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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seriously, pick a school for what it offers your kid NOW.  Ignore the rankings.  Yes, NEU gamed the system a bit, and so do many other schools.  If you like what NEU offers, then go for it.

If you don't, and many don't want to study abroad fall or all of freshman year, then don't attend.  Right now, I'd be more concerned about the housing issues and overcrowding and how that affects getting the courses you need, whether my kid is stuck in a single that's now a double (or double that's now a triple), whether for $6K+ per year for dining my kid can get food in a timely manner, whether my kid is stuck living in a hotel that is not on campus.  NEU has grown really fast in the past decade and the infrastructure is not in place to support it.  So go in with eyes wide open about what this could mean for your student for all aspects of life in college.

Also, be open minded and realize that students do get internships and do Coops at many other colleges (at least in the STEM fields).  So your kid can attend elsewhere and still get work experience---many kids have been doing that for decades
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Where are you getting this info regarding on campus housing shortage at NEU?[/quote]

Following the NEU Parents FB pages, as my kid was admitted and considered attending.  Tons of information on there about the housing issues, dining issues, no room to study in library with so many extra students.  Ironically, I'd think kids shoved into forced triples or forced doubles would probably want to head to the library to study since they have no space in their room.

NEU applied to the city of Boston to do precisely that; there was a public hearing this spring.  Boston approved the plan to add 900 new beds in East Village and International Village dorms.  These are dorms where 2 rooms share a bathroom; so what was 2 doubles will now be 5 students sharing one bathroom and there is no Hallway bathroom to go use (it's not a traditional communal dorm bathroom).  I've seen photos and heard parents complain---those dorms are not that big.  This plan will force kids to share the closet space as well (don't know about you, but a 2ft closet is already tiny, how can you make 3 people share 2).  There simply isn't really enough room for the extra person in those rooms.

Here's an article on it.   https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2022/03/11/bpda-approves-northeastern-dorm-plan.html

Fall of 2021 produced a yield with over 1000 extra students, and then they had extras accept into the NUIn and NUBOund program as well (spring admit, go overseas for first semester and fall soph admit go overseas for the entire first year).  So they have well over 1000 extra students to place on campus this fall---no clue yet what their yield will be for fall 2022.  And NEU has grown alot in the last 8-10 years already and was already poorly dealing with this growth in many areas on campus (except collecting your tuition and R&B $$$).

Initially for fall 2022 admits, the NUBound students were NOT going to EVER be allowed to live on campus when they returned.  But when parents (reasonably complained), NEU changed their tone.  However, not sure where exactly those extra 500-800 students will be put fall of 2023.  And while they could go off campus, that's a challenge in Boston when you haven't even spent the last year in Boston but instead in Oakland CA or London.  Boston is a city where you typically pay 1 month brokerage fee to find an apartnemtn.  How do you find an apt when you aren't there, how do you find roommates if you don't want to live with NUBound people?   Just an indicator to me that they have accepted too many students and cannot accommodate the growing student population.

There is also the huge issue that NEU has already had to use Hotels to house students and requires those students to have a meal plan, despite not being on campus.  They may need to do it again this fall. They are struggling with housing---typically the rising 2nd year and beyond (non-freshman) select their housing in March/early April.  That hasn't happened yet.  Supposed to happen in June/July. After that they will assign freshman.  Sophmores are required to live on campus, yet it could be July before they are told where they can live, and for students with terrible housing numbers it might be august before they get assigned to an open space.

Maybe that's what you want for your kid.  I personally at 75K+ per year for an education hope my kid could have a few things that are stable in their experiences.  And for most the desire to know where they will be living is a key part of that.   My incoming freshman (somewhere else) will likely have their housing assignment for freshman year before NEU rising sophomore/jr/seniors have their fall housing.  
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The article also states that this may NOT be temporary.  "Kathy Spiegelman, Northeastern’s chief of campus planning and development, indicated that the added beds may not be temporary. "   To me that's a red warning flag that it will continue as long as the city says NEU can cram that many kids into a dorm room.

Yes, I understand that many schools have to do "forced triples" or some solutions certain years as it's damn near impossible to predict yeild.  But I've seen other schools forced triples---at one school I visited, those were extremely large doubles, everyone had a wardrobe/closet, beds had to be lofted with desk/dresser underneath, but there was still space for 1-2 lounge chairs and there was 6+ ft between the beds so open space in the center of the room.  I've actually seen regular triples that have less space at other schools.

Just saying that don't just read the glossy brochure that NEU gives you. Dig a bit deeper into the school and see what issues there are and whether you are willing to accept these issues for your student's 4-5 years.   Parent FB pages are great for this.  Reading the student newspaper gives insight into student grievances as well. 
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Do you think 7% acceptance rate is norm for Northeastern?

Yield was surprisingly high last year which is a good news for the school.
However it caused the overcrowding.  
That's why they admitted significantly less students this year than usual to offset the overcrowding, and will adopt to the increased yield.
So it'll get better. We'll see.

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No 7% is not the norm.  
Yes, it will get better in 4-5 years when the current freshman are gone.

They not only messed up the yield for fall of 2022 for those in Boston but also for the NUIn/NuBound numbers.   Based on the Housing numbers assigned for upcoming sophomores, it's estimated that along with the 4500 who were on campus fall 2022, there are almost 2500 in the NUIn/NuBound programs.  This is know from the fact housing numbers were approximately 1to7000! 
Don't know for sure as NEU doesn't have to publish the numbers for NUIn/NuBound.  But based on this it's assumed they got a much higher acceptance for those 2 programs last fall as well. So that's approximately 7000 freshman.  Even with a smaller class this fall, it will take several years to undo the over enrollment issues.  You've got 5 years worth of students on campus, with 3 at normal sizes (which were growing each year), 1 at major over enrollment and 1 with a slightly reduced enrollment.  It will be interesting to see what the actual numbers turn out for fall 2023 freshman.

Yes, good news for the university as that means more $$$.  Bad news for students as that means overcrowding in almost every situation. I'd be pissed to pay $12K for housing for my kid to have only 60sq ft of living space and be sharing an already small closet with another student.

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Legitimate question here. Why does it take 5 years to undo the overenrollment issues. Can’t they undo it by accepting smaller freshman classes for the next couple of years and by closing the door to transfers?[/quote]

They could.  Time will tell if they succeed when we hear yield for fall 2022 and eventually figure out #s for NUIn/NUBound fall 2022.  They are hoping to yield 1000 students less than fall 2021---but this is just for Boston fall start.  We also know they had over crowding with their NUIn/NUbound for last fall and the 1K less students does not address any of those number. 
   But since they have already been growing each year for he last decade, without changing infrastructure yet, I think the overcrowding issue is more than just fall 2021 freshman class. The sheer fact that their solution so far is forced doubles and triples, in what amounts to 60-70sq ft of living space for most and the university states this may not be temporary indicates to me that they don't have a full solution yet.  Because to me, that really is not a viable solution.

As reference, there were over 4300 more undergrads fall 2021 than in fall 2011.  That doesn't take into account the extra large NUin/NuBound class fall 2021.  But not much infrastructure has changes on campus since 2011. I believe they opened 1 new dorm (East village) since then.  But certainly not 4300 more dorm spaces.  THere's been another new dorm in the works for year and they've cut rooms out of that and no real plan for when it will be built.

I get that all schools have issues, just saying that these seem like HUGE issues to me and my family and I'm sure would be for other families if they researched and knew this.  Basically, NEU is no longer the 10-12K sized school.  It's a 20K sized school in the 10K infrastructure.   For 80K/year costs, I personally expect more for my kids.

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