When prospective students and their overprotective parents start prowling the Northwestern grounds in the springtime, many ask upperclassmen, “Why did you come to NU?” with bated breath, hoping to mentally align their child’s dreams with the response. “I tell parents this, practically verbatim: I chose NU for two reasons: one, it fit the criteria that I was looking for in all schools. Big but not too big, near a big city but still has the college campus feel, and has a good theatre department without being a conservatory,” says Larkin Brown, an NU tour guide and Communication junior. “The other reason was just my gut feeling.”
Students rarely cite one make-or-break factor. But what about the students who came to NU for one reason, such as athletics or a highly touted program? Just more than 3 percent of freshmen end up leaving NU – why?
Carolyn (name has been changed) was bred for one thing: to play her sport (let’s say it’s swimming), win and get a big, fat check to an elite university. She did just that, winning a substantial scholarship to attend NU. She even moved from Kansas to Ohio specifically to train. However, the summer before coming to school, she says she was “already pretty burned out” and wasn’t sure if she could make it through a rigorous college career. “I was trying to get something good out of the 13 years of my life I spent doing it (by coming to NU).” After two months of trying to stick it out, Carolyn took a weekend off to go home for some clarity, and moved back home the following week.
If a student athlete wants to transfer from NU or leave the team, the student must notify his or her coach so other coaches can recruit the athlete per NCAA rules, says Mo Harty, assistant athletic director for compliance, academic services and student development.
Though some athletes might choose to remain at NU but stop playing their sport, those who leave are somewhat honor-bound to transparency about their academic plans or tension may arise with their coaches and teammates. “I think it depends on how honest and upfront the student-athlete is,” Harty says. “If they don’t tell anyone or do it over the summer when there’s not enough time to replace them on the roster, there might be some animosity. People tend to understand.”
Now a sophomore at Kansas University in her old home state, Carolyn says she leads “a balanced life” – a full course load, a full-time job and an active social life, things that were impossible with her athletic commitment at NU. “In an ideal world, I would have come to NU and swam,” Carolyn says. “If I could have stayed (at NU) without the scholarship, I would have.”
Athletes aren’t the only ones who find themselves second-guessing their dream universities. Edie Wellman came to NU as a freshman solely for musical theater, eager to stand out in a program ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. The side-effects of prestige, Wellman learned, are what she calls a sometimes toxic, unsupportive atmosphere for student actors who are taught to bitterly out-step one another.
Wellman remembers the exact day she decided to migrate south to Duke University – May 29th. Though she maintains that “there are no words to describe how happy (she is),” a more concrete measure of success is her performance in a principal role in Duke’s production of Sweeney Todd this fall – whereas at NU, she wasn’t even called back when she auditioned for the same show. “I just kept choking,” she remembers. “I knew I was good enough to get the roles, I just was unhappy and intimidated by the people around me. I found that (theater) people at NU were so nasty to each other and so competitive.”
Despite having left a nationally acclaimed department, she has finally gained confidence. “I don’t want to sound bitter,” Wellman says. “I did learn a lot at NU and wouldn’t give last year up for anything. But I’ve learned that nothing in the world is worth your happiness.”
