OT: Visits to ND and NU - Advice needed

Sounds familiar. The in state tuition sealed the deal though.

visiting ND will be enjoyable, but stay in evanston and send to school there.  better academics, evanston is a neat city, lake michigan, and if we hadn't have gotten harbaugh, i would've wanted fitz to coach the wolverines.  

full disc:  oldest brother is in the record books there for football.  always been my second favorite school, always will be. 

Skip the pizza and head over to Randolph street and Fulton Market in the west loop. One of the best areas for dining in the country. and if all else fails and you go the tourist route and still want pizza there is a Lou Malnatti's on Randolph street.

Her mom must be brilliant.

Cubs should be playing Saturday night, so that could be a great time.  Sounds like money is no object ... so you might as well enjoy the opportunity to see playoff baseball.  I've gone to Ryan Field 3 times for U of M games and yikes ... it's a horrid atmosphere !

And really ... notre dame, wtf kind of father allows his daughter go to notre dame ?  They must use drugs for their indoctrination mind-meld ... because she'll forever think nd is superior to Michigan in every way (every nd grad I know does!!!).  Perhaps you should take her St. Mary's ... it's right next door.    

Go Blue!

If I were you, I'd be taking her to a BMW dealership instead. "See this 5-series, sweetie? If you choose a public school with in-state tuition, I'll buy it for you."

Hi Hatter,

NU undergrad alum here. I recommend staying in Evanston as well. If you want to go pricy the Omni Orrington is nice. Perhaps more reasonable price would be the Hilton Garden Inn. In my 5 years at NU we RARELY went out in Chicago. Pretty much only to Wrigleyville for the occasional 21st birthday party or sometimes a sorority formal downtown. You are going on an excellent weekend because if it's cold and rainy and overcast that is the most acccurate representation of my time there. Being right on (no really, right on!) the lake chills things out on campus beyond what I, as a Michigander expected.

The campus is a few blocks long down Sheridan. The sidewalk functions like your high school hallway. There are obvious passing times between classes as everyone moves from one building to the next in the same small area.

If she is interested in engineering spend more time up north getting to know "tech" and the dorms and areas around it. If she likes music/theatre or journalism spend more time toward the south end of campus and all of the LS&A, education, and Comm type majors are in the middle.

The sororities are on the far south end all in a row and for chastity sake the frats are all up north. Every year the administration hopes they don't find each other. Every year they do.

Check out SPAC, Norris, and the library for a sense of what her day to day could be like. If she is thinking about bringing a car know that parking is a major source of revenue for Evanston. All spaces on the streets intersecting Sheridan are 2hr parking only and heavily monitored by these trucks that go up and down. Parking tickets abound and they start at $25 and go up to $200 depending on how far over you go or how terribly you parallel parked. As for the rest, that's what tour guides and websites are for.

I second the recommendation for Farm House for dinner.

is one of the treasures of our nation.  The collection is tremendous.

Consider a Frank Lloyd Wright and/or Lous Sullivan tour.  Many great examples in Chicago area from two of the most influential architects of the 20th C., and you can see incredible homes and office buildings that changed it all.  

Hatter,

Your daughter is looking at undergrad. I cannot stress this enough: Evanston is not Chicago.

NU kids have their own self-contained town with house parties and frats and even bars (some very easy on IDs). In my 5 years there we really didn't do much with the city of Chicago besides very occasional things. Mostly because either by train or driving the commute each way is close to an hour counting waiting for trains and things like that and the Purple Line stops running to Evanston at 2 am.

All of these recommendations of things to eat/do in Chicago are excellent but I hardly did any of them until I graduated and moved to Chicago.

I tell you this so you and daughter can more objectively view what the NU experience really is. For better or worse it is not Chicago. DePaul is Chicago. U of C is Chicago. Loyola is kinda Chicago. NU undergrad is really different.

Be sure to wear your favorite #1 Michigan jersey to South Bend.

Hey Hatter,

I lived in Evanston as a kid while my mom got her Masters at Northwestern and then applied and visited as a HS Sr in Michigan.

Definitely stay in Evanston and walk down by the Lake ...the campus area right by the water is awesome as is the downtown area.

 

You're married to your son?

Be aware of South Bend Downtown construction.

 

The city is converting one way streets to two way streets, and installing 3 new roundabouts. This only would affect you if you were coming in from the south. The construction was supposed to have been done in September, and they are behind, as most projects of that scale.

Stay the night in Evanston. Enjoy the lakefront and downtown Evanston. Drive up the north shore (Sheridan road) and gawk at the wealth.

Get a slice of pizza at Gigios or an Italian Beef w/cheddar fries at Buffalo Joes.

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Profit.

Undergraduate Research

I don't know how easy it is to get involved in research at Northwestern, but Michigan definitely has a lot to offer (i.e. UROP), while opportunities are probably very limited at ND. Either way, working in research (for credit or pay) can be really good experience for undergrads, especially if studying a life science. It's also a nice resumé builder and they might even get their name published.

Just something to consider and, if need be, a factor you could emphasize as being a very big deal and thus major drawback of ND should she actually like South Bend.

later this year or next (Junior in high school presently).  Let us know how it worked out and your impressons.  I was to ND recently, but it's been about 12 years since to NU.

Evanston is dry, bro. just a heads up.

Did grad school at ND, and undergrad at UM. Also grew up in MI about 35-40 min NW of South Bend.

ND is a beautiful place and undergrad admissions/selectivity there are VERY high (which I'm sure you know). ND is fundamently different than UM for undergrad (from what I've noticed here and also from HS friends who went) in that it's a much smaller school and they tend to live on campus much more than UM students. The campus/area has significantly changed since like 2012. Lots of new apartments next to campus and across the street they literally tore up houses for a new mixed development that has two bars that are pretty good, but seem like "chain" bars. Downtown South Bend, although not Ann Arbor - honestly has decent nightlife.

Academic/Student body-wise: ND isn't as grad school-focused, so I'm not sure how that plays into teaching (some larger classes at UM are taught by grad students e.g. Calc). ND also is $$$ (expensive) and has a national pull. I met many more students from out of state/ the midwest at ND than UM. Although this + how much tuition is, sometimes makes ND feel like a country club (e.g. kids driving new BMWs etc...). Although that exists at UM too.

Trip Wise: Probably cheapest to do the following: Tour ND in the morning - leave for Chicago around 2EST or so and get there at like 2:30 CST. Stay in hotel downtown Chicago and get dinner/walk around. Next morning go to NW and either do the whole drive back or stay in Chicago another night. Staying at a hotel near campus in South Bend (that's decent) will cost probably just as much as a place downtown Chi barring some event.

TL;DR - You can't go wrong with ND or UM. Chances are if you're like me (and from in-state MI) UM is a hell of a deal tuition wise and offers a lot of the same as UM. I didn't apply to ND undergrad even though I grew up 40 mins from it (in MI; and I AM Irish Catholic) primarily due to $$$. If you can get into ND/NW undergrad you can probably get into some Ivy League schools too, which may be worth looking at. Connections are Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, etc... can be life-changing.