Should Northeastern be T20? Or even T10?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not knowing the stars of kids who got in. Top 50 - maybe.

Stats*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you ever “rank” a college based on how many applications it receives? That makes zero sense. What is the quality of the faculty?

OP is basically right. How do you rank cellphones? iPhone out-ranks every other phone. Because more people are willing to spend money to buy an iPhone than any other phone. That is basically it. Everything else that you think should matter, say, call quality, battery life etc, is already factored into this single attribute.

Same way for colleges. Everything you can think about (faculty quality, teaching effectiveness etc) are factored into the single attribute: how many are willing to apply to your college to spend the $$.

Good thinking, OP. I know it puts USNews out of business. But you hit the nail on the head. NEU is more successful than the so-called elite schools.

Like cell ohones, people spend money for a name even if it is not justified. The price can be unrelated to quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you ever “rank” a college based on how many applications it receives? That makes zero sense. What is the quality of the faculty?

OP is basically right. How do you rank cellphones? iPhone out-ranks every other phone. Because more people are willing to spend money to buy an iPhone than any other phone. That is basically it. Everything else that you think should matter, say, call quality, battery life etc, is already factored into this single attribute.

Same way for colleges. Everything you can think about (faculty quality, teaching effectiveness etc) are factored into the single attribute: how many are willing to apply to your college to spend the $$.

Good thinking, OP. I know it puts USNews out of business. But you hit the nail on the head. NEU is more successful than the so-called elite schools.

OP is basically you.

Was just about to point this out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No skin in the Northeastern game, but I do not like their first semester study abroad policy. Wierd way to start college.

Those are only the kids who didn’t get in the fall.

[Anonymous]

Northeastern should replace UVA or Umich in the rankings. The easiest top schools to get into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is very popular in here and with students.
Most students are preferring it more than BU.
The location and the internship opportunities is helping.

Some data actually backs that
https://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Northeastern+University&with=Boston+University

A big advantage over BU is that Northeastern actually has a nice cohesive campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern should replace UVA or Umich in the rankings. The easiest top schools to get into.

I hate UVa but this is funny even to me.

[Anonymous]

If you watch year-after-year huge crowds going to an event and paying money for the ticket, something amazing must be happening at that event. Assuming people are rational, it is just wisdom of the crowds. I don't see the same level of crowds knocking the doors at those schools across the river in Cambridge. Can you do a co-op from Haahvard? Didn't think so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern should replace UVA or Umich in the rankings. The easiest top schools to get into.

I hate UVa but this is funny even to me.

19 % acceptance rate is fairly high when peer schools are at 10%.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern carefully studied what it needed to do to rise in the USN rankings and did those things. Shrank just enough class sizes to score points, bought higher stats kids with copious merit aid, started denying the local kids who had always filled their classrooms in favor of applicants from around the country in order to build national name recognition.

They rebranded and people fell for it.

+1. This. Chicago is a doing the same. They hire people who do nothing but figure out how to move up ranks on USNWR

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UCLA, UCSD, UCI and probably even UCSB all get over 100k applications every year, UCLA is barely T50 regardless of public news rankings, the others are around a T100 school which is actually pretty good, think 50 states, T100 is top 2 per state and given states like NY and MA have many elite colleges T100 is actually very good

Northeastern is a solid school but in all seriousness its barely a T100, maybe in a few decades it could be perceived as a T50, but still too early to tell

A telling indicator is endowment, NEU is barely above $1 billion which is not in the T100 in the US

The T10 schools have enormous endowments which provides a real competitive advantage to not only attract students but also their experience + influence among alumni

Harvard has $53 billion, Yale $43 billion, Princeton $38 billion, Penn $38 billion, Columbia $14 billion, Cornell $10 billion, Dartmouth $8 billion, Brown $7 billion - keep in mind to get these endowments alumni + their networks had to donate funds which indicate that the alumni are disproportionately successful + loyal, important factors for consideration among the most talented of college applicants, think top 1% of top 1%, that one kid in a great high school that everybody knows can go anywhere, etc. - these are the kids that largely end up at T10 schools

NEU is around the T125 to T150 at $1 billion, similar to Fordham, Lafayette, or Bucknell

Its a great school but the perception among younger students is that its safety for students that are targeting T30 to T50 schools

You have seriously outdated information. Here's a recent college endowment.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

Northeastern has $1.45B, and its rank is 58th. This includes all the top LACs.Good management also increases the endowment.
So in fact by your method, it turns out that its endowment rank and USN&WR rank is about the same level at the high 40s. 
You can also start arguing about endowment per student, endowment per undergraduate student, etc.
In fact a big chunk of the endowment is for graduate school or medical school for those large public schools. 

As you said, there's clearly a correlation between endowment ranking and the general college ranking. 
However it's not exact science or math. 
Notre Dame is ranked #7 on endowment but USN&WR rank is #19
Wake Forest's endowment rank is about #47, but it's USN&WR rank is #28.  

Northeastern is overall in a very good cycle of the endowment increase and school prestige rise,
I think it'll soon be T40 in the near future. 

Also no school with an acceptance rate in the teen is a safey for anyone. Furthermore it's not like kids applying to Northeastern are 1300 SAT kids. 
The applicant pool is on par or better than many of the T30-40.   

You have very outdated information and views.The perception among younger students is that it's a good solid school that is hard to get in, and it's one of the next best options if you can't get into a T25ish school.
This is exactly the current status of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern should replace UVA or Umich in the rankings. The easiest top schools to get into.

I hate UVa but this is funny even to me.

19 % acceptance rate is fairly high when peer schools are at 10%.

For the 100th time, you can’t compare public selectivity ratings (especially Virginia) to private stats. The Virginian students are prescreened by the public high school counselors whose job it is to route the kids to the best fit university in the Commonwealth. Then students again self select because we have such precise acceptance stats available in Virginia through SCHEV.

[Anonymous]

OP is ridiculous. But I’ll add that we’re in Boston visiting family and visiting colleges. We’re staying in a nice hotel in Back Bay that has leased several floors to Northeastern. For 5 days we’ve seen these kids get off and on the elevator and walking around the hotel and local area. And even our 17 yr old DS noted that we did not see one kid talk, smile, converse, NOTHING. They get on and off the elevator, never acknowledge or greet each other. I literally did not hear one of their voices in a week’s time. And their diet was mostly fast food from Uber eats (from a delivery table in the lobby). DH was angry on their parents’ behalf for spending the money to send these kids to college and they all seem borderline depressed. We started the Northeastern campus tour and DS concluded the kids on campus were about the same we’d seen at the hotel. On the bright side, DS liked BU & BC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern carefully studied what it needed to do to rise in the USN rankings and did those things. Shrank just enough class sizes to score points, bought higher stats kids with copious merit aid, started denying the local kids who had always filled their classrooms in favor of applicants from around the country in order to build national name recognition.

They rebranded and people fell for it.

+1. This. Chicago is a doing the same. They hire people who do nothing but figure out how to move up ranks on USNWR

If they improve themselves in the process, is that really so bad? Everyone focuses on acceptance rate, and that was a game for awhile, but it’s not even in the formula anymore. Other things NE and others have done have attracted stronger students and better faculty, decreased class size, raised the retention and graduation rates. I’m not saying there’s no manipulation—every college has “enrollment managers”—but colleges that have sought to rise in the rankings have also made real changes. I don’t get why there is so much resentment around it.