I was fortunate enough to be accepted into all three and am having some trouble deciding which of those three to attend. All of the financial packages are similar so money is not an issue when it comes to all three.
Though my major is computer engineering, I plan on minoring in something totally unrelated to STEM and slanted towards humanity and I don’t want to solely focus on my major in college.
What draws me to both Penn and Northwestern is their location within a city as Penn is in Philly and Northwestern is right by Chicago, and attending school near a city is important to me.
However, Duke’s school spirit and basketball program also is a huge interest of mine as I’m a huge sports fan, and my high school has no school spirit which is something that I look to for college.
When it comes to my major I believe Duke has the strongest program out of them all, but I really really am interested in the interdisciplinary learning style that Penn has and that would be something I’m willing to explore.
Right now, I’m leaning towards either Penn or Duke with a slight edge towards Penn, but I’m still not sure.
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I can only give you my impressions of visiting Penn and Duke.
I liked the relaxed quiet feel of Duke and the greenery. I’m from the south, so Duke felt like home. I liked how a lot of people were hanging out in the gardens.
Penn, I felt unsafe, like I could be stabbed at any moment. Couldnt wait to leave. Now, I went to a urban city school for 6yrs, so I have a good instinct about city environments.
Duke weather will be better than Penn weather.
I have derisive anecdotal 2nd hand impressions of student social stereotypes. Duke preppy rich kids, girls that have never been told “no”. Penn rich keep to themselves cliques.
That’s all I got.
Because NU is on the quarter system, it’s very easy to double major or add minors. It’s one of the things they stressed on their tour. Might be worth exploring more since you have a strong interest outside of CE. NU is a beautiful campus, easy to get to downtown, and has their own beaches. The sports scene isn’t the strongest but you’d get to see all the big 10 games and sports tickets are free for students with your student ID. That is something to consider at a school like Duke - how easy is it to actually get tickets to see basketball games? My D is at Purdue and she only gets a small handful of tickets per season.
@Greymeer: Deserves an award for best honest quote of the year, in my opinion.
P.S. I’ll let readers pick out the quote.
@Greymeer @momofsenior1 thank you both for your feedback! I have never visited Duke or Northwestern, but I have visited Penn and I liked the campus, and didn’t find the surroundings to be particularly uncomfortable. NU’s quarter system interests me, and from what I’ve seen online has a really nice campus.
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Check out “Live from Northwestern series” on YouTube. I personally think Northwestern has the best location if being near the city is important to you. Evanston is right off the campus with lots of restuarants and had been rated one of the best places to live. Chicago is an easy subway ride away. There’s also intercampus shuttles that take you from the Evanston campus to downtown Chicago campus.
Quarter system does makes it easier for one to sample more courses. Most students don’t have just one major.
With the high demand for computer-related jobs, I wouldn’t worry about any minor differences in academics.
One more thing - you’d have a lot of flexibility to take classes acorss the six schools at Northwestern (seven if you count the certificate programs from Kellogg).
I don’t think you’re going to regret going to any of these schools. I wouldn’t rate CS at Duke any better than the others. They’re going to be comparable. One thing about Duke is that the campus is pretty large compared to Penn.
Great choices! I have been to all 3 campuses and attended Northwestern undergrad and Penn for grad school. All 3 are excellent. Agree that the nuances of each CS program are probably not that significant. If you want to do something outside of STEM, then Northwestern might be your best bet as it has a wide range of offerings (e.g. journalism, theater, broadcasting, music, etc.) and the quarter system enables exploration of new topics.
As for campus/community, Penn has done a really good job in the past 10+ making campus and the surrounding community safer. That said, for undergrad, Northwestern and Duke will give you more room to roam. Duke basketball creates a great sense of community, but Northwestern football (except last year) can be a lot of fun to cheer on as well.