Turns out that yelling “copycat” at younger siblings for all those years doesn’t have to end after childhood.
Many Northwestern students have discovered the joys of attending the same school as their older brothers and sisters, who help them choose housing and pick classes while offering moral support.
“I’m excited that I can be there to suggest and advise and help out,” said Communication senior Jordan Cerf, whose younger brother Brad Cerf is a Communication freshman.
“I try to let him make this as much his own experience as possible,” he added, “so I really let him come to me with questions without pushing my own thoughts and opinions on him.”
Jordan Cerf said he gave his brother advice on the best housing and dining hall on campus as well as warning him about infamous professors. The two brothers meet up two to three times a week for meals.
“There’s never been any competition or stepping on toes or trying to outdo the other,” Jordan Cerf said.
Brad Cerf agreed, saying his brother’s presence at NU played a role in his decision to attend.
“It’s brought us a lot closer,” the younger Cerf said. “Having him here is a huge asset to me in terms of comfort factor.”
There currently are 120 freshmen who have siblings who attend or are graduates of NU, according to Keith Todd, director of undergraduate admission.
“If a student has a good experience here, that’s going to get communicated to other students in the family and it may seem like a more welcoming environment and a more familiar choice,” Todd said.
Some siblings even plan to attend the same school together, such as identical twins Andrea and Beth Carter.
“We’ve been best friends our whole lives and we didn’t want to go to different schools yet,” Andrea Carter said.
The twins, who both are McCormick freshmen, take two classes together and eat some of their meals together. But although they both live in Bobb Hall, they aren’t roommates.
“We’d get on each other’s nerves,” Beth Carter said.
Though many siblings said they liked having a familiar face on campus, they also stressed the need to pave their own individual paths. Elizabeth Van Buren, whose younger brother Tom is a Weinberg junior, said NU’s large size makes it easy for the two siblings to lives their own lives.
“At a smaller school, I could see it being a disadvantage,” said Van Buren, a Weinberg senior. “It’s pretty rare that I’ll run into someone who’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re Tom’s sister,’ or, ‘Oh, you look like Tom.'”
Younger siblings said they liked having someone to turn to for advice, especially during their first year away from home.
But all of that valuable advice sometimes comes at a cost.
Jordan Cerf said he and Brad plan to take “some sort of light distro” together this year and Jordan plans to “let him take all the notes.”
Reach Andrea Chang at [email protected].
