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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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

[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.

[/quote]

Don’t let one good year go to your head.[/quote]
[b]
For this one good year's standard, it's T10[/b].
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.

[/quote]'But it's not because T-anything is not admissions rate alone.[/quote]

+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.

[/quote]

Northeastern has always been an excellent engineering school. The ivies, not so much. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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