Redevelopment of Norris University Center’s East Lawn to begin this summer
April 5, 2024
As the Northwestern Wildcats face off against Duke University this Saturday, teams of new students will be locked in battle to accurately predict the victor, the final score and much more.
One Book One Northwestern is kicking off a year of programing with the unveiling of an online game called NUpredicts, an app inspired by this year’s One Book selection, “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail -- but Some Don’t,” by analytics guru and political prognosticator Nate Silver.
Following the annual Wildcat Dash at Ryan Field on Saturday, new and transfer students will take the stands for their first football game at Northwestern. While the game and the dash are fast becoming tradition, the class of 2020 will be the first to try out NUpredicts.
Like Silver, whose ascendance in the field of prediction science began with an affinity for baseball stats, students will have the chance to apply lessons learned from the book to answer football-focused questions and make predictions about the marching band’s performance and head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s attire via NUPredicts.
Silver’s book on statistics and forecasting, “The Signal and the Noise,” was chosen from more than 70 nominations as Northwestern’s all-campus read for the 2016-17 academic year.
Given to all incoming first-year students, the book serves as a programing anchor for lectures, films, research and other activities throughout the year.
As part of Wildcat Welcome, first-year students will learn how to play NUpredicts from their appointed peer advisers, competing against other squads to earn the most successful predictions and a pizza party for the winners. NUpredicts will be reserved for the Wildcat Welcome students for this weekend’s game with Duke.
Individual and peer group scores will be posted to the game leaderboard.
There will be several iterations of NUpredicts throughout this academic year.
All Northwestern students, faculty and staff are invited to play NUpredicts after this weekend’s game.
To keep up with updates and rules for the game follow the ONE BOOK ONE NORTHWESTERN twitter feed at @OneBookNU or go to the One Book website.
