Northwestern University

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 2,287 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United States).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Admit rate

7.7% src

Average SAT

1,533 src

Yield (admits who enrol)

57% src

Median earnings 10 years after entry

$89,363 src

40-year return on investment (Georgetown CEW)

$2.99M src

Average net price per year

$29,167 src

Graduation rate (6 years)

95% src

Rhodes Scholars, 2021–26

1 src

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

703 src

Alumni worth $30M+ (Altrata estimate)

4,700 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

136 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

5 src

Founders, billionaires and $30M+ alumni

not on the published top lists; estimated

Students (undergraduate headcount / total FTE, IPEDS)

9,201 / 20,702 src

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =42. On strength alone: 61. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

15.6% (15.1%–16.1%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

2.1% (1.9%–2.3%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

1,985

All papers (fractional count)

12,716

International co-authored

38.0%

Open access

69.8%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

14 (0.43 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.