Well, yes, duh. Thing is, it doesn’t mean that the quality of the education or outcomes have necessarily increased, only costs and selectivity have increased. Hence, my comment on gaming rankings as many schools incl NU have done with varying degrees of success.

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is NOT at your doorstep, Evanston is. It’s a sketchy ride down through Rogers Park etc. I’m n the El.
Uber or hitch a ride w/upperclassman with a car.
It is booger-freezing and tearstain-causing windy freezing cold in the winter. Nice in fall and spring, albeit for a brief period.
Very wealthy student body overall, many students love their bottle service when they go downtown.
They’ve really gamed the rankings since the 1990s when their acceptance rate was way, way higher. They don’t like Chicago suburban students or Illinoisans as much now, either. Good luck applying from the DMV!

Someone got rejected by NU.

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is NOT at your doorstep, Evanston is. It’s a sketchy ride down through Rogers Park etc. I’m n the El.
Uber or hitch a ride w/upperclassman with a car.
It is booger-freezing and tearstain-causing windy freezing cold in the winter. Nice in fall and spring, albeit for a brief period.
Very wealthy student body overall, many students love their bottle service when they go downtown.
They’ve really gamed the rankings since the 1990s when their acceptance rate was way, way higher. They don’t like Chicago suburban students or Illinoisans as much now, either. Good luck applying from the DMV!

FYI---all of the top schools had much higher acceptance rates in the 1990s.
Columbia was 28% in 1992.
Harvard was 16% in 1992.
UPenn was 39% in 1992.

It was definately much "easier" to get into college in 1990s. Now with people applying to 15+ schools, it is largely the same group applying to all the top 20 schools. Yet there are still only the same 1500-2000 spots at most of those schools. In 1992, we picked our 3-5 top schools and applied. Now kids pick 10-20 schools and apply.

Chicago is NOT at your doorstep, Evanston is. It’s a sketchy ride down through Rogers Park etc. I’m n the El.
Uber or hitch a ride w/upperclassman with a car.
It is booger-freezing and tearstain-causing windy freezing cold in the winter. Nice in fall and spring, albeit for a brief period.
Very wealthy student body overall, many students love their bottle service when they go downtown.
They’ve really gamed the rankings since the 1990s when their acceptance rate was way, way higher. They don’t like Chicago suburban students or Illinoisans as much now, either. Good luck applying from the DMV!

Hi OP I don't think you are vapid for asking- people on this site are so mean.
I went there for grad school and LOVED it. Undergrads seem to love it also. It is cold IN THE WINTER!
But the lake setting is stunning! Chicago is at your doorstep.
There are lots of smart, fun kids - they seem more well-balanced and less intense and competitive than some Ivy league kids- but just as smart.
There are a lot of theater kids, journalists but also STEM/pre-med pre-business etc . And big time athletics.
It's really the best of all worlds.
It is pricey, but so is the competition which, at a 7% acceptance rate is the Ivy League, Stanford, Duke, MIT etc. It's ridiculously hard to get in but if you visit and your kid loves it - go for it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say NU gave me a lot of financial aid when other schools did not. But it's now twice what it was when I graduated in 2010.

So you would now receive at least twice the amount of financial aid grants that you received over a decade ago. Northwestern meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. Not sure, but I think that NU meets 100% of need without loans.

So this means they accept people who are very rich or very poor.

Don’t apply if you are middle class. They will expect you to sell your house or at least count your house and retirement when it comes to calculating the EFC.

Don't make assumptions - that would be foolish. Instead, find out by using the Net Price Calculator to see an estimate for your specific family financial situation.

Anonymous wrote:Very, very popular option, especially among kids in DMV. I would encourage kid to choose another school to ED too unless your kid has something very special

Don't listen to this advice. Apply ED if you're interested.

US News ranks Northwestern University as the #13 Best Value College ahead of Brown, Duke, U Penn, Cornell, Notre Dame ....

Very, very popular option, especially among kids in DMV. I would encourage kid to choose another school to ED too unless your kid has something very special

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say NU gave me a lot of financial aid when other schools did not. But it's now twice what it was when I graduated in 2010.

So you would now receive at least twice the amount of financial aid grants that you received over a decade ago. Northwestern meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. Not sure, but I think that NU meets 100% of need without loans.

So this means they accept people who are very rich or very poor.

Don’t apply if you are middle class. They will expect you to sell your house or at least count your house and retirement when it comes to calculating the EFC.

It means that one should apply to affordable options. Use the NPC (net price calculator) to determine your expected COA.

Northwestern University is the 7th most expensive college in America: Chicago, Brown, U Penn, Dartmouth College, Harvey Mudd, Bard,Northwestern, USC, Amherst College.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say NU gave me a lot of financial aid when other schools did not. But it's now twice what it was when I graduated in 2010.

So you would now receive at least twice the amount of financial aid grants that you received over a decade ago. Northwestern meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. Not sure, but I think that NU meets 100% of need without loans.

So this means they accept people who are very rich or very poor.

Don’t apply if you are middle class. They will expect you to sell your house or at least count your house and retirement when it comes to calculating the EFC.

Anonymous wrote:There are a number of threads in this forum, on College Confidential and A2C on reddit. Google is your friend.

In fairness, 90% of the conversations on this godforsaken hellsite are rehashes of the same thing and/or easily googleable.

Anonymous wrote:I will say NU gave me a lot of financial aid when other schools did not. But it's now twice what it was when I graduated in 2010.

So you would now receive at least twice the amount of financial aid grants that you received over a decade ago. Northwestern meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. Not sure, but I think that NU meets 100% of need without loans.

I will say NU gave me a lot of financial aid when other schools did not. But it's now twice what it was when I graduated in 2010.

Anonymous wrote:The school is beautiful and everyone I have ever known who went there loves it.
And it seems to only be going up reputation wise

+1