This is how Northeastern gamed the system

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

But, as you said, student selectivity does not equal rankings, so why try to rank based solely on this? Also, this year's selectivity is partly due to over enrollment and scaling down the class size to try to address that. So, that adjustment shouldn't play into any kind of ranking context. It would not be comparable to the colleges you listed just because they had a bump in apps and reduced the number of seats.

And, I am someone who thought NEU might be a good fit for my adhd engineering kid. (Maybe not so much now that I'm hearing about the forced triples). But let's be realistic about it. It's a decent school. It's not in the T30 league in terms of what it can offer. Just hearing about the faculty situation tells us that. All this hype feels very Trumpy to me -- just say it enough until people believe it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

But, as you said, student selectivity does not equal rankings, so why try to rank based solely on this? Also, this year's selectivity is partly due to over enrollment and scaling down the class size to try to address that. So, that adjustment shouldn't play into any kind of ranking context. It would not be comparable to the colleges you listed just because they had a bump in apps and reduced the number of seats.

And, I am someone who thought NEU might be a good fit for my adhd engineering kid. (Maybe not so much now that I'm hearing about the forced triples). But let's be realistic about it. It's a decent school. It's not in the T30 league in terms of what it can offer. Just hearing about the faculty situation tells us that. All this hype feels very Trumpy to me -- just say it enough until people believe it!

No, I didn't base it on this year's unusual acceptance rate of 6-7%. This is an exception, so disregard it as you said.
The year before was 18%-20%. I think it'll eventually settle between 12%-14%

So from the data, it's a one of the highly regarded options after those T25ish schools by the students.That's not some subjective ranking.  I'm not trying to rank anything. It's just a fact from the data.

The chance is that if a student gets into one of those T25ish schools by USN&WR, they would choose it over schools below.
After that they would choose schools like  BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, Tulane, and Northeastern
The data tells that.  Just good information to know just like those published rankings.  (i.e. if you want some safies within T50, avoid these schools)
My kid got into one of the T30 schools, but chose Northeastern. Rankings are good references, but it's just one of the factors. Don't get obsessed with the rankings. 

Oh I forgot how it started. If anyone says it rivals Ivies or T20, it's a nonsense.
USN&WR ranked it#49.
The reality of it's actual position right now is that it became one of the best options for those who got rejected by T25ish schools in general accrording to the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

Hahahahaha. NEU is a decent engineering school, but your last statement betrays you, NEU Booster. Several Ivies make the top engineering lists. NEU doesn't come close on any list. All the Ivies outrank them. Look, it's a decent school. Just be happy and stop trying to fabricate a status it just doesn't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Right, it's not just the admission rate.
If you want to look at the better picture for 'student selectivity', as I mentioned earlier, look at admission rate + student stats + yield.

Going back to my earlier point.
Nobody thinks Northeastern is at T20(or Ivy) level. We all agree it's nonsense.
The next point was then Northeastern's actual position in reality.
Ranking/prestige is one of the many factors students consider for choosing schools.
Obviously students don't pick a school just because it's higher ranked on USN&WR

From the data(admission rate + student stats + yield), it appears that students consider Northeastern(as well as schools like BU BC NYU Tufts Tulane Georgia Tech) next best options if they didn't make T25ish schools.
It just appears to be the case, and no argument needed for what's actually happening.

Ironically the miscalculation came from the soaring rise of the yield rate (33% last year).
Higher yield is a great thing for colleges. It just had a side effect for this particular year for Northeastern.
It's actually an indication that students don't just apply because it's easy to apply or as a safety.
A good well respected higher ranked school like Case Western(#42 USN&WR) also doesn't require supplemental essay, but its admission rate has been over 30% while 18-20%(again forget this year) for Northeastern for the past few years. Case Western's yield was only 16% for class of 2025.
So the high stat students apply to Northeastern not just because it's easy to apply, they apply thinking it's one of the the next best options to the T25ish schools.

So you are somewhat contradicting yourself, and wrong on some of the points, but you are right that ranking and selectivity are parts of many factors, and a good school for your kid is a personal and subjective matter. My kid chose #49 school, rejecting a T30 and a mid 30s school like you said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Right, it's not just the admission rate.
If you want to look at the better picture for 'student selectivity', as I mentioned earlier, look at admission rate + student stats + yield.

Going back to my earlier point.
Nobody thinks Northeastern is at T20(or Ivy) level. We all agree it's nonsense.
The next point was then Northeastern's actual position in reality.
Ranking/prestige is one of the many factors students consider for choosing schools.
Obviously students don't pick a school just because it's higher ranked on USN&WR

From the data(admission rate + student stats + yield), it appears that students consider Northeastern(as well as schools like BU BC NYU Tufts Tulane Georgia Tech) next best options if they didn't make T25ish schools.
It just appears to be the case, and no argument needed for what's actually happening.

Ironically the miscalculation came from the soaring rise of the yield rate (33% last year).
Higher yield is a great thing for colleges. It just had a side effect for this particular year for Northeastern.
It's actually an indication that students don't just apply because it's easy to apply or as a safety.
A good well respected higher ranked school like Case Western(#42 USN&WR) also doesn't require supplemental essay, but its admission rate has been over 30% while 18-20%(again forget this year) for Northeastern for the past few years. Case Western's yield was only 16% for class of 2025.
So the high stat students apply to Northeastern not just because it's easy to apply, they apply thinking it's one of the the next best options to the T25ish schools.

So you are somewhat contradicting yourself, and wrong on some of the points, but you are right that ranking and selectivity are parts of many factors, and a good school for your kid is a personal and subjective matter. My kid chose #49 school, rejecting a T30 and a mid 30s school like you said.

Case Western's yield is low because it's in Cleveland. Put Case in Boston and it would have a much much higher yield (IMO). It's an amazing School, but the location really hurts it. It's a campus filled with IVY/T30 wannabes. My own DC almost attended, but instead turned down over $140K in merit awards as it was not the best fit for them.

And I'd argue with you that many, many students do pick a school based on prestige/rankings. Just look at DCUM. So many parents are obsessed with rankings, rather than looking at fit or specifics related to a major.

NEU is a good school. But they really need to grow the infrastructure quickly, based on the student growth in just the last decade. Right now they have grown too fast and it means resources are behind. Had they given my kid direct entry instead of NUBound, my DC might have considered it and the Boston location might have helped, but ultimately I think it's too big of a school for my kid. They will be at a school with ~5.5K undergrads and that's a better environment overall for my DC. My DC will get engaged with research freshman year and do internships and perhaps coop if desired (as an engineer the difference between coop and internships while researching during the year is a toss up). But my DC was not willing to be overseas for freshman year and not really have enough meaningful courses to take. With 8AP credits, the necessary advanced STEM courses simply were not available freshman year and my DC was not willing to take bogus courses (courses that do not check a box for graduation) for a semester at a cost of $75K+ for the year, as it would mean a 9th semester of classes to get the double major they desire, simply due to the lack of classes during freshman year. So not worth it to our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Right, it's not just the admission rate.
If you want to look at the better picture for 'student selectivity', as I mentioned earlier, look at admission rate + student stats + yield.

Going back to my earlier point.
Nobody thinks Northeastern is at T20(or Ivy) level. We all agree it's nonsense.
The next point was then Northeastern's actual position in reality.
Ranking/prestige is one of the many factors students consider for choosing schools.
Obviously students don't pick a school just because it's higher ranked on USN&WR

From the data(admission rate + student stats + yield), it appears that students consider Northeastern(as well as schools like BU BC NYU Tufts Tulane Georgia Tech) next best options if they didn't make T25ish schools.
It just appears to be the case, and no argument needed for what's actually happening.

Ironically the miscalculation came from the soaring rise of the yield rate (33% last year).
Higher yield is a great thing for colleges. It just had a side effect for this particular year for Northeastern.
It's actually an indication that students don't just apply because it's easy to apply or as a safety.
A good well respected higher ranked school like Case Western(#42 USN&WR) also doesn't require supplemental essay, but its admission rate has been over 30% while 18-20%(again forget this year) for Northeastern for the past few years. Case Western's yield was only 16% for class of 2025.
So the high stat students apply to Northeastern not just because it's easy to apply, they apply thinking it's one of the the next best options to the T25ish schools.

So you are somewhat contradicting yourself, and wrong on some of the points, but you are right that ranking and selectivity are parts of many factors, and a good school for your kid is a personal and subjective matter. My kid chose #49 school, rejecting a T30 and a mid 30s school like you said.

Case Western's yield is low because it's in Cleveland. Put Case in Boston and it would have a much much higher yield (IMO). It's an amazing School, but the location really hurts it. It's a campus filled with IVY/T30 wannabes. My own DC almost attended, but instead turned down over $140K in merit awards as it was not the best fit for them.

And I'd argue with you that many, many students do pick a school based on prestige/rankings. Just look at DCUM. So many parents are obsessed with rankings, rather than looking at fit or specifics related to a major.

NEU is a good school. But they really need to grow the infrastructure quickly, based on the student growth in just the last decade. Right now they have grown too fast and it means resources are behind. Had they given my kid direct entry instead of NUBound, my DC might have considered it and the Boston location might have helped, but ultimately I think it's too big of a school for my kid. They will be at a school with ~5.5K undergrads and that's a better environment overall for my DC. My DC will get engaged with research freshman year and do internships and perhaps coop if desired (as an engineer the difference between coop and internships while researching during the year is a toss up). But my DC was not willing to be overseas for freshman year and not really have enough meaningful courses to take. With 8AP credits, the necessary advanced STEM courses simply were not available freshman year and my DC was not willing to take bogus courses (courses that do not check a box for graduation) for a semester at a cost of $75K+ for the year, as it would mean a 9th semester of classes to get the double major they desire, simply due to the lack of classes during freshman year. So not worth it to our family.

It was about supplemental essay, but now it's the location?
You keep moving the goal post, but that's fine.
Yes location is an important factor.

There are bunch of other schools in NYC area and Boston area.
Schools like NYU, BU, Tulane, Northeaster took good advantage of the location while doing others things right.
Most kids generally prefer city schools, however location is also one of many factors.

One of my kids wanted an urban school, but ended up choosing the only non-urban school applied because all the other factors were stellar including the ranking. Ranking, location, are all one of the factors.

NUBound is a relatively new program. It doesn't sound attractive and has room for improvement.
NUIn could be a great deal for some kids, but it's a different topic, and it's not about your kid or my kid when I was pointing out things in general that Northeastern's position is one of the next best options to T25ish schools based on the data - admission rate + yield + student stats.

Also someone posted a retention rate today.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1064316.page
Northeastern is like top ranked there.
Students seem to be happy there.
Again reality is little different from your personal impression.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

Hahahahaha. NEU is a decent engineering school, but your last statement betrays you, NEU Booster. Several Ivies make the top engineering lists. NEU doesn't come close on any list. All the Ivies outrank them. Look, it's a decent school. Just be happy and stop trying to fabricate a status it just doesn't have.

Unfortunately for you the PP is correct. Ivies are not actually known for their engineering programs. Columbia and Cornell tie at #13. There are several other options that come in before them in the rankings (including Univ. of Ill and UC-San Diego). My youngest kid is in engineering (not NEU), but only considered Cornell when applying. Dartmouth only offers "Engineering Studies". A friend's child who graduated from Dartmouth regretted not choosing another school because they felt the program just wasn't as strong as other programs in their experience. Ivies offer excellent education obviously, but generally speaking STEM programs are not their strength.

Full disclaimer - I had one kid go to NEU and they had a great experience (not engineering). It's a great school, but no one who isn't anonymous on the internet is trying to say the school is top 20. It's a solid school and the preparation for the working is excellent which I greatly appreciated (and for the record, my other kid who is at a higher ranked school is not getting anywhere near the same level of help and guidance in the internship/job market - that is truly disappointing!). However, who cares. NEU is a great option for some students. Other people prefer something different. I'm not sure why people want to tear the school down. It makes no sense to me....hyperbolic statements like the PP's -"Don’t think I’ve ever met an NEU grad who didn’t have a massive chip on their shoulder" and "And frankly anyone who graduated from the school prior to about 2010 is deeply unimpressive" sound just as pathetic as the supposed NEU boosters who want to believe it is the next Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

Hahahahaha. NEU is a decent engineering school, but your last statement betrays you, NEU Booster. Several Ivies make the top engineering lists. NEU doesn't come close on any list. All the Ivies outrank them. Look, it's a decent school. Just be happy and stop trying to fabricate a status it just doesn't have.

Unfortunately for you the PP is correct. Ivies are not actually known for their engineering programs. Columbia and Cornell tie at #13. There are several other options that come in before them in the rankings (including Univ. of Ill and UC-San Diego). My youngest kid is in engineering (not NEU), but only considered Cornell when applying. Dartmouth only offers "Engineering Studies". A friend's child who graduated from Dartmouth regretted not choosing another school because they felt the program just wasn't as strong as other programs in their experience. Ivies offer excellent education obviously, but generally speaking STEM programs are not their strength.

Full disclaimer - I had one kid go to NEU and they had a great experience (not engineering). It's a great school, but no one who isn't anonymous on the internet is trying to say the school is top 20. It's a solid school and the preparation for the working is excellent which I greatly appreciated (and for the record, my other kid who is at a higher ranked school is not getting anywhere near the same level of help and guidance in the internship/job market - that is truly disappointing!). However, who cares. NEU is a great option for some students. Other people prefer something different. I'm not sure why people want to tear the school down. It makes no sense to me....hyperbolic statements like the PP's -"Don’t think I’ve ever met an NEU grad who didn’t have a massive chip on their shoulder" and "And frankly anyone who graduated from the school prior to about 2010 is deeply unimpressive" sound just as pathetic as the supposed NEU boosters who want to believe it is the next Harvard.

Many of the Ivy programs rank well.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

Hahahahaha. NEU is a decent engineering school, but your last statement betrays you, NEU Booster. Several Ivies make the top engineering lists. NEU doesn't come close on any list. All the Ivies outrank them. Look, it's a decent school. Just be happy and stop trying to fabricate a status it just doesn't have.

Unfortunately for you the PP is correct. Ivies are not actually known for their engineering programs. Columbia and Cornell tie at #13. There are several other options that come in before them in the rankings (including Univ. of Ill and UC-San Diego). My youngest kid is in engineering (not NEU), but only considered Cornell when applying. Dartmouth only offers "Engineering Studies". A friend's child who graduated from Dartmouth regretted not choosing another school because they felt the program just wasn't as strong as other programs in their experience. Ivies offer excellent education obviously, but generally speaking STEM programs are not their strength.

Full disclaimer - I had one kid go to NEU and they had a great experience (not engineering). It's a great school, but no one who isn't anonymous on the internet is trying to say the school is top 20. It's a solid school and the preparation for the working is excellent which I greatly appreciated (and for the record, my other kid who is at a higher ranked school is not getting anywhere near the same level of help and guidance in the internship/job market - that is truly disappointing!). However, who cares. NEU is a great option for some students. Other people prefer something different. I'm not sure why people want to tear the school down. It makes no sense to me....hyperbolic statements like the PP's -"Don’t think I’ve ever met an NEU grad who didn’t have a massive chip on their shoulder" and "And frankly anyone who graduated from the school prior to about 2010 is deeply unimpressive" sound just as pathetic as the supposed NEU boosters who want to believe it is the next Harvard.

Many of the Ivy programs rank well.

They’re all top 50. And two are twop 20. They rank well enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider, I find these NEU threads interesting. I have worked in the NEU administration for 25+ years. Back when I stated my job at NEU, the university was nearly broke and it was generally ranked as a commuter school that resides just above the community colleges. In fact, we often lost students to Middlesex Community College and such.

The quick turnaround from commuter school to an elite which according some on this forum is a Harvard rival is amazing.(I was surprised to learn that last bit.) But I believe that NEU has marketed itself well, given the number of applicants this past season.

Interesting, the university is fundamentally not that different from the inside since its earlier commuter days. I don't mean buildings and such. But the faculty and teaching quality are about the same. NEU doesn't try to hire "stellar" faculty, just some folks who can get in front of a class. That means they don't mind hiring lots of "temporary" teachers or hiring faculty who can be hired cheaply.

Importantly, the administration also realizes the need for warm bodies and is aggressive in filling in the classroom and the dorms with people. Sometimes they do this too aggressively and they have pack in lots of kids into small places. But, they know it does not matter as those students are already a captive tution-paying audience who won't leave.

They know jobs are important and co-op programs have grown.They know people want CS, so they offer a zillion flavors of it (many won't make sense from a purely science point of view and will never be offered at Harvard or some other more education-oriented place).

In other words, NEU is a common sense driven business. They know how to market themselves. But they also know how to give their customers what they want, which is good thing.

Interesting perspective. NEU seems like a decent school with a unique slant with the applied focus. But, I think it's just 1 rabid booster that keeps saying it rivals Ivies because they just wish it to be so. No one really thinks NEU rivals a T20 school. But, it's nice to have a variety of decent schools out there. Not sure why a set of people want either tear this one down or promote it beyond its means. I find the obsession on both sides a little bizarre.

No one thinks it rivals Ivies.
It's position is a level below T25ish.
It's a great option after T25ish schools.

Northeastern was one of 6 universities tied for #49 in the US News rankings this year. That puts them in the top 54ish. So, nowhere near the top 25ish. It’s a great option after the top 40ish.

Not according to the actual sutdent selectivity - acceptance rate, yield, and student stats.
Don't get confused with rankings and student selectivity/popularity.
Ranking is one of the many factors for choosing a school, so just because it ranked 54th, doesn't mean students selectivity/popularity is 54th.

Northeatern's acceptance rate and student stats are on par or even better than some of the T30.
So according to the actual student selectivity, it's one of the most popular options after T25ish by students.
Schools like BC, BU, Tufts, NYU, Georgia Tech, and Tulane would be the examples regardless of t rankings by USN&WR.

Don’t let one good year go to your head.

For this one good year's standard, it's T10.
However, again as I said above, it's an exception, so we don't want to draw conclusions with the skewed data.
We want to look at the last several years of data.

Compare it to other schools in between T25ish - T50, for example T30 schools like UF, UNC, Wake Forest, UCSB
or many of the higher ranked other T50 schools.

'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.

+1000

Northeastern has a really low admissions rate for a few reasons:

1) They miscalculated yield for fall 2021 and had an extra 1000+ students on campus (that was for fall, rumor is they were also very overloaded with NUIn/NUbound, so they are likely 1500+ students over).

2) NEU is a marketing machine. They have successfully marketed their school extremely well in the past decade and do not require any supplemental essays, so all it takes is application fee and being on the common app. Hence, thousands of kids apply "just because its a good school and easy to apply to". Whereas the Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Tufts, and most of the T50 schools have 1-4 supplemental essays. So it takes thought and a concerted effort to apply to them, not $75 and hitting submit in the common app.

I wouldn't consider admissions rate to be a reliable indicator of how good a school is personally. My kid wants engineering, and I'm 100% certain that there are 20+ schools that are a better choice for that than Harvard or Yale.

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much.

Hahahahaha. NEU is a decent engineering school, but your last statement betrays you, NEU Booster. Several Ivies make the top engineering lists. NEU doesn't come close on any list. All the Ivies outrank them. Look, it's a decent school. Just be happy and stop trying to fabricate a status it just doesn't have.

Unfortunately for you the PP is correct. Ivies are not actually known for their engineering programs..

Seven of the 8 Ivies rank ahead of Northeastern. So, if the Ivies aren’t know Engineering, then Northeastern really isn’t worth bothering with, right?