Should I apply to Northwestern? It would be my 18th school!

Parent Cafe
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<p>I agree, your math scores are fine - especially if you aren’t applying as an engineer. S2 had a 690 in math and got into Chicago (EA) and Tufts. He didn’t send in his 610 on the Math II subject test except when he was required to send in all his testing results.</p>

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<p>Northwestern tracks applicant’s interest according to its common data set that I downloaded recently so you may be at a disadvantage if you add it at the very last minute.</p>

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<p>It is kinda late to add a school now but if you do decide to go for it, check out their industrial engineering and management sciences major (IEMS, ranked top-5). It’s like a hybrid of engineering and business. Half the IEMS students double-major in econ and many of them pursue one of the two undergrad certificate programs at Kellogg (most of them picked managerial analytics instead of financial economics). Another thing to consider is their engineering co-op program. It is one of the oldest and most well-established in the country. Part of the co-op happen during the school year; you can graduate with as many as 6 quarters of co-op. There’s no tuition while you are on co-op.</p>

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<p>Lets step back a bit. You should ask yourself, if NU accepted me will I go and why?</p>

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<p>too cold try getting out of Ohare in the winter time/Christmas season! LOL
seriously why are those “bad” SAT scores?</p>

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<p>From people I know you should get into Georgetown too. and a female engineering major is a good thing!</p>

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<p>No merit aid at Northwestern, with the exception of a very small handful of music-related scholarships, which is irrelevant in your case.</p>

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<p>If I were an adcom, I’d wonder why you want to be an engineer when your resume screams something else. Do not squeeze yourself into a box in which you do not fit. Please, focus on where you WANT to be, not where you THINK you “deserve” to be. </p>

<p>BTW, a 2290 (with 700 M and 740 Math Level II) is hardly disgraceful. Those math scores are perfectly fine for an econ/fin major, too. One of my kids had a 2290 and was adamant about not retaking. That score puts you in the game, at which point a number of the schools on your list become a crapshoot, just like they are for everyone else who applies.</p>

<p>I feel fairly confident that neither Tufts nor many of the other schools on your list would view your math scores as “bad,” even for engineering.</p>

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<p>I think it’s a good idea. Given your preference for Big Name schools, Northwestern is a reasonable 18th choice. I’d ask you to remember this: more happy, successful people didn’t attend Harvard than those who did. The school isn’t everything, and the name of the school darn sure isn’t.</p>

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<p>Oh come on…the OP has a long list. Already has an acceptance from a school ON the list. Chicago isn’t in the region the OP has clearly chosen. Northwestern doesn’t offer merit aid, which is the general reason parents and students give for applying to a laundry list of colleges. There is not a single reason I can see why this person needs to apply to yet another college. The concept here isn’t to see how many colleges a student can get into, the concept is to get into ONE college that a student is willing to attend…all kids are nervous we don’t do any kid any good by feeding into that by saying “oh sure, one more, one more, one more…can’t hurt.”</p>

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<p>your ec’s are a little weak for the ivies, so I don’t think it would hurt to add northwestern to your schools that you’re applying to. In the long run, it’ll be worth it!</p>

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<p>Correcting a few mistakes here - you can apply and be accepted to multiple colleges at CMU (up to 3). I was accepted to both MCS (Physics) and CIT (MechE). Second, while it is possible to switch colleges, it can be very difficult in certain cases. While CIT to Tepper is a common switch, Tepper to CIT could be quite hard. Make sure that you are really applying to your first choice college, and not trying to get in through a back door, because you might find out that a) you aren’t able to switch or b) your graduation date is significantly delayed.</p>

<p>Additionally, CMU’s “merit” aid is not as straightforward as it sounds. I suggest you do a search for some threads on the CMU boards - there seems to be a general consensus that there actually is a financial component involved. Those who receive merit aid tend to have family incomes that are just high enough so as to not qualify for significant FA, but are not much higher than that. If you have a high family income, based on past results, you are unlikely to receive “merit” aid from CMU.</p>

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<p>To follow up on California Dancer’s post, Georgetown requires that you apply only to ONE school. There IS no engineering program at Georgetown, BTW. Hope you didn’t send an essay discussing your love for it…
Do you have three SAT-IIs? If you don’t, they want a written statement why.
[Preparation</a> Process - Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/firstyear/preparation/]Preparation”>http://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/firstyear/preparation/)</p>

<p>Can also confirm from others we know who got into CMU that merit $$ is VERY hard to come by and FA is not that great. They have some outstanding programs, though, and is on S1’s grad school shortlist.</p>

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<p>Please don’t. You’re more than likely going to get accepted to one of the colleges you’ve already listed, and you’d be more competition against people like me, whose applications would be like comparing a chicken with a tyranosaurus rex against yours. Northwestern means everything to me, and I’m sure it does to a lot more people. Stick to colleges you really want to go to, and I wish everyone with stats like yours would do the same.</p>

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<p>No. (10 char.)</p>

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<p>yea, good point. I think your SAT Math section (700) is likely too low for almost all of those schools. You should apply to some tier 4 schools to make sure you have a college to go to. Look into the local community college as well.</p>

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<p>Northwestern has an interesting school of engineering - my advisor went there aeons and aeons ago. It’s also a cool school for physics and the ever-popular medical field. It’s not MIT or CMU certainly but depending on what the OP wants to do later in life, it may be interesting.</p>

<p>Bottom line, if the engineering program at NW is not of interest to you, or the synergies with other departments, then no point in applying. Evanston is not quite a college town the way, say, Ann Arbor is… It’s a place that old geezers like me go to retire in a decade or so :-). But, I’ll take Chicago over Pittsburgh any time.</p>

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<p>Pittsburgh is actually a great place. Chicago is one of the great cities of the world, and it charges for that; Pittsburgh is much cheaper, and very student-friendly. And Pittsburgh is enjoying quite the economic boom these days, as de facto capital of the Marcellus Shale (at least the part of it where drilling is permitted).</p>

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<p>^^

  1. While Northwestern is no MIT, it’s actually on par with CMU in engineering. Which one is considered better depends on which field you are conisdering. Between the two, CMU is obviously considered better in EE and CS, their bread and butter programs. Northwestern is considered better in biomedical, material science, industrial engineering/management sciences (potentially the engineering field that the OP most interested in). They are pretty even civil, chemical, and mechanical.</p>

<ol>
<li>A lot of young professionals have moved into Evanston over the past decade. Notice the high-rise in the middle and to the far left; they are part of an expansion of high-rise development since the late 1990s .<br>
[File:Evanston</a> Skyline 4.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evanston_Skyline_4.JPG]File:Evanston”>File:Evanston Skyline 4.JPG - Wikipedia)</li>
</ol>

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<p>N.o.
Getting to Evanston could be easier to get to than CMU. Pittsburgh is close enough to drive and too expensive to fly from DC-north. However NU is opposite condition.</p>

<p>Save app fee and enjoy december.</p>