S_Ashleigh

Hi I ended up withdrawing my application from Columbia after I accepted my offer from Northwestern - so I may be biased with my answer: I think the big advantage of Columbia is its location in NYC. If you wanted to land a job there, Columbia may be the better choice. I do not know about how their faculty or professional outcomes compare to Northwestern. While I was making my decision, I was able to talk with a few current students at Northwestern who obtained internships in San Fransisco and Seattle. I *think* some of their faculty for the data engineering / cloud-based courses are from SF area as well - but I'm not certain if that will be the case in the upcoming year. My point is, despite being a small program in the midwest, they try to build and maintain ties to the west coast. Overall, I was very impressed with Northwestern's career outcomes. Columbia's may be just as good - but I don't have the information to back that up.

Very late reply here. I got off NYU's waitlist after I had accepted Northwestern already. Even before I got into NYU I accepted the fact that I would be happy at Northwestern's program over NYU's. In terms of academics and faculty, NYU seems to be top tier. But the program design at Northwestern seems to make up for the lack of a specialized *Center for Data Science* that NYU has. Northwestern has a smaller cohort, and seems to be more professionally-focused, whereas NYU seems a bit more academic. Also, financially, being in Chicago for 1.5 years and having the opportunity to make money in a summer internship works out better than being in NYC for 2 years. If I hadn't gotten into Northwestern, I would have been very happy to accept NYU as a close second choice. Good luck with your decision!

Hello everyone, Accepted: Northwestern MSiA Rejected: University of Washington MSDS Pending: NYU MSDS GA MS Analytics (Online) UIUC MSCS - DS Track (Online) Columbia MSDS - just received request to interview I don't have much time before I have to decide on Northwestern, so I am wondering if interviewing at Columbia is worth doing at all. I wouldn't know my acceptance status until April. Given that I have no other acceptances at the moment, I may have to plead both schools for extensions/early decision or (more likely) I may have to accept NW now rather than risk losing my spot. I suppose this is not a terrible position to be in, considering NW has a strong program! If anyone has thoughts on this feel free to weigh in. FYI for anyone who is interested in Northwestern! There was an interview process in January. They make the first-round of accepted students make their decisions in early March so that they can extend offers to a second-round of students in mid-March.