boost its rank. I feel for your daughter as I’m in the same plight. It just irritates me that after I was asked to send email indicating my interest in their program even if not selected for HPME after my interview, they WL me. And they go ahead and admit one person for HPME who is enrolling at one of Ivies. Certain folks here who were lucky enough to have gotten accepted suddenly think that they have the expertise in commenting about others’ admissions and that they were somehow ‘better’ than others. Just ignore them. It’s a well known fact that NU has not accepted the topmost applicants in the past…I just wasted $ and time applying there. TBH, l think of this as NU’s loss since we’ll get placed at better universities. I’m not even bothering to be on their WL. Good Luck to you and others. And NO please -no more negative comments on this. I’m moving on to greener pastures.
You can concoct any story to feel more validated, but it still does not change the fact you weren’t admitted. It sounds like you are an excellent student who will have many great options, so best of luck.
@aurora2016 You assumption on “mostly full pay students in 50% of their admitted class” is not correct. Admitted students through ED don’t have to attend the university if it cannot provide 100% financial aid based on need calculated in FAFSA and CSS Profile. My understanding is that this is the only reason that ED student can withdraw from university if university can’t meet student’s financial need. Each year, more than 50% of incoming NU freshmen get financial aid. How do you know “ED applicants tend to be wealthy”? I just wonder as I haven’t seen any study about it myself.
My family income was 0 when I applied ED to NU. I was accepted.
I don’t blame you; this is a public forum, you are anonymous and you can post anything you want.
It seems like people here are just really bitter at the fact that they weren’t accepted so they are trying to drag Northwestern down lol.
Get over it. No one here should have felt entitled to be accepted into such an elite, selective university because they got a good score on their SAT or something. Schools like NU reject thousands and thousands of qualified applicants because they simply don’t have the class size for it. You can say that they were playing a “yield game” because some strong applicants were rejected, but you cannot expect such a popular and elite institution to accept every qualified and strong applicant.
NU as a matter of fact is trying hard to INCREASE their economic diversity (they aim to have at least 20% Pell grant soon), work with the Chicago public school system to help underprivileged kids get in, accept around the same amount of ED kids as Penn, Duke, Vandy and other peers do, and most of all have NEED BLIND admissions…
my school had about 15 kids including myself admitted to northwestern this year, a majority (10) ed and 8 total legacies accepted? maybe it’s just where i live (north shore v close proximity to evanston). i agree with the idea there’s simply not enough spaces and a ton of applicants. northwestern is as selective as many ivies.
I’m in a similar boat @2017journalismhopeful , my theory is that it’s a lot easier to write a genuine “why northwestern” essay when you grew up in Evanston/Chicago.
While I don’t know that legacy/siblings give a significant advantage in the overall admissions process, it is hard to deny that it makes it a hell of a lot easier to write a good why Northwestern statement.
@aurora2016 Brown was straight up an example school…? I didn’t even know that. However, I’ve spoken with the president of Northwestern regarding admissions, and he really gave me the impression that interviews and essays were carefully scrutinized. I understand if you still believe that Northwestern’s trying to UChicago its way up the rankings ladder. IMO, it’s just not something to get riled up over…there are so many schools out there and admissions is really just a crapshoot. You weren’t admitted? Forget about Northwestern, go to Dartmouth or Princeton or something. Northwestern isn’t your problem.
@aurora2016
The one area I disagree with you is that NU does give an enormous amount of financial aid. If you read the Spring 2017 issue of Northwestern alumni mag, there’s a stat box on Page 7 stating 62% of Northwestern undergraduates receive financial aid and the average amount of first-year scholarship is $42,850. A total of $160M of financial aid was awarded to undergrads in 2016-17. Among all the other reasons I’ve stated, these stats only further confirmed my decision to withdraw any further financial support of my alma mater. Btw, I don’t know about you but do you feel there’s a correlation between the push to increase yield and Morton Schapiro’s tenure as president??
@10isMOM yes I would agree that there is a direct correlation between Morton Schapiro’s tenure as President and the push to increase yield and rankings. Christopher Watson was also brought in to do this. I had a talk with a seasoned admissions officer at NU who is also a legacy and knows NU very well. He spoke of this quite frankly.
@MMSS2020 NU did not offer any interviews to several students in my area despite repeated requests. We live quite far away from Evanston. I do believe it is easier to interview if you live close to Evanston, and if as the President says, they value it highly, then NU should offer interviews nationwide. After all it is an elite school. The Ivies readily did interviews for all applicants in our area.
15 students from one high school?! That’s remarkable for any highly selective college. It makes me wonder if half those have parents working at the university (not saying that’s wrong, just sayin’). Also the financial aid at NU, which has become more generous, is necessary to compete with other highly selective schools for the “best” (highest test-scoring/gpa) students. Without that financial aid, USNews ranking is sure to go down.
I felt really great about being admitted before visiting this thread and seeing all the negativity regarding admitted students. Since people here are saying that NU rejects top-tier kids and only accepts “second-tier” (those they don’t expect to get into Ivies), does that mean I’m more likely to be rejected from all the Ivies I applied to?
@frankline re: comment #1967 - many high schools along the north shore are going to be sending a good number of their kids to top colleges. Those public schools (New Trier, Highland Park, Lake Forest) are academically as sound as the best private schools in the country.
@2017journalismhopeful you need to get out a bit more! Any of those communities would be considered “close proximity to Evanston” LOL.
“Those public schools are academically as sound as the best private …” I’m sure that’s so, but I bet none of them has sent more than 2/yr to the same Ivy/Stanford/et al. (excepting Chicago/NU). And so if you’re not from the north shore, if one or two kids from your school got into NU, it doesn’t matter much if you have a stronger app than 90% of others and could have easily handled NU classes, you apparently didn’t have a stronger app than your classmate and that’s all it takes to eliminate scores of applicants.
@ambitionsquared I’m sad to say this but I think the NU acceptance dooms your chances at any Ivy. A rejection would have been better news unfortunately.
