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- You need your wildcard to unlock the building's main doors, the elevator, and department doors after 5 PM during weekdays and at all times during weekends.
- You can park your bike in the lower level underground parking garage. There is a small square in front of the easternmost garage door, and this activates the sensor that opens the door up. The left door leads to the elevator closest to the gym and the 200/300 wings, the right door leads to the elevator closest to the 100/400 wings.
- The reflection rooms in the fifth floor are great places for quiet study and reading.
- There is free coffee all mornings in the Faculty Summit. There is also a coffee machine in the Strategy department pantry (4200). Bring your own mug to reduce waste.
- The gym is open Mon-Fri 7am-6pm. After 12pm, ask someone at the front desk to open gym, since there is no attendant at the gym after noon and your wildcard will not open it.
- You can buy lunch at Gordon's Marketplace, but there is also a small coffee shop in the lower level (next to KIS). Other options are:
- Multiple dining options at Norris, including Starbucks, Viet Nom Nom, Mod Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts
- Cafe Coralie at the Life Science Pavilion
- Cheap lunch at the Sheil Catholic Center: $2 meals during the academic year
- Join the Kellogg MBA Slack channel to gain access to useful channels (marketplace, free food) and find out about extracurricular activities that might interest you, from social events to group bike rides. If you can't access by clicking the link, current members can invite you (ask the second year fellows).
Here is a list of some of the great resources the university has to offer:
- Norris University Center:
- Norris Mini Courses are recreational classes for adults four times a year, beginning in October, January, April, and July.
- Norris Outdoors rents out camping gear, ice skates, cross-country skis and snowshoes.
- You can get your official Northwestern gear at the bookstore.
- Henry Crown Sports Pavilion:
- Membership is not included as part of the fellows program. You can purchase an annual membership for $400 and a $100 one-time registration fee. You can complete a membership request online, but it’s easiest to purchase it in-person at the membership office from 9-4. The membership office is left of the entrance service desk at the Henry Crowne Pavilion.
- There are year-round adult swim lessons(both group and private lessons) and scuba diving classes.
- The Wellness Suite has free white-light therapy, which is quite useful in winter when there is limited sunlight. You can also schedule massages there.
- The Northwestern Sailing Center has sailing, windsurfing, stand up paddle, rentals and classes.
- The Bienen School of Music has year-round concerts.
- The Block Museum of Art will be reopening on September 22, 2022.
- The Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts has productions in theatre, music theatre, and dance.
- The Segal Visitors Center offers discounted U-locks to wildcard holders.
- You can also access all of Northwestern's libraries with your wildcard.
A useful tool to find out about activities and resources available to you is the Paw Print newsletter. The newsletter is sent out to registered undergraduates or members of the School of Professional Studies and contains news and activities relevant for Northwestern students. You can try being added to the list by emailing Jill Norton.
There are two ways you can take a class at Northwestern:
- You can audit a class by emailing a professor before the start of the quarter, and defining what the requirements will be. Most professors require you to do all the readings, some do not want you handing in assignments since this implies a larger workload for them or their TAs. You can only audit MBA and PhD courses. Here is a list of all available courses:
- You can enroll in undergraduate-level courses
To enroll in an undergraduate-level course, you first have to apply to the School of Professional Studies to register as a Non-Degree Special Student. International students should also follow the US student application requirements. The application requirements include the application form, a brief statement of purpose, and official transcripts. Part-time tuition is $7,394 for enrollment in 1 or 2 courses (for the 2022-2023 academic year). Here are the current application deadlines:
| Quarter | Application deadline |
|---|---|
| Fall (classes begin Tuesday, September 20, 2022) | August 12, 2022 |
| Winter (classes begin Tuesday, January 3, 2023) | November 11, 2022 |
| Spring (classes begin Tuesday, March 28, 2023) | February 10, 2023 |
You can apply for tuition benefits from your first day at Northwestern. Employee Reduced Tuition benefits cover 90% of tuition for courses taken at Northwestern. With tuition benefits, you would only have to pay 10% of the $7,394 part-time tuition for one or two courses.
To apply for tuition benefits, create a new application by logging into myHR with your NetID. Select Benetifts -> My Tuition Benefit Application -> Submit New Application. Since this takes between 4 to 6 weeks to process, try to apply for tuition benefits before applying to enroll as a Non-Degree Special Student.
There are several seminars and lunches you can sign up to attend. You can look for your fields of interest in the following lists:
- Seminars organized by the Department of Economics
- Faculty and research events at Kellogg
- Global Poverty Research Lab events
You can attend all seminars without signing up, but you must sign up to be on the email list and get lunch. Here is a list of who you have to email to sign up for a few of the seminars:
- HELP (Health, education, labor, and public economics): Lola May Ittner
- Development: Kayla Marie Atkins
- Economic history: Lola May Ittner
- Political economy: Carly Loonan
One of the multiple requirements for Ph.D. applications is getting a good enough score on the GRE. In the 2022 application cycle, this was rumored to be a score of 168 on the quantitative section (90th percentile). If you’re working at Kellogg, then you’re more than smart enough to get this score — you just need to practice the questions and learn how to take the exam. In this section I’ll share the strategy I used to get the score I needed for the GRE well before application season began (169 Q 168 V by early July).
- Start date: You want to start with the GRE as early as possible. Most likely you’re going to have to take the exam two or three times, and you must wait for a minimum of three weeks before re-taking it. I’d also recommend doing it during the Winter quarter: it’s easier to study when you don’t have much to do outside, and that way you can be done by the Spring quarter and take a class if you’re interested.
- Exam date: You should make a pessimistic study plan and sign up for the exam according to this plan. For example, if you think you’re going to be ready to take it for February 28, then sign up to take it on March 15. It’s important to sign up from the beginning so you have the incentive of studying, but if you’re over-optimistic about your study habits you could end up spending extra on moving the date of the exam.
- Pacing: Try to study intensely for a short amount of time. It’s much harder to sustain 6 months of light studying for the GRE than 2 months of consistent preparation. I studied for 95 hours in total over 4 months, which is an average of 5.5 hours a week. If I had been more consistent and studied 8 hours per week, I could have finished in three months. I would recommend doing one hour a day during from Monday to Friday and then a two hour session during the weekend. Closer to the exam, this can include a practice exam during the weekend.
Summary: Magoosh + verbal flashcards + official math questions + practice exams. I finished all of the Magoosh math questions (and did some verbal questions), studied the Magoosh flashcards during downtimes (bus rides, breakfast, etc.) and practiced using the official ETS quant questions (which you can probably get from someone who already took the test) and took practice exams when my exam was approaching.
- Magoosh: I used Magoosh to prepare for the exam and highly recommend it (try to find a coupon and get the 6-month version). I also bought the Manhattan 5 pound book and did not end up doing a single question. Now it’s used as a monitor stand.
- Math videos: I had been out of university for almost 3 years so I decided to watch all the math videos. I feel like the tricks I learned there helped me a lot. You can watch the videos at 1.25 or 1.5 speed.
- Difficulty of Magoosh problems: Magoosh problems are great, but they’re much harder than the ones in the test. Also, it sometimes feels like Magoosh problems are harder simply because they are trying to trick you (and not because the procedure is harder). So I’d suggest being patient, and NOT doing Magoosh problems the week of the exam. You can switch to official exams and problems in the weeks close to the exam. Don’t feel bad if you’re not getting 100% of the Magoosh problems right.
- Flashcards: You can practice verbal with the Magoosh flashcards app. Do this when having breakfast, on the bus, etc. Learning words is the best way to improve on verbal (your reading comprehension is not going to improve that much).
- Official math questions. I recommend you work on the official ETS math questions in the two weeks leading to the exam. It's more difficult than studying for Magoosh because it's not as structured, but the questions are easier than Magoosh and more similar to the real exam's questions.
- Practice exams: Doing full practice tests is useful, but they also imply that you’re spending time on verbal. I’d suggest not doing too many. (Maybe around 5-6 is good). I did 9 before my first exam and think it would’ve been a better investment to do more quant practice. Here are the best practice exams:
- ETS Official Book Test 1
- ETS Official Book Test 2
- Magoosh (as many as you want!)
- Kaplan Free Test
- ETS Powerprep 1
- ETS Powerprep 2 (I’d leave these two for the end)
- Final preparation: Don’t study too much the week before the exam. I felt like I did (18 hours the week before) and was tired by the time of the exam.
- Try to do the TOEFL a couple of weeks before to get familiar with the testing center. They treat you like a criminal so don’t take it personal.
- You’ve studied a lot, but don’t be too confident in the exam. It’s good to be cautious and humble when selecting answer choices.
- Get new scratch paper before each math section (so before every section, since you don’t know which section you’ll get). You’ll use up all the paper and the test center people are super slow to get new scratch paper.
- Don’t forget to celebrate all the hard work once you’re done!