Northwestern vs. Wash U

brand_182
Sun, 01 Apr 2007 01:56:09 +0000

Sam Lee - I am actually not trying to argue that WashU has a better rep than Northwestern as I think it is meaningless. The OP has outlined the important factors and they are being addressed: with regards to prestige, he will not be making a bad decision either way.

On a final note, I agree that most people would say Northwestern is better known than WashU right now. Relatively few people outside of academia and high-aiming students know of WashU as it is just recently becoming a national, prestigious university. However, this is all really changing as WashU is following in Penn’s footsteps, riding the rankings to the top with a massive endowment, an increasingly strong undergraduate program, and several top grad/professional programs. Its increased selectivity (whether it be manipulated or not) is also working: I know many high school students that include WashU on their list of top schools these days and don’t expect an acceptance, even with their top stats. This has certainly been demonstrated by the results threads here on CC.

I have no doubt that WashU will retain its current place among other top schools and may eventually make its way back into the top 10. Still, I restate, exact ranking or comparison of WashU and NU doesn’t really matter at this point since it is silly to compare top 20 schools and say one is clearly better than the other (with the exception of the very top schools). I am getting ready to (hopefully) turn down WashU for Wesleyan although most people I know consider the former to be quite a bit more prestigious and impressive than the latter. Fit matters - a lot.

Illinois_kid - I still think WashU will best meet your criteria, but obviously nothing matters if you visit both and like NU more. Go where you’ll be happy as the differences really aren’t much.