College admissions is competitive,

Northwestern is very well-rounded. Many academic departments are strong on campus, though NU does suffer a bit from the "jack of all trades, master of none" syndrome. Chemistry, History, Psychology, Journalism, Film, Theatre and Economics seem especially strong however, along with Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering for the more technically inclined. NU requires most of its students to complete a very broad and extensive set of liberal arts distribution requirements. This can be both a blessing and a curse, as the undecided types are exposed to a variety of classes and styles of thinking, whereas many students with strong interests in one are often feel distro requirements impede them from specializing early on.

Socially, there are many options at NU. Many students hit up frat parties on Friday and Saturday nights, however there are plenty of theatre and music events, guest speakers and just general dorm horseplay to keep those who don't want to party entertained. Chicago and Evanston also offer many diverse opportunities for fun, and Evanston provides many opportunities for students looking for a good meal with some friends after a week of dorm food. Most students aren't limited to "one" type of social activity, many will for instance go to a party then see a play, or eat dinner in Chicago but then come back and spend the night chatting with friends in a dorm hallway. People tend to be fairly friendly and most NU kids are rather social and open to many different forms of entertainment.

Academics at NU can be a drag for some. NU requires Arts and Science students to take a vast array of classes to fulfill distribution requirements in 6 different areas (usually about 2 of these areas can be fulfilled by a person's major). To fulfill a distro, a student must take 2 classes in that area. NU also requires 6 quarters of language (2 years worth), along with 2 freshman seminars. Assuming a person's major fulfills 2 distros and the person has no advanced language credit, they have to take a total of 16 classes outside their area of interest. Most NU students take 48 classes while they're here, so the distros take up about 25% of a students time here, or about 1 year total. Since a year at NU costs 50k, a student's family spends 50 thousand dollars on courses not immediately relevant to a student's interest. This is frankly far too much.

Classes are fast and often very rushed. Some are well taught, others are terrible. Social science departments generally get high marks for teaching, whereas low-level foreign language classes, math, science and engineering classes are generally bad.

There are 3 tables of NU students sitting in the dining hall. One consists of theatre and music majors, mostly from the East Coast or California discussing the latests productions they've been in. The one next to them consists of haggard looking pre-meds and engineers, stressing out about the physics midterm they just took. The people next to them are a varied bunch, most are clean-cut and well dressed, but not too well dressed. They don't know what they're going to do in life, but all they know is that life as an undecided NU student is fairly good.

Socially, there are many options at NU. Many students hit up frat parties on Friday and Saturday nights, however there are plenty of theatre and music events, guest speakers and just general dorm horseplay to keep those who don't want to party entertained. Chicago and Evanston also offer many diverse opportunities for fun, and Evanston provides many opportunities for students looking for a good meal with some friends after a week of dorm food. Most students aren't limited to "one" type of social activity, many will for instance go to a party then see a play, or eat dinner in Chicago but then come back and spend the night chatting with friends in a dorm hallway. People tend to be fairly friendly and most NU kids are rather social and open to many different forms of entertainment.

Northwestern is stereotyped as incredibly pre-professional, frat-dominated, a party school, academically challenging, grade deflated and prestigious. Northwestern students are stereotyped as the "work hard, play hard" types and have a reputation as very social individuals who are also at the top of their game academically and extracirricularly.

Northwestern definitely is pre-professional, grade-deflated and prestigious. Northwestern students definitely embody the "work hard, play hard mentality". They hit the books Sunday through Thursday, but take the weekends off to have fun. Northwestern students are a little less goal-oriented than they're made out to be, many don't know what they're going to do once they leave and chose Northwestern because it is strong in many different areas and has a rather amiable atmosphere. Many believe Northwestern is frat-dominated, but that depends on the view of what frat-dominated means. 40% of the student body may be in Greek organizations and Greek life is definitely strong on campus, but it is by no means the only social outlet at NU and non-Greek rarely, if ever, feel pressured to join the frats. The social atmosphere at NU is varied and diverse, and students tend to be very respectful and open to other's choices; there is no one prevailing "campus culture". NU is grade deflated in some areas but not others. Science classes are particularly harsh, as even honors sections of some classes are curved to a C+ or a B-.

The food is pretty good and some dorms (Willard, Slivka come to mind) are absolutely amazing.