3.85/170, ED to Northwestern? Forum

[Eliyahu7]

Greetings,

I am primarily interested in attending a school in Chicago. This being the case, the school that I find to be most accessible and intriguing is Northwestern. For this reason I feel slightly inclined to apply there ED in order to play it safe. However, I am also interested in seeing if I can get accepted into some of the other top 14 schools, if not just for the purpose of broadening my options.

Would it be best to play it safe and apply ED to Northwestern, or might I have a good chance of getting accepted there with a normal application?

[D. H2Oman]

Hell no, ED to Chicago.

[bk1]

Hell no, ED to Chicago.

[Notor]

ED to Chicago, apply to NW regular decision as early as possible. Also apply to Michigan.

[rayiner]

Hell no, ED to Chicago.

[ellewoods110]

Do you have work experience? If you don't, you would be wasting an ED to Northwestern, because they probably won't accept you anyways, and if you do have work experience, you don't need to ED.

[Eliyahu7]

Do you have work experience? If you don't, you would be wasting an ED to Northwestern, because they probably won't accept you anyways, and if you do have work experience, you don't need to ED.

This is an area of concern for me. I completed my undergrad in August of 2009, and I am presently employed as an admin clerk for a life insurence company. While I will have more than a year of work experience by the time enrollment comes around, I would hardly consider my occupation to be anything high-profile or prestigious. Can anyone attest to the type of work experience they are looking for?

[kazu]

I think it'll have to be longer to count as "work experience" - probably 3+ years? I don't know specifically what kind of experience they look for, maybe someone else will have more information, but I don't think it has to be something high-profile or prestigious as long as it's an actual full-time job (and not something like being a barista at Starbucks).

Ellewoods' advice is sound. I'd like to add that since you don't have substantial WE, you should ED to UChicago instead.

[09042014]

You are getting into NU no matter what. One person with your numbers got 60K on LSN, out of maybe 10. So you won't really be passing up much if you ED at Chicago.

[testmachine45]

Being an Admin counts but its a very bad idea to waste your ED to Northwestern. It is likely to get waitlisted. You are 150% better off applying to Chicago ED.

[jlk86]

Do you have work experience? If you don't, you would be wasting an ED to Northwestern, because they probably won't accept you anyways, and if you do have work experience, you don't need to ED.

This is an area of concern for me. I completed my undergrad in August of 2009, and I am presently employed as an admin clerk for a life insurence company. While I will have more than a year of work experience by the time enrollment comes around, I would hardly consider my occupation to be anything high-profile or prestigious. Can anyone attest to the type of work experience they are looking for?

This doesn't matter. I got in RD with basically the same stats (slightly lower GPA than you, actually) & only one year of work experience doing completely generic administrative work in a small office. According to the alum that did my interview, they 'require' WE because they value a mature student body with some distance from undergrad- not because they expect you to be entering after spending a few years in an impressive or high-profile career. I should also note that I still got in with a relatively "late" app (January), & that I got a ridiculously generous scholarship- so I definitely don't think you should ED. If you're that worried about your app getting lost in the RD pool, make sure you write one of their optional essays. If I had to guess, I'd say my Why NU gave my application a solid bump.