Roger_Dooley

I've noticed that in the last week or two, Northwestern Visits have been the most-viewed, edging out perpetual heavyweight Harvard. But, we have a mere three reports so far for Northwestern... Surely, some of you have visited the campus and formed some impressions - if you can, please take a moment and share your thoughts with all those CC members and visitors who are looking for Northwestern visits. Thanks!

Big Duke 6

I visited NU during the spring of ?05. Seems a like a long time ago, but I remember a few things quite well. My tour guide was real cool. The weather was good (I wonder why...)....... ummm I really liked the feel of the campus and of Evanston as a whole. I got to go, I?ll edit this when I get back.

io9473541

First visited the campus when I was 9, great school. Dad got a PHD there; I want to go to grad school there.

mdornbusch

ive visited on 5 seperate occasions to visit my sister there, and the school is amazing. i was considering applying MIT because i have a huge connection there, but i fell in love with northwestern and EDed, nullifying my chances at the #1 engineering school in the country. and good riddance to that, nu here i come (hopefully).

Weather: true, the cold pierces your 3 layers of clothing, but if you can survive it, there are hooks in your favor. it's actually not that cold spring/summer so relax and enjoy those months. aka: its not always bad weather, as it seems.

Environment: the tree-laden and green environment is just beautiful. the campus feels aesthetically softened, countering its rigorous curriculum and people, because of its traditional architecture, Victorian even, with stone cathedrals (evangelical mostly) ridden with dark green vines peripherally. the campus is organized into main 1-3 main streets and a web of perpendicular streets, so you wont get lost, but theres always a new route to take if you want to meet new people along your and their routes. also, the campus is split between the north and south, each with a very different party scene. choose carefully (probably based on class location tho). Allison and Bob are great houses, but they're all different. choose wisely. and for gods sakes, try not to live at the Rock (you'll know what im talking about if you've stayed there more than once)

People: you can expect a diverse student body. the people are dedicated, focused, and intelligent; these are the people who either fell just below the ivies or rejected ivies like cornell, dartmouth, and schools like duke because they thought NU better. a sidenote: if you arent cosmopolitan or can't survive in a multicultural-complex microcosm (which i personally find is the only way to be entertained constantly), you might not end up liking the social scene. on the other hand, there's a group for everyone if you look hard enough.

Partys: although speculators say the party life sucks, chicago isn't far, so if you get up and look around, it's actually pretty good. get a group of friends and get out, and you will have a good time. if you can't, you're just lazy or overworking yourself there. there's always The Keg (bar) nearby anyway, if you need a tuesday-night hangout.

Classes: i sat in on a few junior/sophomore level engineering classes and the teachers definately varied (i took notes on the teachers' teaching methods from the back of the room). i sat in on a small Biomedical Schematics class, and the teacher just taught straight without asking any questions. he was also slow in his processes and explained thoroughly tho, so it balanced out; even i could follow, having only taken ap physics c and ap calc ab. the class was only 25 people large. flipside, i sat in on a Kinematics Motion lecture hall, which had roughly 70 people, with a very interesting teacher who did the whole physical demonstration thing, which was just great. alot of technology involved in his teaching. easy to follow and i enjoyed it. finally, i sat in on a Computer Programming class and had no idea what was going on because he taught so quickly. the students were even confused (another 20-odd class). sidenote: a friend who goes there said that his teaching is notorious and frequently avoided in hopes that he'll be gone before they are forced to take it by the quarter system requirements. anyway, i enjoyed the classes very much. very interactive and easy-flow.

Girls: generally, the girls aren't bad at all. i was impressed walking around the school at the number of girls i was tempted to look at (sorry to any girls, its just natural to glance for an instant). also, they are incredibly intelligent. don't expect stupid/easy girls, random hookups are not frequent, although they do happen at parties, naturally. i was dissapointed with the number/caliber of girls looks in the engineering classes (2 or 3 per class), but you can always go for girls at a differnet sub-school so chill out and enjoy yourself. the drama girls are gorgeous/intelligent. you'll survive/flourish if that's in your interests. just reinforcing, these girls aren't just pretty, theyre also dangerously (kidding about that adjective) intelligent.

Food: not phenomenal, i have to be honest. eatable, not terrible, you can live with it a few days a week, but you'll want to go out/order in pretty often.

Room/Hall Stucture: small rooms, 1-3 people, not the coolest, but not too bad actually. you'll have room for your bed, some walking space, a closet, and a desk, and another desk for a tv/nighttable. if you spend that much time in your room anyway, you should probably get out more. hangouts are best in the hall/lounge anyway. the halls are linearly structured so you'll be meeting lots of people in the halls, some halls co-ed, others single sex, you know the drill. depends on your hall as well, those aren't general statements. some dorms actually have a lounge per floor, but that's only from my experience visiting Allison.

Courseload: varies greatly. my sister, a communications major, only has a few hours of work a week, with an occasional large paper. however, my friend who majors in engineering has 3-5 hours of work a day, so proceed with caution. im going engineering-- self-imposed death sentence, but i love the school so ill live.

if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask. i'd love to share my experience but i cant think of anything else.

mdornbusch

actually, the one thing i don't know much about is the greek life. anyone care to contribute?

arbiter213

mdorn, not to be excessively rude, but your descriptions vary from poor to completely innacurate. Until you go here, don't assume to know what the social scene/dating scene/ residential life is like.

mdornbusch

..well then enlighten me. thats just the view i got from 5 visits and what my sister/2 friends who go there have told me. and no, i wont find that rude as long as you back it up.

arbiter213

One or two things for now:

"random hookups are not frequent"- Incorrect. Random hookups are very frequent, and are for most people the main "social life". Dating is exceptionally rare. People are either randomly hooking up (most of my friends) or in a serious committed relationship (such as myself).

Not really sure where you were coming from on the "People" section about cosmopolitanism but it doesn't sound inaccurate, just not how I view it really. You seem to imply that the students here are of a lower calibur as a rule than HYPSM students is just unfoudned though. Many of the students here are easily of that calibur. That said, many here are also well below the Ivy Calibur. You really see a range- with my stats I expected to be towards the top of the academic heap- I found my expectations to be dead on. My best friend from home is also here with me; he always had slightly lower grades and is just not quite as smart. He expected an easy go of it though, because of our HS- his expectations were not met. So while what you said is largely true, it is not a fair assertion. HYPSM is not the ultimate goal for everyone, and acting as though those who go there are on some untouchable level of their own is absurd.

The party scene isn't bad at all, you just have to be willing to go to fraternities. Granted, if you shun those there's not much to do without a fake ID, but thats sort of like saying its hard to find water while refusing to drink from the tap.

And the dorm life you described is true of some dorms, but is not at all a good general description; in truth, there is no good general description. Between the numerous different housing options, room size, dorm culture, and sociability of residents varies vastly, even within North or South Campus dorms.

And the dorm food is actually pretty good... at the right halls. Willard and Hinman on South Campus are both good. Foster Walker is edible. Elder, Seargant, and Allison, enter at your own risk. And the food at Norris and the C-Stores is great.

mdornbusch

i appreciate the response; thanks for correcting me. sounds good, i like NU even more now if anything =] random hookups are cool, and its nice to know the food isnt all as bad as it was for my few days at Allison. thanks!

arbiter213

Oh god Allison... I have plans to meet some guys from the fraternity I'm rushing there tomorrow. Ewww.

My pleasure to help out a prospective student! Here's a tip, since it sounds like you're gonna live on North campus- Elder is awesome. Ayers is ok. Everything else on North is lame. Thats an opinion though, not a hard and fast rule.

Sam Lee

Actually even at the Ivies, you'll see a range. HY probably has less but schools like Penn/Cornell probably have as much of a range as NU has because their stats are very similar to NU's. We have a range even at Harvard because admission isn't based solely on test scores.

Columbiahopeful!

arbiter, I don't know what state you are from. But, I know tons of kids at Cornell that are way below in terms of statesof anyone that I know who has attended a school like Northwestern or Wash U.

arbiter213

I'm assuming state there means stats? I have a stats profile here, but it's not complete. And Sam Lee, of course every school has a range. My point was exactly to correct the "Not as good as Ivies" sentiment in mdorn's post. I don't really see the point of your post. I stated only that the bottom end of our spectrum dips a wee bit below that of most of the Ivy's (not Cornell's).

cj_svu6

I visited late last spring and spent three days on campus with my friend who was a sophomore. We had two days of very nice weather and one day that was very, very cold and very windy. All the people I encountered were very nice and I was impressed by the teachers I met. The people seemed much more sociable than the students at some of the other top schools I had visited. I also happened to be there the same week as accepted students' week, so I attended a program where various student clubs performed for the "prospies". I was impressed by the variety of the clubs and the diversity of the people. I loved the campus- it is very pretty- and all the buildings and classrooms seemed up-to-date and well-kept. The theaters and galleries are impressive and the athletic center is also amazing and has anything you could ever want, as far as sports go. The only reservations I have are that it gets bitterly cold there in the winter, and while the campus is quite beautiful, it usually has tons of snow in the winter and I feel like I would probably choose to stay in my dorm than go out in the freezing cold (and I'm from the Northeast, so I'm used to cold weather). My friend has also encountered a lot of intolerance from some of the students (not toward her, but toward others) and she said a lot of people tend to wear their religion on their sleeve and force their views on others, which can get tiresome.

arbiter213

I have yet to experience any significant amount of intolerance or "Wearing of religion on people's sleeves". I'm pretty attuned to both since they bother me quite a bit.