WashU vs Northwestern?

vbball90
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:35:46 +0000

I looked at Northwestern pretty thoroughly. I was admitted to both Northwestern and WUSTL and visited both before deciding. For Northwestern, I was surprised at how far removed it was from Chicago and lacking in legitimate things to do that would have held my attention over 4 years. Evanston was a nice suburb, but it only had houses and a handful of restaurants. Academics between the two are largely a wash. Northwestern has the clear edge for Communications/Journalism. WUSTL has the clear edge with pre-med and the overall ease of double majoring. Otherwise, they really are pretty equal.

Sure, downtown Chicago > downtown St Louis, but I think a lot of people will be surprised on how much they will actually access the downtown area on a regular basis, in BOTH cities. With a 35 minutes EL ride, getting to Chicago is somewhat of a hassle. I guarantee that you won’t be going down there more than once in a rare while.

WUSTL has Forest Park right across the street, and the Loop is a 10 minute walk. The Loop is the main hangout area for WUSTL students, and again it’s a short walk away. It has enough to do to keep you occupied for awhile. Even better, though is that the whole student body gets free MetroLink passes and free bus passes. The Metro that takes you everywhere from the Central West End (restaurants, some shopping, some clubs), Clayton (really nice restaurants and businesses), and downtown. There are two stops right on campus, too. From my 4 times riding the EL train, they were super dirty and I felt like they were going to fall off the tracks.

In terms of on-campus activities and amenities (food, dorms, concerts, etc), WUSTL clearly comes out ahead. Football might be the only area we fall behind, but our basketball teams are phenomenal!

The weather in St Louis is also far superior to those long and harsh lakeside winters in Chicago! There is no way I would survive that coming from a year-round warm climate.

Sure, everyone’s decision processes and preferences are different, but in terms of cities… I really think that it is more important to evaluate things to do in the surrounding area than things to do that are 35+ minutes away.

I liked Northwestern, and I’m sure I would have been sufficiently happy on a day-to-day basis. But, I always just came away with a feeling of disappointment on many levels after visiting. When I visited WUSTL, I came away surprised and impressed, and have continually been so since being here.