1. Information on majors and programs of study is from the Completions Data File, 2011-12 (Provisional release) as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds). Top majors are the ones that have the most conferred degrees. If it says "is in" rather than just "is", then various top majors were combined into a new attribute. For example, colleges whose top major is "in engineering" will include a college whose top major is chemical engineering, another whose top major is electrical engineering, and so on.
   

Northwestern is in Evanston, IL, is private and nonprofit, is in the Big Ten Conference, research intensive, a top-100 happiest school, a member of the American Association of Universities, accepts the Common Application, has a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, has a law school, offers a Doctor of Medicine degree, offers on-campus housing, plays division I/FBS football, requires test scores for undergrad admissions, its top major is economics, is on the quarter system, its top Masters major is marketing/marketing management, its top Doctoral major is law, and enrolls 20,000 or more students.

• USNews MBA ranking (4th place)
• USNews law school ranking (12th place)
• Wall St. Journal feeder school ranking (21st place)
• Times Higher Education world ranking (22nd place)
• ARWU world ranking (30th place)
• Webometrics world ranking (42nd place)
• PayScale mid-career median salary ranking (99th place)
• research spending ($391.5M)
• endowment per full-time student ($294,532)
• average full-time teaching salary ($124,709)
• in-state undergrad tuition & fees ($43,779)
• out-of-state undergrad tuition & fees ($43,779)
• average grant aid to undergrads ($29,961)
• research spending per student ($16,082)
• cost of a shared room ($7,582)
• average undergrad student loan ($6,084)
• full-time retention rate (96%)
• undergrads who get financial aid (64%)
• ratio of female full-time freshmen (51.2%)
• undergrads among full-time students (44.2%)
• average teaching salary differential (men vs. women, 38.8%)
• undergrads who receive student loans (36%)
• in-state freshmen (25.2%)
• minorities (23.6%)
• grad students who are under 25 years old (22.9%)
• undergrads who get Pell grants (14%)
• tuition & fees increase over three years (13.8%)
• foreign students (13.2%)
• Asians (12.9%)
• undergrads who are 25 years or older (7%)
• Hispanics (5.8%)
• Blacks or African Americans (4.8%)
• disabled students (4%)
• American Indians or Alaska Natives (0.1%)
• non-resident tuition & fees surcharge (0%)
• average teaching salary differential (women vs. men, -28%)
• 25th percentile SAT math score (700)
• 25th percentile SAT reading score (680)
• 25th percentile SAT writing score (680)
• 75th percentile SAT math score (780)
• 75th percentile SAT reading score (760)
• 75th percentile SAT writing score (770)
• alumni who played in the National Football League (169)
• average January temperature (23.7 degrees)
• dorm capacity (4,723)
• first-year applicants (30,926)
• foreign students (3,202)
• full-time grad students (8,646)
• full-time undergrads (8,542)
• grad students (11,839)
• members of the National Academy of Sciences (21)
• men's basketball Final Four appearances (0)
• Rhodes Scholar alumni (16)
• total 75th percentile SAT score (2,310)
• undergrads (9,376)
• yearly for-credit students (24,343)
• on-campus yearly property crimes per thousand students (1.81)
• students per faculty member (7)
• annual rainfall (37.8 inches)
• diversity and inclusion ratio (0.30)
• elevation (175 meters)

Sources