Lived in Evanston for a few years and found the hot and humid summers a lot harder to deal with than the winters. Fall was my favorite season in Evanston! Magical!
This was a while ago but I found the engineering labs a little run down. Had a great few years at Northwestern. Would recommend it to anyone that can afford it. I think the price tag is too high for undergrad. I don’t have any insight into Vanderbilt.
Your posts are good. But I think your perception of the relative academic strengths between the two schools is a little off. Northwestern is generally ranked higher across the board, with only a few exceptions like education/audiology. Econ/chemistry at NU are considered among the best in the world (as a reference, the peer assessment in econ is 4.9 out of 5.0 for NU vs 3.4 for Vanderbilt). Its sociology is among the best in the country. It seems to me NU’s strength in pre-professional fields may lead some to assume it’s less strong in liberal arts. While that’s generally a good bet, some schools like NU do manage to be pretty good in both.
That is exactly what was going through my mind when I composed my post. I must admit that I know Kellogg/Medill/McCormick much better than other outstanding schools like SESP and Weinberg.
Northwestern students do not need cars.