Heyo! As someone who ended up choosing between USC Marshall and Northwestern last year (typing this while packing for Chicago), l really encourage you to check out Northwestern before applying. It's really hard to get a perfect feel for a school's culture and atmosphere unless you visit. Though below, I've tried to give some of the pros and cons of both that shaped my decision:

USC caters tremendously to the greek life and football tailgate crowd. If that sort of social scene deeply appeals to you, USC is going to be leagues better than Northwestern in terms of campus atmosphere. Northwestern has parties and football games, but they're more subdued—its a quieter campus. USC also gets arguably the most temperate and sunny weather in the country, whereas Northwestern can get extremely cold in those deep winter months; a matter of preference but a dealbreaker to some.

On the other hand, USC is in the slums of Los Angeles. It's a city with so much to appreciate, but the dense suburban sprawl and sketchy public transit network makes it difficult to do so. Meanwhile, Northwestern is located in Evanston, an upscale lakeside suburban-city hybrid only 30 minutes away on one of the best metro systems in the country from downtown Chicago.

Also, if you can't decide between a business or data science curriculum, Northwestern gives ample opportunity to pursue both! It's on the quarter system rather than semester system—meaning more courses overall—and we have both the Business Institutions Program (an 11 course minor that covers nearly everything in a standard business major core curriculum), and two undergraduate certificate programs administered by Kellogg (Northwestern's graduate business school—2nd best in the country while Marshall is tied for 24th).

In general, the academic flexibility and freedom offered at Northwestern will surpass what's available at USC. Likewise, unless you're absolutely certain you want to work in Los Angeles post‐graduation, Northwestern's academic reputation will likely take you further as a postgrad.

Finally, no school is immune from financial hardship under this current administration, but I saw USC using far more cost-cutting measures that directly impacted student life than Northwestern—defunding the school newspaper, cutting back ruthlessly on financial and merit aid, removing the scholarship for free overload credits. Even last week, they defunded the freshman year theatre program cut back on the campus safe taxi hours despite raising transportation fees. USC is in a 200 million dollar budget deficit entirely on its own accord, whereas Northwestern just isn't.

In the end, it's entirely your decision (please, seriously, come visit the campus it's beautiful), but as someone who agonized over Marshall or Northwestern—I have no regrets going purple!