I’ve got a few things to say, but just as a peremptory statement, I want to say that a lot of these are based on personal experience, so if I come off as saying something isn’t true, I apologize.
First off, financial aid is pretty decent. Super mediocre. However, there are plenty of people for whom Northwestern is similarly priced to other schools, especially if you aren’t ED, which can bring down the financial aid.
Parties and alcohol: I pretty much agree that if you want to party in school, NU isn’t the best choice. Lots of people who are partying complain about the lack of fun. However, if you don’t think you’re going to party that much, or don’t drink at all, then NU is fine. Our campus isn’t dry. Students over 21 are allowed to have alcohol in their rooms, and allowed to drink it in the presence of other students 21+. Alcohol policy is hopefully changing soon, as there have been some big pushes recently for both the reporter and reportee of a medical emergency to be safe.
Greek: Totally agree on greek life, expensive and not always the most inclusive, but I know plenty of nice people in it who love it.
Sports: Yeah, spot on, not great but it can be fun. The games we win are super fun, and it’s possible we’ll do better this upcoming year.
Extracurriculars: I think we’ve got a great variety for such a medium-sized school. Yeah, there are some issues, but for the most part I think that the situation here is pretty good. If you want to find people from a wider variety of majors, you just have to find the right clubs that attract a wider variety of people.
Food: The meal plan is decently expensive, but we do NOT have sub-standard food. If you’ve been to almost any other college, than you know that our food is actually great comparatively. It might not be as good as a nice restaurant, but the food is good overall.
Academics: Yup, learn a lot, but pretty difficult.
Weather: Yeah, winter quarter sucks, but the majority of fall quarter is decently nice. Maybe a light jacket and pants for guy, but it’s not that cold. And Spring quarter is great. It snows a bit, and might be a bit cold once in a while, but it’s minimally in the 50s for almost the whole quarter.
Medill: Teaching there is good, but like you said a lot of it is skills. However, some of the classes help teach more critical skills, and the non-classroom options are all great. NBN, Stitch, Pulse, and other niche magazines provide great extracurriculars, the justice project, Knight Lab, JR, etc. are all great in developing great journalists.
McCormick: Many engineers enjoy DTC freshman year, but EA sucks. However, EA is necessary for engineering. Yeah, freshman year is hard for the engineers, but it’s not that bad. After that many of them enjoy their classes.
Weinberg: Overall very mixed bag. You can’t really group such a giant, diverse school.
You’re actually a bit wrong here, objectively. There are a few non-Weinberg classes that count as distros, and you can also petition for some to count. For instance, an engineer transferring to Weinberg would probably get out of the Formal Studies and/or Natural Science distros even though they technically don’t count. Also, it’s pretty easy to take classes in other schools. I have a friend who likes music, but he’s an engineer, and he’s taken quite a few music classes. It’s tougher than it could be, however it’s not that hard.
Diversity/Inclusion: Yeah, Northwestern definitely has plenty of issues, but I agree that it’s better than many other places. You can usually find a group that will support you if you have issues, and I think plenty of my friends of color would pick NU again looking back.
Socioeconomics: I think that Northwestern is doing pretty well for a school where something like 40% of students can afford 60K a year. It’s not perfect, but as a student from the lower-middle class-ish background, I might have some issues, but not necessarily as many as I expected before coming here.
Stress and Mental Health: Yeah this is a big issue. There is slow improvement, however it’s not moving as fast as it should. Hopefully it gets better, but at the moment, the only thing I can recommend is that people find an outlet. Sustained dialogue, a club, frat/sorority, church, whatever works for them. It’s the only good way to fix this issue at the moment.
It may show, but I would absolutely pick NU again. I’m not into the mindset the school seems to create of always needing to be busy, needing to do more, etc. but you don’t have to fall into that. I think there’s plenty of flaws, but I definitely think that for many people the pros outweigh the cons.