Quality of Life

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

<p>I know the Princeton Review's assessment of "Quality of Life" is hardly definitive, but I'm a little bit...confused.</p>

<p>A few of my friends were looking through the Princeton Review's 371 Best Colleges last night, and they were all talking about how their schools had a 95 or a 96 or a 93 in the quality of life category. They told me Northwestern has a 76. (That's a C. I don't do Cs...)</p>

<p>I suppose I don't know how they come up with that ranking or anything, but I guess I was just wondering if anyone has ever wondered about it or knows why the number might be so low? It seems like schools similar to NU fair a lot better in this ranking, and you don't hear people at Northwestern constantly bemoaning their horrible living conditions. I'm not concerned about it, at all; just befuddled.</p>

2

<p>Maybe the day was very cold and bleak when NU students received the survey?</p>

3

<p>Haha I think rankings in general are sketchy, but to rank quality of life … seriously? Who is a company to say how happy I will be?</p>

4

<p>It’s not about how happy you’ll be. It’s about the quality of the housing, dining halls and other food options, facilities, safety, etc. To be honest, I find some of the dorms and facilities are not worth what people have to pay.</p>

5

<p>You don’t do C’s now, but just wait until you take that one class where a C is a pleasant surprise… (I guess not everyone does, but seriously: “C = death” is a high school mentality)</p>

6

<p>Some of the dorm rooms are tiny for two.</p>

7

<p>What that is actually indicating is that NU student’s tend to rate things like this lower than is accurate, not that things are not comparable or better than other schools. There are some interesting studies about that. Basically, NU students are, write large, whiny little brats, or at least the culture makes it permissible to complain.</p>

8

<p>Jack@$$!!!</p>

9

<p>? Who’s that? I’m making an observation. Don’t like it prove me wrong.</p>

10

<p>I agree with arbiter; students here complain a lot about things that are really much smaller problems here. The two that bug me most:</p>

<p>“My professor only cares about his research” – try going to a public school some time, where undergraduate teaching is a necessary evil to almost all the faculty. And there are relatively few classes here that are taught exclusively by grad students/postdocs, who have even less time and attention to put into their teaching.</p>

<p>“My dorm is too small” – my triple dorm my freshman year at UW-Seattle was smaller than most doubles here. Although it’s assuredly true that we overpay.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s a case of being whiny brats, though. There’s adjusting to be done in college, and some people assume that adjusting means their college is bad. Frankly, I love it here, and I imagine most transfers feel the same way.</p>

11

<p>I wouldn’t say that NU students are whiny brats. Of course there will always be exceptions, but I definitely would not say that a majority, or even a large part, of the student body are “whiny little brats.”</p>

<p>@OP: I have no idea why NU would be rated so poorly. Vitamin’s theory might actually have some merit - winters here can be a bit of a drag, and if students got the survey during a particularly nasty week, that could explain it.</p>

<p>Overall, I would say the quality of life here is pretty good. I live in one of the tinier doubles on campus, but even that’s not worth complaining about. I’m very satisfied with the dorm as a whole. We have lots of great stuff in the basement (pool table, huge TV, and much more), and the bathrooms and hallways are kept immaculately clean. If your dorm is missing something that you think it should have, the dorm can vote on how to spend its money when it’s buying new stuff.</p>

<p>The food is pretty good, imo. Of course it’s overpriced, but I think that’s a pretty common thing for colleges. If you don’t like it, you can live off campus or in a frat/sorority house. And there’s no shortage of good food to get in Evanston.</p>

<p>The other facilities are also excellent, in my experience. SPAC is wonderful, and most of the classrooms are nice. As for safety, I personally feel that NU is a pretty safe campus (the shuttle systems are very convenient and helpful with this), and they’re constantly working to improve the safety. They’re always asking us where we’d like more lights, what they can do to improve Saferide, etc.</p>

<p>And (again, in my opinion) the campus overall has a bright and cheerful atmosphere. The landscaping is simply gorgeous, and so is the lake. Evanston is a great city. So it’s not like the environment is depressing or anything.</p>

<p>Sorry for the long post. I’m just trying to break down the reasons why people would give NU a low rating for quality of life, and I can’t think of any. It does make me sad that we’re rated as a 76 when comparable schools are at 94s. I seriously doubt that the quality of life at those other schools is that much better than it is here, though.</p>

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<p>“try going to a public school some time, where undergraduate teaching is a necessary evil to almost all the faculty.”</p>

<p>Mm, depends on the public school. I’ve never had a prof that didn’t love teaching, office hours, and all that, and my friends in different majors had very similar experiences.</p>

<p>I imagine students at NU simply expect more than students at other schools. They are, after all, paying much more. Hence, lower scores, when they realize students at cheaper universities don’t have VASTLY different facilities then them (depending again on the uni). I imagine NU is probably a cut above the rest in terms of facilities for students, not a “C”, but maybe it’s not as much above the rest as students expected.</p>

13

<p>Sirsteveh, I was being sarcastic when I said “I don’t do Cs.” I’m not quite obnoxious enough to say something like that in earnest. Honestly, I don’t blame you for calling me out. Had I read that, I would’ve been extremely annoyed by something so flagrantly pretentious.</p>

<p>Anyways… I stumbled upon this again, and realized that it sounded like I was being serious, and I thought I’d apologize. I’m really not a tool!</p>

14

I’d like to revive this old thread. Back in 2010 the Princeton Review website put Northwestern’s “quality of life” at 76 (on a scale of 60 to 100). In 2016, it stands at just 63. I’d appreciate hearing people’s thoughts on why it seems consistently low. Some of the comments from 2010 suggested that maybe it was a bad winter day when the survey reached students. But now it looks like not just one year. And another reason to suspect that Chicago weather isn’t to blame is that U of Chicago and DePaul are both up at 92. Thoughts anyone on why NU doesn’t look too good on this metric?

15

Not sure tbh, would be surprised if “quality of life” has turned for the worse in the past six years. Sysdawg, what are your thoughts?

16

I can’t imagine dorms, dining halls, or campus in general are much (if at all) worse than at other schools, and as we have seen other Chicagoland schools have higher scores so weather doesn’t seem to be the factor either. Getting the Lake Effect - colder weather and more snow in the winter - might have some small effect though. I would next have thought that the quarter system would be responsible, but DePaul and UChicago are on the quarter system as well.

Maybe Northwestern is just really stressful compared to other schools, or people don’t like the social situation, or the survey collecting the information might be flawed (wording for instance).

This is a very interesting phenomenon and I do wonder what caused/causes it.

17

How widely was the survey distributed? I never heard of anyone saying he/she had seen/filled out the survey. This seems very fishy

18

Their survey methodology seems reasonable to me, the details are here: http://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/how-it-works

19

One thing is that NU pours money in to academics, research, fin aid, and programs for students (such as grants for students so that they may pursue unpaid internships that may be helpful for their career).

I visited another elite private with a similar-sized endowment and it looked and felt like a freakin’ country club. Everything was brand-new, the quads were immaculately manicured, the student union was luxurious, and they’re putting up a bunch of new dorms. Also, people rave about the food there. However, neither their students or professors win as many prestigious awards as NU students and faculty do, nor do as many of their students get in to elite professional schools as NU grads do, they don’t promise to meet full need for all, and I don’t hear of any such grant program for their students looking to do unpaid internships.

So it comes down to priorities. Are you looking to spend 4 years at a country club, or do you want to go to a school that puts money in to things that make a university world-class and accessible to all rather than landscaping and remodeling?

20

@PurpleTitan LOL - when I attended NU (a long time ago) it was referred to as “The North Shore Country Club”. :slight_smile: