<p>I am a junior and planning to apply for ED at NU next year. What are the most important things to work on until next year? What was the most important thing you felt that helped you get into NU?</p>
<p>Make sure you visit Northwestern, e-mail them questions, schedule an interview, and do lots of things to show a lot of interest in the school without, of course, annoying them to the point that they want you to leave you alone. Try to get your SAT scores as high as possible, and take the SAT IIs (although it’s not required, I didn’t take them and still got in). Do stuff in the community, charity work and things like that which isn’t necessarily for service hours, to show them that you are well-rounded. Take a tough senior-year schedule, even though the tendency is to go easy. Overall, Northwestern is not a lot different than other selective schools in terms of what they want of their applicants. Showing great interest in Northwestern is probably the best thing you can do.</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with everything agrod said, but probably the most unrecognized aspect of the application are the essays. Be sure to do as well as you can with the essays – just be real, show personality, avoid cliches, etc.</p>
<p>Essays. Northwestern is like Stanford, they REALLY care about your essays.</p>
<p>My SAT scores literally sucked butt, both the new one and the optional subject tests - like, really really bad. So, I wouldn’t worry too much about the whole SAT thing, as long as you can make up for it in other places. As far as things you have control over, stay busy busy busy, write essays that are honest about who you are, and take the most challenging classes offered.</p>