Stress culture / competition at Northwestern

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone could provide guidance or offer advice regarding the stress culture at Northwestern. I haven’t been able to find much information regarding this school in particular in terms of the competition among students. Is it more stressful / competitive than schools of a similar caliber? Is it more competitive / more of a stress culture than at some of the Ivies? Thank you.

There are too many variables to consider in order to make an accurate blanket statement about stress levels at any of the Ivy League schools or similar schools (Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins. Rice, & Emory, among others).

Two of the main variables are the individual student’s mindset & one’s major.

Pre-med students tend to place a great deal of pressure on themselves as do econ or other majors targeting MBB consulting.

At UPenn finance majors and others targeting investment banking careers undergo significant self-imposed stress.

SESP & theater students at Northwestern do not usually experience an undue amount of stress.

One factor that makes Northwestern University undergraduate students more serious is the quarter system for academics. No wasted time. Students get to take more courses obver 4 years than do semester students at other schools and NU students can earn double or triple majors.

If you want to kick back and enjoy major athletics and constant parties, then Northwestern probably is not the right fit. But, the same could be said for many elite schools such as Chicago, JHU, CMU, Emory, MIT, Rice, Columbia, Princeton, Penn, Cornell, etc.

For a low stress college experience in an academically oriented environment, consider applying to honors colleges at state flagship universities.

Northwestern University is a serious school with respect to intellectual horsepower, work ethic, ambition / drive, and professional career goals.

Northwestern University is an expensive private university. Once a student’s financial aid eligibility runs out, students do not have the luxury of considering a fifth or sixth year of undergraduate education at low in-state tuition rates as one might have at a large public university.

Similar academic environments are found at Cornell & Penn, WashUStL, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard among others.

Students who apply to Northwestern most commonly also apply to:

Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Michigan, Penn, Princeton, WashUStL, & Duke.

In addition to honors colleges at state public flagship universities, one might consider Dartmouth College, Brown, Michigan, Virginia, UNC, Florida, Texas or most LACs (not Swarthmore) for a more relaxed environment. Duke as well.

Hyper-competition and “stress culture” is more about your major than the school itself. That varies widely from school to school. Computers, pre-med, etc tend to be more competitive, because schools often have only so many slots available.

I know a few people who went there, admittedly a couple of them went quite a few years back, but most, if not all, of them were pretty positive on their experience and didn’t say anything about it being very competitive. The quarter system as others have said could take a little getting used to since most hs are semester based.

I agree it’s tough to make judgments and comparisons about the competitive nature of colleges. The only people who would be able to compare one institution to another are those who have attended both.

I went to Kellogg, know a number of students who have recently or currently attend NU, and still live in the general area. My sense is that NU can be a stressful and competitive environment, and the quarter system leads to a fast paced life. There are many intelligent, hard working, achievement oriented students at NU…being in that type of environment works for some, not for others. I will also page @homerdog for their thoughts.

A few of my data points also come from Kellogg, which of course you can’t really compare to the undergrad. Here’s a good rule of thumb, I think, if a college doesn’t come up in a discussion on competitive or stressful place, even if it’s based on perception, probably is a good sign. There’s a set of intense, competitive colleges, that always come up in discussion, we won’t name them but I’ve never seen NU mentioned in those, so I think you’re ok there.

Yes. NU is a very competitive and stressful place to go to school—in my opinion, the stress is due in great part to the quarter system, which makes it feel like you are always studying for exams. No time to let information sink in, as you are always studying to the test. Competitive—yes, because many classes are graded on a curve. You don’t want to be the one to get the C, and somebody’s going to, so there’s that. As well, the profs have very high expectations, and there the sense among students that you were always the smart kid in high school, or the leader, or both. But now everybody is that person—and it’s pretty overwhelming to suddenly realize that everyone you are in class with is at least as smart as you, and oftentimes much smarter. Suddenly, you’re working your butt off for a B-. If you’re premed, that’s crazy-making for you.

Ok so pre-med is a different topic altogether for any university. Anyway, I perused gradeinflation.com and NU is right in middle of the ivies, wrt the GPAs they report. NU and most ivies are in the 3.4-3.5 range, Princeton is around 3.3, Brown 3.6.

Curving policy and competitive nature of the student body impact far more than just premed classes. A high GPA is necessary coming out of undergrad for many jobs and grad programs.

Gradeinflation .com hasn’t been updated since early 2016, some areas of the site even have older data that that…so that should not be considered a valid source of info.

Average grades can and do change over 4-6 years, as evidenced by what has happened at Davidson average gpa in that timeframe. https://www.davidson.edu/offices-and-services/registrar/graduating-class-profiles

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2020/02/13/campus/stress-is-in-our-dna-students-reflect-on-importance-of-self-care-in-northwesterns-high-pressure-environment/

https://blog.globalhealthportal.northwestern.edu/2014/04/stress-among-college-students/

https://apnews.com/792c535e1567473e90d56547d2f4943c

I have no horse in the game but live local to Northwestern. There have been multiple suicides in the last 6 years. We know of one personally. Yes, every school encounters this but the outcry led to Northwestern adding counslers just for this purpose.

Every school has some stress level but something was very amiss at Northwestern. Google this and there are articles coming directly from the student newspaper.

As with other selective schools everyone’s coming from being a top student but at Northwestern, your just the “average” student at best. Your used to getting all “A’s” and now your seeing your first “C” ever and you worked really hard for it. First semester no less. Lots of self doubt. Quarter system is just as your getting used to it… It’s over and your starting another semester. Kids from very wealthy families mostly (not all), that just makes you feel inferior just because. Kids driving BMWers and you can bearly afford the train monthly pass… Lots for someone to get used to. High achieving, lots of talk about money and privilege. Stress… Yep.

But it’s a great school if you can get pass this. Every school has weeder classes… Add that into the mix.

For most selective schools kids have to have a different mindset. For my son (at Michigan), we took the pressure off grades and put it on learning. He knew his close to 4.0 high school was a thing of the past in engineering. And that’s OK.