<p>Commence (COMMENTS?!)</p>
<p>There are too many variables to make this discussion meaningful.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Which “public ivy”? As far as I’m concerned, UVA, UCLA, UC-B, and Michigan are the only top-notch schools that even come close to NU.</p></li>
<li><p>Finances. Do you get scholarship? Financial aid? Can you afford an education either way?
2A. Post-grad plans. Can you afford law/med/grad school?
2Ai. Post-grad plans admission. Getting a high GPA is far easier at state schools than NU. Is it worth the presumed GPA drop in coming to NU? Do you put more stock in the quality of law/med/grad prep you’ll get from your “better” classmates and professors? Is having more resources available to you more important than GPA?</p></li>
<li><p>Campus culture. UCLA is very different from NU culturally. So is UVA. What kind of school are you looking for? What size?</p></li>
<li><p>Your major. Does NU have your major? Does the state school? What is the relative quality? In all honesty, NU has myriad majors in absolute spades. However, I don’t think we have a strong agriculture program that Texas A&M might. </p></li>
<li><p>Prestige (legit and illegit). On a less substantive level, is going to a school like NU important to you? Do you want access to the alumni network and the ability to impress everyone you talk to?
On a slightly more substantive level, is it important that you go to the best school you can? I came to NU because I needed to know that all my classmates worked as hard as I did, were as smart as I was, and accomplished as much as I did. Being in an Honors Program means you are special? Is it more important to be defined as special by virtue of being in a special school or defined as special by virtue of being in a special program in a more ordinary school?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is a series of rhetorical questions for a reason. they aren’t meant to be answered. Hopefully they start an internal dialogue for those deciding between NU and Michigan, UVA, UNC, UCLA, Cal, UT-Austin, and whatever other state schools are considered “public ivy” these days.</p>
<p>*** is a public ivy? seems like an oxymoron.</p>
<p>[Public</a> Ivy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Ivy]Public”>Public Ivy - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>and I’m talking about University of Texas at Austin</p>
<p>Northwestern by a mile. UT Austin is great, especially if you like to party, but I just don’t think there’s a comparison between the two academically.</p>
<p>there is absolutely no comparison between NU and UTAustin… NU is undoubtedly much better.</p>
<p>Depends on what you want to study. UT-Austin and NU have, from what I can tell, comparable film/media departments. It’ll differ elsewhere. UT-A is an awesome school (it was my other in-US choice), but pretty much everything about it is different than NU. Size, people, demographics, etc. CerebralAssassin has a good idea going with their question list - that’ll help determine what kind of school you want, and I think UT-A and NU could be separated pretty easily by that.</p>
<p>So far, I’m doing Biomedical Engineering.</p>
<p>And as far as engineering departments, UT is top 10 and its only a couple hours away, although Chicago is like my hometown and a lot of my family is there and I go there almost every summer.</p>
<p>I’m just so confused.</p>
<p>This thread has been helpful – thank you. D is debating between UC San Diego (honors program with the Provost assigned as her advisor) and WUSTL. UC San Diego has a top ten ranked department in her area, whereas WUSTL does not (for whatever the USNews rankings are worth, of course). WUSTL has a strong academic reputation and all students are clearly very bright, but it does not have the instant name recognition that NU would have, so this factor is not as clear (agreed?). </p>
<p>No comparison financially (UCSD is half the cost, and we could still see her on occasion). She will attend law school (or graduate school of some type). If UCSD will prepare her for a competitive graduate or law school (she doesn’t know which yet), perhaps this is the answer…?</p>
<p>^My advice is always this: if you are not rich or the cost-differential is significant to you, take the money and run!!</p>
<p>MarinaOne, I recommend UCSD. It is a great UC-school (right behind Cal and UCLA).</p>
<p>UCSD should have pretty good industry connection given that La Jolla has many biotech firms.</p>
<p>^Lol, I’m the biomedical engineering guy. MarinaOne’s D is law school prospect.</p>
<p>Also, for me, finances don’t seem to be that big of a problem fortunately. So NU seems like the overwhelming consensus here…</p>
<p>If you can financially make NU work, GO.</p>
<p>Good luck, Invisible. My apologies for highjacking your thread…!</p>