North by Northwestern

I decided to make a brief flashback to my college visit to Northwestern for my last blog post of the semester. I visited over Spring Break this year (2012) and was overly impressed with what I saw. We arrived there (Evanston, IL) around 6P.M. in the evening on a delightful Saturday afternoon. It was somewhat dark, so we decided to postpone actually walking around campus until our scheduled tour the next day. Instead, we parked a few blocks from the heart of campus in what reminded me of an upscale botique version of UIUC's notorious Green St. In this area, we found what look to be a lively Asian restaurant with a modern look. The place was packed. We waited for a short while before being seated. What followed was perhaps the best Thai/Korean/Chinese meal of my life. The food was excellent. The restaurant was called Joy Yee Noodle, and it pretty well set the tone for the rest of my tour of campus: a combination of expected and unexpected.

Our campus tour began the next day with a hasty trip from our hotel 25 minutes away to the parking garage on Hinman Avenue in the beautiful Chicago neighbor of Evanston. The neighborhood surrounding Northwestern was anything but the covertly concealed squalor around UChicago.

Our tour guide was an engineering major, who had also at one point been a pre-med major. She was doing a unique 5-year, extremely rigorous program that allows students to choose to work in an actual engineering firm during their fifth year, as part of an agreement between the company and the university, and if the company likes you, chances are you'll be asked to stay on after you graduate.

I was impressed by a number of other things at Northwestern besides the campus and academic climate. On my list of notable features were the numerous recreation centers, beautiful lab facilities, class-act performing arts center/art museum, and steep traditions. I always love when a school has traditions, because that's something that spans the oft-growing generational gap. Our Northwestern tour guide introduced us to the ritual of 'painting the rock,' which is exactly what is says. Basically, there's a large rock close to the old Main Hall of the university. It's lit up at night, and different organizations post guards around the rock, while other members of the organization paint it to celebrate some event, day, or other activity on campus.

Another thing I've come to look at on college campuses is the union. I'm not really sure where I'll end up doing the majority of my studying, but I definitely want to have places scoped out before I come to the school to do so. Conveniently enough, Northwestern's student union overlooks Lake Michigan and sprawls behind a large expanse of green space and running trails which separate it from the lake.

Finally, the one other thing that I think of, reflecting on my trip to Northwestern (and perhaps its just because winter is approaching) is that it gets some major snow. Yes, that lovely snow, which has for a year and a half now been eluding Champaign-Urbana. It's been a dismal month of November and December, thus far, without snow.

To the left is University Hall (old Main), which serves somewhat as the center of campus.
Overall, I loved Northwestern. One of my best friends siblings went there and really enjoyed her four years in a 'healthy living' dormitory. And I could definitely see myself passing my undergraduate years researching at the medical school or running along the lake or painting the rock.

Deadline Woes

I decided to take a brief hiatus from my normal college review flow this week in order to address the notion of college deadlines. While I was fortunate to have no December 1 deadlines this year, some of my classmates weren't so lucky. To be quite honest, I find the rolling admissions offered by schools like University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin to be an excellent idea. Students don't feel as much pressure, then, to have applications in by a certain date and can feel free to take adequate time, instead of hastily throwing something together that may or  may not reflect your best persona.

I'm applying to 8 schools, all of which have deadlines on or after December 31st. Needless to say, it could potentially be a VERY long winter break. Maybe I'll just end up hibernating..

.Anyways, my parents have been all up in my grille, so to speak, about getting all my apps done on time and done well. And I completely agree with their sentiments. Something about sitting down to try and describe myself, or my extracurricular activities, or my soccer experiences, or my summer mission trips with my church, or any number of things, over and over again just isn't enticing. What do I say? How do I convey who I am? In only 250 words? It's overwhelming to think about. Each college wants something different. They can be asking similar questions, even, but the context of the university subtly mandates that you put a different spin on the same story.

One of the most frustrating parts of the application process is the word limit. Applying to schools, it seems like an unfair deal. I go to visit these schools because I want to know as much about them before I spend the next 4-? years of my life there. I've always thought of that as the school telling me what is is academically, socially, etc. And on top of it, they can send me nearly unlimited literature about them. And me? What do I get? I get 250 words (if the school is generous) to tell them about my 17 years of life.

I'm sick of hearing people tell me that having only 250 words to tell a school who they are totally changed the way they viewed important moments in their life; that having so few words allowed them to focus on what was really important. This is ridiculous. With so few words, I can't help thinking about how much more detail I could give with additional words, and all the experiences that can't justly be summed up in 250 words.

This concludes my somewhat brief rant about college application deadlines, and just college apps in general. We will now return to your regularly scheduled programming. Thank you for listening.