UMDCP vs Northeastern.in - CS Major
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Anonymous
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Graduation rate:
Northeastern has a 4 year program with 2 coops as well as 5 year 3 coop options. (5 year used to be the norm, but 4 year is more common now) It's not any harder than any other school to graduate in 4 years. USN&WR and many others use the graduation rate for it's ranking calculation.It's based on 6 years. A lot of students change majors, study abroad, etc. so 6 year calculation is the norm. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings Most recent Northeastern 6 year grad rate: 90% https://usnews.com/best-colleges/northeastern-university-2199/overall-rankings UMD 6 year grad rate: 87% https://usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-maryland-2103/overall-rankings |
Anonymous
How is this relevant? My point was very few at NE graduate in 4 years, 20 percent or less according to NE’s own data. |
Anonymous
Look at the type of kids who go to both schools NE cost: over $60K UMD cost: 30K More than likely, kids who go to NE are wealthier or more committed to graduating. UMD is a public state univ. Very different. UMD CS honors is pretty prestigious. |
Anonymous
which is outdated. again 5 year was the norm 6 7 8 years ago. the demand for 4 year program was high, thus they began that several years ago, and that is common now. you pick and choose and it's not any harder to graduate in 4 years than other colleges with two coops. |
Anonymous
| In all university decisions that don't involve primadonna children lamenting that they want an "intimate environment" or some such sh*t, you go to the higher ranked program unless it is substantially more expensive. In this case, the higher ranked program (UMD) is substantially less expensive. There is literally no reason to even be "making a decision" here. It is clear which alternative dominates |
Anonymous
Northeastern is ranked higher overall but slightly UMD is ranked higher in CS program but slightly It's a matter of personal preference and situation |
Anonymous
I'm a NP and definately not a NEU booster---but yes, any school where most do Coops will have a really low 4 year graduation rate. Simple fact that it is difficult to do 3 coops (even 2) and graduate in 4 years. For engineering/STEM majors, even if you want to do 4 years and 1-2 coops, that means taking summer courses at least 2 summers. And that means the courses you need must be available in the summer. Don't know about you, but I don't recommend taking Orgo or high level engineering courses crammed into 7 weeks sessions. It might be easier to do this as a business or humanities major, but for hard core STEM it can be incredibly challenging. I always look at the 5/6year graduate rates when comparing schools. I also delve deeper and see "who it is that doesn't graduate in 4 years". At many schools it's the engineering school---engineering is known to often take an extra semester for many kids---it typically requires more credits than other majors and those courses are intensive. Also, many kids in engineering do coops from most schools and that typically means a summer and a semester for the coop--so it means you graduate a semester late. Not really a concern given that you are earning $$$$ while on coop and for engineers that is typically substantial pay. Also any school with significant first gen students or lower income students will likely have lower 4 year grad rates, as those students often take a bit longer. They might need to be working while in college so don't take as full of a course load; they might have to take a break to earn enough money to pay for the next semester; they might need to take a break to help out family at home; they might not understand the college process as well as someone who has been taught about it since they were a baby and have parents who help make sure they are "on track" so if they miss a class in fall and it's a prerequisite for 2 spring courses, and those courses are only taught 1 semester, they have just added an extra year to their college. So many valid reasons for why people may not graduate in 4 years. What you want to figure out is if the reason for not graduating is because even the top students just CANNOT get into the courses they need (a known phenomena at several UCs/Cal Poly/many large state U in popular majors). When that's the case, it's a issue (IMO) |
Anonymous
That's because NE students do COOPS, and typically 2+ coops means you will take more than 4 years to graduate (or it means taking courses all of your summers in college as well). Really not that difficult to understand why. Look at any schools engineering school and you will find many have only 40-50% 4 year grad rates---that's largely because the other students did a coop which means you need to add a semester of courses to make up for when you were on coop. |
Anonymous
It isn’t outdated, it’s from the most recent data sets released by the school. These cohorts actually graduated in 2018-2021, they entered in 2014 and 2015. Your aversion to people discussing any data about the school that you perceive as negative is quite something but it doesn’t change the facts. |
Anonymous
Right, which was my initial point, it generally takes longer to graduate from NE than MD because of the coops. I posted the four year graduation rate because the NE booster denied this and called me crazy among other insults. |
Anonymous
40 to 50 percent 4 year graduation rates still significantly higher than the 13 to 20percent rates at NE. |
Anonymous
I'm honestly surprised (and a bit suspicious) that NE is actually ranked that highly in CS. I can honestly say I've never interviewed or worked with a CS grad from NE. I can't even remember seeing a NE resume (I've looked at thousands), but it's possible I just don't remember. Name any other top CS school and I can rattle off any number of people I've interviewed and worked with. |
Anonymous
But it needs to be pointed out that the delay is NOT a bad thing. CS majors especially get paid extremely well for Coops. So it's not really a "loss of one year of earnings". A CS major doing two 6 month coops is making $35+/hr for 40hr weeks for that year of coop (That's ~$72K for the year). So perhaps slightly lower than they will make as a first year employee, but not enough to say the coop experience is not worthwhile. So if they do 2 coops and graduate in 5 years (or do 3 coops and take more summer courses), they are still even with someone who graduated in 4 years with just 1 or 2 internships. IN fact, they are ahead because they have much more real work experience. |
Anonymous
Duh---that means only 50-60% of their engineering students do COOPs. At NE, majority of students actually do coops---in all majors (because WTH would you attend NE if you didn't want to do coops?). There are more kids pushing for just 1 coop and to finish in 4 years now, so hence the 13-20 %. You are comparing apples to oranges and that's not very worthwhile or fair. At most schools, only stem/engineering students do coops and even then it's not nearly 100%. AT NE majority of kids do coops, so of course their 4 year grad rate will be significantly lower than most. Don't just look at high level numbers and claim "the rate is low" Look at what the data means and the full picture---and I say this as definately NOT a NEU booster. |
Anonymous
Most of us understand that doing coops has its trade offs, but there was one poster than insisted that most NE students graduated in 4 years even if they participate in co ops, hence the discussion of 4 year graduation rate. |