Northwestern University

In brief

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois, on Lake Michigan just north of Chicago. Its founding was led by the physician and politician John Evans, for whom Evanston is named, and its name recalls the old Northwest Territory it was meant to serve. By our measure of academic influence, it ranks #20 in the United States and #44 in the world. It admitted 7.7% of applicants for fall 2024; admitted students had a median SAT score of 1540 and a median ACT score of 34.

Its professional schools include the Medill School of Journalism, the Kellogg School of Management, the Pritzker School of Law, the Feinberg School of Medicine, and the Bienen School of Music. It also has campuses in Chicago and in Doha, Qatar.

Where Northwestern’s influence is strongest

Northwestern’s influence is led by business, the social sciences, and law. Its strongest broad fields, by US rank in our data, are:

• Business: #12 in the US (#13 in the world)
• Sociology: #13
• Law and economics: #14 each
• Anthropology: #15

Within those fields, Northwestern is a national leader in several specialties:

• #1 in the US and the world: managerial economics
• #3 in the US: marketing (behind Harvard and Stanford)
• #5: journalism and applied psychology
• #6: network science

By comparison, Northwestern sits further back in physics (#43), computer science (#44), and nursing (#70).

How we measure influence: these ranks come from the citations and recognition earned by a school’s faculty and alumni in each discipline, not from surveys or admissions statistics. See our methodology.

Notable people

Some 19 Northwestern-connected people have received the Nobel Prize, including the economists George Stigler, Franco Modigliani, and Robert Lucas, the novelist Saul Bellow, and the diplomat Ralph Bunche. The philosopher Charles Taylor held a chair there, and its alumni and faculty also include the anthropologist Mary Douglas, the actors Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and the television host Stephen Colbert. Our full lists of Northwestern’s most influential alumni and faculty appear below.

Frequently asked questions

Is Northwestern hard to get into? Yes. It admitted 7.7% of applicants for fall 2024; the middle half of admitted students scored 740–770 on the SAT reading section and 770–800 on math.

What does Northwestern cost after financial aid? Tuition is $70,589 for 2025–26. The average net price for aided students with family incomes of $48,000–$75,000 was $8,811 in 2024–25; it ranged from about $1,427 for incomes below $30,000 to $56,074 for incomes above $110,000.

How do Northwestern graduates do? 96.1% of students who started in 2019 graduated within six years, and 98% of first-year students return for a second year. Ten years after starting college, former students had median earnings of $104,255.

What is Northwestern best known for academically? By our influence data: business, sociology, law, and economics, plus managerial economics, where it ranks first in the world.