Guitarheels,
I wrote this description with our impressions of Northwestern some time ago:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...n#pos t792231
Don't know if things have changed since we looked at this program two years ago. That being said, we do know one girl very well who is a senior MT there (came in without audition through the Theater Dept) and she has been very happy and I think there are lots of performance opportunities,
Do a search with the word "Northwestern" as the keyword and limit the search to the Musical Theater forum and you will get several previous posts to look at. There is also a thread entitled NYU vs Northwestern that might be helpful.