Tufts vs. Northwestern pre-med?

Mastadon
Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:06:57 +0000

@ Sam

Please relax, I am actually the spouse of a Northwestern Alum and a long-time financial supporter of your school. I am also a Tufts Alum and have a child attending Tufts. The sentence you extracted was nothing more than an attempt to disambiguate the term “Chicago” (hence the quotes) because people in the preceding posts were using the term in different ways and it appeared to be causing confusion. It was in no way meant to imply that there is nothing to do outside of the Downtown Chicago area. In fact, that implication would be inconsistent with the first sentence of my post, which compares the feel of Chicago to that of LA. (LA happens to be the second largest city after NYC, is very “lively” and has the benefit of being close to the poster).

My next post, which got delayed due to the fact that my family spent the holiday weekend in the Chicago suburbs, probably would have clarified my intent.

To get right to the point, I see three objective differences between the two cities that need to be mentioned:

The first is that the public transportation system in Chicago runs 24x7 while the public transportation system in Boston shuts down at 1AM. Students from NYC, Miami, LA and Chicago, who are used to hanging out at 24-hour places after 2AM, should take this into consideration. For all intents and purposes, Boston has pretty much shut down by 2AM and any social activities have to migrate back to the college campuses (of which there are many). In this context, it is important to recognize that Boston is about a five-hour drive or a $20 bus ticket (each way) from NYC. The more socially adventurous students in the Boston area colleges will go on weekend excursions to NYC to get a taste of nightlife or culture that cannot be found anywhere else. The ideal is to go with a friend from NYC who can serve as an expert guide or link up with a friend who is going to school in NYC.
Some students from the local area also have experience making this trip.

The second is that while Chicago is very large and has all the advantages associated with scale, Boston/New England is very dense with all the advantages associated with proximity. In particular, Boston has more students than any city in the US, and is second only to Montreal in all of North America. Couple this with the fact that Boston is tiny compared to the likes of NYC, LA and Chicago and you end up with a student density that is so high, it actually drives the social environment/culture of the city. See the links below (Note that Wellesley, Babson and Olin are just outside of this area, but they also socialize in Boston.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Boston_college_town_map.png

[List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston - Wikipedia)

Other aspects associated with proximity are that Boston’s cultural attributes are more accessible for inexperienced city-goers, and Massachusetts/New England’s recreational attributes are more accessible for outdoor adventure types. For summer research interns (or students if the weather cooperates), the ocean and beautiful salt-water beaches are less than an hour away and Cape Cod is about two hours away.

The third difference is that Boston and Chicago are very different topologically and historically. Boston is hilly, while Chicago is flat. The joke in our family is that while Bostonians will hire a bulldozer to level out their land, Chicagoans will buy truckloads of dirt to build artificial hills – seems like each wants what the other has. Boston is 175 years older than Chicago, so it has more history and features quaint colonial architecture, while Chicago features some beautiful and impressive modern architecture. The streets of Chicago were laid out in an efficient grid by an urban planner, while the streets of Boston were laid out by 17th century cows, who tended to be less concerned with efficiency.

These differences give each city a different “feel” or “vibe”, but I agree with Medman: which is “best” is a matter of personal preference and what is best for me may not be best for you.

These are both great cities and both offer more than the typical college student can take advantage of (due to time and budget constraints) in four years. My advice is that if you are lucky enough to go to either school, make sure you periodically drop the books and experience what each city has to offer. College should be more than just book learning!