Thanh-Huy Nguyen Northwestern Fall 2026
Deering Library lit purple on a winter night, with people walking across the snowy lawn

Northwestern

The Northwestern IssueEvanston · ChicagoEst. 1851
Special feature

The Purple Standard

Top-ten rankings, Nobel laureates, a medical school on the Magnificent Mile, and four seasons on the shore of Lake Michigan.

  • No. 7 in the nationU.S. News Best National Universities, 2026 edition
  • Four Nobel Prizeswon by sitting faculty, most recently in 2025
  • $1 billion a yearin research funding, three years running
  • No. 1 in IllinoisNorthwestern Memorial Hospital, U.S. News
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ContentsThe Northwestern Issue
Students walking through the campus arch in the snow
The arch at the Evanston campus’s south entrance, in January.

In this issue

  1. 01By the NumbersRankings, selectivity and a billion-dollar research year
  2. 02The Nobel RoomFrom quantum chemistry to the economics of innovation
  3. 03Medicine on the MileFeinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial
  4. 04Top of the ClassWhere the graduate schools rank
  5. 05Where Things Get MadeNanotechnology, a blockbuster drug and the first materials science department
  6. 06Four Seasons by the LakeA photo essay
  7. 07Go ’CatsBig Ten Saturdays, music and commencement
01 · By the NumbersThe Northwestern Issue

The scorecard

A research giant with a small-college heart

Northwestern pairs a billion-dollar research enterprise with classes small enough to know every name.

No. 7In the nation

Tied, U.S. News Best National Universities, 2026 edition.

7.4%Admit rate

3,933 of 52,676 applicants admitted to the Class of 2029.

6:1Students per faculty

About 77% of undergraduate class sections have fewer than 20 students.

$1B+Research a year

Sponsored research funding above $1 billion in each of the last three fiscal years.

1851Founded

Chartered in 1851; classes began in 1855.

$15.3BEndowment

As reported by the university.

$695MFeinberg research

Research funding at the medical school in 2024–25, two-thirds of the university’s total.

Big 10Founding member

One of the conference’s original members, and its oldest private school.

02 · The Nobel RoomThe Northwestern Issue

Laureates

The Nobel Room

Molecular machines, the mathematics of molecules, why markets search, and why economies grow: ideas from Northwestern that Stockholm has honored.

2025

Joel Mokyr

Economic Sciences

For identifying the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.

Northwestern faculty, economics and history
2016

Sir Fraser Stoddart

Chemistry

For the design and synthesis of molecular machines.

Northwestern faculty, chemistry
2010

Dale Mortensen

Economic Sciences

For the analysis of markets with search frictions.

Northwestern faculty, economics
1998

John Pople

Chemistry

For developing computational methods in quantum chemistry.

Northwestern faculty, chemistry
2007

Roger Myerson

Economic Sciences

For laying the foundations of mechanism design theory.

Did the prize-winning work at Kellogg, 1976–2001
2016

Bengt Holmström

Economic Sciences

For contributions to contract theory.

Former Kellogg faculty, 1979–1983

Also among Northwestern alumni: George Stigler (Economic Sciences, 1982), MBA 1932.

“For having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”Nobel Prize citation for Joel Mokyr, 2025
03 · Medicine on the MileThe Northwestern Issue
A Gothic-style tower on the Chicago campus, seen from a park path
The Chicago campus towers at dusk
Researchers working at microscopes

Feinberg School of Medicine

Medicine on the Mile

A few blocks from the Magnificent Mile, Feinberg and Northwestern Memorial Hospital form one of the country’s leading academic medical centers.

Northwestern’s Chicago campus, in the Streeterville neighborhood on the lakefront, is home to the Feinberg School of Medicine and its partner hospitals. It is one half of my own PhD, alongside the McCormick School of Engineering in Evanston. Feinberg ranked among the nation’s top research-oriented medical schools for most of the past two decades; U.S. News now groups medical schools in tiers rather than numbering them.

  • No. 1

    Hospital in Illinois and in metro Chicago

    Northwestern Memorial Hospital, U.S. News Best Hospitals 2026–27.

  • 15yrs

    On the U.S. News Honor Roll

    Northwestern Memorial’s 15th consecutive year among the nation’s best hospitals.

  • No. 16

    In NIH funding among U.S. medical schools

    $435 million in NIH awards in 2024–25, up from 39th in 2002.

  • $695M

    In research funding, 2024–25

    Feinberg brings in 67% of all Northwestern research funding.

04 · Top of the ClassThe Northwestern Issue

Graduate and professional schools

Top of the Class

Northwestern doesn’t lean on one famous school. Across business, education, law, engineering and journalism, its programs sit near the top of their fields.

  1. 2
    Education · U.S. News 2026

    School of Education & Social Policy

    Tied for No. 2 in the nation, its highest ranking ever, and a leader in the learning sciences.

  2. 2
    Materials science · U.S. News

    McCormick School of Engineering

    Home to the first materials science department in the United States, founded in 1959.

  3. 4
    Full-time MBA · U.S. News 2026

    Kellogg School of Management

    Tied for No. 4 overall, and No. 2 in marketing, the field Kellogg is best known for.

  4. 9
    Law · U.S. News 2026

    Pritzker School of Law

    Tied for No. 9, up one place from the year before.

  5. 12
    Biomedical engineering · U.S. News

    McCormick School of Engineering

    Where engineering meets medicine, from imaging to devices.

  6. 30+
    Pulitzer Prizes · Medill alumni

    Medill School of Journalism

    Founded in 1921 and one of the most prominent journalism schools in the country. U.S. News does not rank journalism schools.

05 · Where Things Get MadeThe Northwestern Issue

Research

Where things get made

Northwestern crossed $1 billion in annual sponsored research for the first time in fiscal 2023, and has stayed above it since. The money goes to work across synthetic biology, neuroscience, materials, quantum information and medicine.

Some of it has changed daily life. Chemistry professor Richard Silverman invented pregabalin, sold as Lyrica, a treatment for nerve pain. In 2007 the university sold part of its royalty interest in the drug for $700 million, one of the largest deals of its kind for any university.

The International Institute for Nanotechnology, directed by chemist Chad Mirkin, now represents more than $2.7 billion in nanoscience research, education and infrastructure. And in 1959 McCormick turned its metallurgy department into the first department of materials science in the country, a program that still ranks No. 2 nationally.

Two researchers working with equipment in a chemistry lab
In the lab.
Students building a robot in a class
A robotics class in McCormick.
Chicago campus buildings behind a green lawn
The Chicago campus, home to Feinberg.
06 · Four Seasons by the LakeThe Northwestern Issue

Photo essay

Four seasons by the lake

The Evanston campus runs along the shore of Lake Michigan, a few miles north of Chicago. Every season it is a different place.

University Hall under snow at dusk, trees strung with purple lights
WinterUniversity Hall, the university’s oldest building, in the snow.
Tulips in front of a Gothic building with a spire
SpringTulips across the Evanston campus.
A purple-and-gold catamaran on Lake Michigan
SummerSailing on Lake Michigan.
Students walking under autumn trees
AutumnBetween classes.
Students on the grass by the lake, the Chicago skyline in the distance
The LakefillChicago’s skyline across the water.
Students relaxing on a lawn in front of Deering Library
Deering MeadowIn front of Deering Library.
Modern athletic buildings along a lakefront path at dusk
The lakefrontWhere the campus meets the water.
07 · Go ’CatsThe Northwestern Issue

Campus life

Go ’Cats

A founding member of the Big Ten, with the stadium noise, the marching band and a wildcat mascot to prove it, and a stage for music and dance as serious as its labs.

Students in purple cheering in the standsBig Ten
Willie the Wildcat waving a flag in the arenaWillie
The marching band playing trumpets on the fieldMarching band
A student orchestra performing in front of windows onto the lakeMusic
Dancers performing on stageDance
Graduates in purple caps and gowns at commencementCommencement

Quaecumque sunt vera

Whatsoever things are true · The university motto

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Sources

An independent feature by a Northwestern PhD student, not an official university publication. Figures are as published by the sources below, checked in September 2026.

  1. U.S. News & World Report, Best National Universities, 2026 edition. usnews.com
  2. Northwestern University, Facts and Common Data Set 2025–26 (admissions, class size, ratio, founding, endowment, Big Ten, Medill Pulitzers). northwestern.edu · CDS
  3. Northwestern Now, research funding above $1 billion. news.northwestern.edu
  4. Northwestern University, Nobel laureates. northwestern.edu · Citations from nobelprize.org
  5. Feinberg School of Medicine, research facts (NIH rank and funding). feinberg.northwestern.edu
  6. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, U.S. News Best Hospitals 2026–27. news.feinberg.northwestern.edu
  7. U.S. News Best Graduate Schools 2026: business, education, law, engineering specialties; Northwestern Provost data book. northwestern.edu
  8. McCormick School of Engineering, history. mccormick.northwestern.edu
  9. C&EN, “Financial Windfall from Lyrica.” cen.acs.org
  10. International Institute for Nanotechnology. iinano.org

Photographs of Northwestern’s Evanston and Chicago campuses.