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<p>I don’t remember a discussion of “global” name recognition - global recognition often tends to accentuate large state schools that provide large scale research etc - University of Illinois is probably better known globally than Brown or Swarthmore or Emory or Tufts - but does not mean illinois garners more “prestige” nationally?</p>
<p>While you are entitled to your impression of NU’s name recognition, and this is a clearly subjective measure (at least unless someone knows of marketing or poll research done into college name recognition and impressions) it is a bit presumptuous to assume that your opinion of NU’s name recognition is the end-all-be-all and should be regarded as fact (as you seemed to imply with your statement “so, so much for your global name recognition”).</p>
<p>A counter argument to your assertion that “Outside of a few prep schools and a 50 mile radius of Chicago, no one really knows that school” may be to look at admission statistics reflecting that only approximately 20% of the rather large student body of NU is from Illinois. Northwestern also received 30,600+ applications this year, which in my mind would indicate some knowledge of the school outside of the limited parameters that you suggest. Also considering NU is perennially listed as top 10 or 15 schools in this nation by multiple publications you would have to believe that more than a few have heard of NU. Again, this is of course subjective.</p>