Update: The Campaign for Northwestern

‘We Will’ Campaign provides students with life-changing opportunities.

Natalie Sack and her mother, Dianne, at a Northwestern even in Palm Beach, Fla., in January. Photo by Thomas Bollinger.

Growing up outside Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Natalie Sack assumed she could afford to attend only an in-state college.

However, Northwestern caught Sack’s attention because of its need-blind admissions policy and its interdisciplinary nature, which she hoped would allow her to explore various paths toward a career in social and criminal justice. She decided to take a chance and apply.

Now, as Sack prepares to graduate in June from the School of Education and Social Policy with a major in social policy and a minor in gender and sexuality studies, she still struggles to describe how she felt when she learned she’d been accepted to Northwestern — and that the financial aid package offered by the University would make it possible for her to attend.

“I don’t really know how to put it into words,” she says. “It felt surreal. I knew this would be a huge weight off of my mother’s shoulders. It was so exciting for me to tell my mom that I could go to this incredible school without finances being a major barrier.”

Making a Northwestern education more accessible to the very best students, regardless of their financial resources, is one of the strategic priorities of We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern.

Sack, whose financial aid package included the Jean and Theron Locke Scholarship, made the most of her opportunities at Northwestern — many of which were made possible by additional financial assistance offered by the University.

During the summer after her freshman year, Sack traveled to Uganda to work with a child development center that cares for children left orphaned by AIDS and warfare. The trip was organized by Northwestern’s GlobeMed chapter, which is sponsored and supported by the University’s Buffett Institute for Global Studies. Grants covered the cost of Sack’s trip.

Sack also received financial assistance from Northwestern’s Summer Internship Grant Program that enabled her to accept two unpaid internships — one with Northwestern’s Design for America chapter and the other with the Illinois Justice Project, a Chicago-based nonprofit focused on improving the criminal justice system.

Sack says her internship with the Illinois Justice Project reinforced her desire to work at a policy institution or nonprofit where she can use her research skills to support criminal justice reform.

“Attending Northwestern and being around students and scholars who are anything but conventional has forced me — in a great way — to think more critically about where I see myself in the world and how I can make an impact.”