Scathing Summary of Northeastern Admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And therefore they don’t report the stats of the NU.in students because……….?

When your application is a click-n-pay, you get plenty of volume. They know the game, the head of admissions mastered it at Tulane.

That said, all of these posters are reinforcement and affirmation that the manipulation and message deception is a legitimately effective strategy. Kudos the NU. I don’t like the game but they play it well.

How so?

My kid applied because they like the programs, campus, internships, Boston, etc.

They also looked at Drexel but didn’t like the campus or Philly.

They is plural unless you are for some strange reason trying to mask your child's gender. Why the weird use of they all over this forum...like people are worried they will expose their child if they share their gender? Strange indeed.

Ok bigot.

No, not so. They is used way too much on this forum and for what reason? I doubt there are that many who identify as they. I have no issues with gender fluidity...I do, however, have issues with overuse of the pronoun they when unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

The anti-northeastern troll is working overtime today, I see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only 31% submit test scores. 69% of freshman rank in top 10% of class. acceptance rate is low along with student quality

And remember those stats are for the subset of students they report data on, i.e. does not include the students starting late, abroad or at other campuses.

And those "off Boston start" students are not really lower stats. With 100K+ students to choose from, there are plenty of high stats kids. Most off Boston start are high income, as FA doesn't apply at all of the programs.

Absolutely incorrect. The "off Boston" students are really lower stats in all categories except capacity to full pay. Many of those slots are offered to full-pay ED kids that don't get into Boston. Note that they don't report test scores and GPA of the "alt campus" kids and would, of course, do so if it wouldn't drag their mirage down.

Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, but it’s 2026 already.
For schools like UC Berkeley, around one-fourth to one-third of incoming students are transfers, many of whom come from community colleges.
Their original stats might be significantly lower (I never see anyone question that).

That isn't the case for Northeastern, though; they don't need to tap into a significantly lower pool at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given that over 100,000 students apply annually, many disagree with you. But hey, you do you - that they are living rent free in your head does say something about you though

100,000 students apply because they want to go to school in Boston (a great city for college students), NEU misleads itself as a selective institution, and if you tour NEU they send you a waiver for a free application (they did this for our DS) and then the application on the Common App requires zero supplemental essays. So it's a bit of mindless but relatively easy work to fill out. My son toured and didn't think it was a great fit for him but he wanted to attend college in Boston, and the application was free and easy. So he'd get counted in their "high demand" but no it's just easy and no cost to apply.

There are around 100 colleges in the Boston metropolitan area.
Northeastern is the only one getting 100K+ apps for good reasons.

yes PP just explained why. many students get a free waiver for the application tour, and then there are no supplements or essays or videos or interviews so the application is relatively easy to add.

by contrast, BU has 2 supplemental essays, optional writing sample, glimpse video and requires demonstrated interests so they know you're seriously applying. tufts also has 2 custom supplemental essays required, an optional interview, and lots of demonstrated interest (like virtual tours and mock classes) so that they know you are seriously interested. it's hard therefore to "casually" apply to these other two Boston area schools vs NEU.

My kids never got waiver. They are enjoying the revenue from the application fees.

As explained earlier, the whole purpose of those essays is for schools to select highly qualified students who are the right fit.
It’s not meant to make students’ lives more difficult.

Northeastern is already doing an excellent job in this regard, and its retention rate is top-notch(T20 level) as a result.
If a school picks the right students, they stay. Schools already have plenty of data and information to make these decisions; Northeastern doesn't need dumb supplemental essays to gather more information to pick the right candidates. No need to make lives of students unnecessarily more difficult.

There are other highly ranked schools without supplemental essays, but they don't get 100K+ apps.

Well CWRU is a great school but it's in Cleveland. Cleveland vs Boston---no comparison. If CWRU was in Boston, they too would get 100K+ applicants (and still have no supplements)

Thank you for proving my point.
As you indicated, the supplemental essay isn't the deciding factor.
You mentioned location, however there are around 100 colleges in the Boston metro area, and most of them aren't nearly as successful at all.
In fact, a college called WIT is literally right next door to Northeastern and doesn't require a supplemental essay, yet it isn't nearly as popular at all.

So it's the result of a combination of many factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only 31% submit test scores. 69% of freshman rank in top 10% of class. acceptance rate is low along with student quality

And remember those stats are for the subset of students they report data on, i.e. does not include the students starting late, abroad or at other campuses.

And those "off Boston start" students are not really lower stats. With 100K+ students to choose from, there are plenty of high stats kids. Most off Boston start are high income, as FA doesn't apply at all of the programs.

That isn't the case for Northeastern, though; they don't need to tap into a significantly lower pool at all.

But they do. Most kids apply to NEU because they want to be in Boston. To fill out the profit centers in Oakland, London and everywhere else, they have to deal with a materially lower yield percentage. If a “high stats” kid gets into NE Oakland, chances are they are getting into a normal school that doesn’t send them to a satellite money grab for the formative first semester of their college experience. So…they go down the food chain to pull the raw number of top-of-the-funnel students to yield what they need to fill the beds in the less desirable campuses. And, they don’t want to report that for fear of tarnishing the click-n-pay application factory that allows them to mislead families into believe that it’s a hyper-competitive admit.

It’s well-done but obvious, not sure why there is such resistance unless parents “need” to think that their NEU kid is at some kind of top-tier competitive school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:only 31% submit test scores. 69% of freshman rank in top 10% of class. acceptance rate is low along with student quality

And remember those stats are for the subset of students they report data on, i.e. does not include the students starting late, abroad or at other campuses.

And those "off Boston start" students are not really lower stats. With 100K+ students to choose from, there are plenty of high stats kids. Most off Boston start are high income, as FA doesn't apply at all of the programs.

Absolutely incorrect. The "off Boston" students are really lower stats in all categories except capacity to full pay. Many of those slots are offered to full-pay ED kids that don't get into Boston. Note that they don't report test scores and GPA of the "alt campus" kids and would, of course, do so if it wouldn't drag their mirage down.

At Berkeley, precovid, pre SAT test ban, 40 percent of the students had below 1300 on their SAT's.

Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, but it’s 2026 already.
For schools like UC Berkeley, around one-fourth to one-third of incoming students are transfers, many of whom come from community colleges.
Their original stats might be significantly lower (I never see anyone question that).

That isn't the case for Northeastern, though; they don't need to tap into a significantly lower pool at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And therefore they don’t report the stats of the NU.in students because……….?

When your application is a click-n-pay, you get plenty of volume. They know the game, the head of admissions mastered it at Tulane.

That said, all of these posters are reinforcement and affirmation that the manipulation and message deception is a legitimately effective strategy. Kudos the NU. I don’t like the game but they play it well.

How so?

My kid applied because they like the programs, campus, internships, Boston, etc.

They also looked at Drexel but didn’t like the campus or Philly.

They is plural unless you are for some strange reason trying to mask your child's gender. Why the weird use of they all over this forum...like people are worried they will expose their child if they share their gender? Strange indeed.

Ok bigot.

No, not so. They is used way too much on this forum and for what reason? I doubt there are that many who identify as they. I have no issues with gender fluidity...I do, however, have issues with overuse of the pronoun they when unnecessary.

They don’t care.