We also liked it much better than BU. DS got in EA to the Honors Program with a good merit scholarship. It's now one of his top choices. The campus and focus of the school are really appealing.

Anonymous wrote:When we toured it last fall. We were really surprised. We went to see several schools in Boston. NU had the most happy students. We saw a lot of laughing, friendship and overall, very relaxed friendly atmosphere. Big difference from MIT.

Agree
We liked it better than BU

When we toured it last fall. We were really surprised. We went to see several schools in Boston. NU had the most happy students. We saw a lot of laughing, friendship and overall, very relaxed friendly atmosphere. Big difference from MIT.

We toured this school and found it very unique. Urban with a focus on real life off campus experiences. If it appeals to your kid and price is not daunting it is a great option. But seems the last reasonyou should apply is for the rankings alone -It just seems like it would appeal to students with a very specific criteria so kudos to the school for setting itself Apart.

My DD is currently a student at Northeastern and has been very happy with everything from the academics to the social life to the campus in the city. She has made great friends, joined a sorority and loves having the benefits of what being in a city brings.

The co-op program has been a great experience and she is FAR ahead of her high school peers in terms of experience and resume. It has helped her learn what she wants and likes about a job and also helped her narrow down the area of her degree that she will pursue. I don't think the co-op program cheapens the school at all and actually find that to be a strange comment...you do want your kid to have a job after school, right? That is the end goal for most people. The # of friends' kids who cannot find a job after graduation and/or take unpaid internships hoping to secure a permanent position is troubling to me.

For those who cannot fathom Northeastern being strong because of the previous reputation of the school should recognize that schools change and that is a good thing. Many schools that were considered great back when I was applying are somewhat mediocre and stale now. On the flip side, getting into selective colleges these days is a crapshoot. Half the kids in my high school class who went to Ivies 30+ years ago would be hard pressed to get there today. Times have changed and the smart institutions recognize that and have worked toward attracting strong students and professors. Anyone remember when IBM was the top computer company and Apple was just a low-budget start-up in Steve Wozniak's garage?

Anonymous wrote:Guys, we call it NU, not NE. If you're going to insult and trash the school and those of us who went there, at least get the acronym right.

NU is, and always will be, Northwestern University.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:" Lol....that's pretty much the textbook definition of being twice as hard to get into.

Jarvis Christian College acceptance rate - 8%
Williams College acceptance rate - 18%
Is JCC over 2x as hard to get into than Williams?

Liberty University acceptance rate - 20%
College of William and Mary acceptance rate - 34%

Is Liberty almost 2 x as hard to get into as William and Mary? "

That Lol comment is exactly why I know that NE will continue to go up the ranking list.

More and more people will continue to apply to NE because they think they can't get into Tufts but can get into NE even though both school have the same average SAT scores.

As fewer apply to Tufts and more apply to NE and their admissions rates swap, US News will invert their ranking numbers.

You cherry pick two outliers to support your bizarre theories.....interesting.

There is nothing bizarre about what they said. I sort of doubt their prediction, but the point that acceptance rate doesn't matter is accurate. It is the easiest statistic to game, Tufts is famous for gaming both numerator (in fact numerator gaming is named after them), and denominator. Imagine the olympic team for a large country like India. They send 3 athletes for the 100 meters in track. does the fact that it is 3 out of 1 billion mean that it is harder to make the Indian olympic team than it is from a small country like Jamaica? Of course not. The only factor that determines that is the speed of the third place runner. Same for colleges. It doesn't matter how many unqualified kids they turn down, only what are the minimal qualifications needed to be admitted. Test scores are way more important than acceptance rate.

Anonymous wrote:" Lol....that's pretty much the textbook definition of being twice as hard to get into.

Jarvis Christian College acceptance rate - 8%
Williams College acceptance rate - 18%
Is JCC over 2x as hard to get into than Williams?

Liberty University acceptance rate - 20%
College of William and Mary acceptance rate - 34%

Is Liberty almost 2 x as hard to get into as William and Mary? "

That Lol comment is exactly why I know that NE will continue to go up the ranking list.

More and more people will continue to apply to NE because they think they can't get into Tufts but can get into NE even though both school have the same average SAT scores.

As fewer apply to Tufts and more apply to NE and their admissions rates swap, US News will invert their ranking numbers.

You cherry pick two outliers to support your bizarre theories.....interesting.

Guys, we call it NU, not NE. If you're going to insult and trash the school and those of us who went there, at least get the acronym right.

Anonymous wrote:DS toured NE last summer. Not impressed with anything about the school. The tour guides seemed very shallow and totally focused on the co-op aspect of the school, which, frankly cheapens it in my opinion.

We had the opposite. Our tour guide was a computer science fun nerd and showed us all the classrooms, new buildings, we got to see the freshman dorm buildings, most of the campus, etc... Co-op is not a necessity. They expect you to either do one of the four 1-2 semesters.

1. Co-op
2. Internship
3. Study abroad
4. Community service project

I thought the campus was 20x nicer, safer, and more collegiate feel than BU. Man the only thing I liked about BU was their admissions building. It looks like the only thing they put money into the past 10 years. The rest of the buildings are old run down, the dorms were pitiful, and the 1 mile long skinny length on a busy noisy road was so not appealing. I even liked it more than Tufts but I think that had to do with the huge hills and old claustrophobic library that Tufts had. Otherwise it was a great school and the academics are incredible. My thoughts completely changed on many schools on our MA tour.

Anonymous wrote:" Lol....that's pretty much the textbook definition of being twice as hard to get into.

Jarvis Christian College acceptance rate - 8%
Williams College acceptance rate - 18%
Is JCC over 2x as hard to get into than Williams?

Liberty University acceptance rate - 20%
College of William and Mary acceptance rate - 34%

Is Liberty almost 2 x as hard to get into as William and Mary? "

That Lol comment is exactly why I know that NE will continue to go up the ranking list.

More and more people will continue to apply to NE because they think they can't get into Tufts but can get into NE even though both school have the same average SAT scores.

As fewer apply to Tufts and more apply to NE and their admissions rates swap, US News will invert their ranking numbers.

Kids don't decide where they think they can get in based on admissions rates. They look at their stats on Naviance. If their grades and test scores are surrounded by green marks, it doesn't matter how many red marks there are with low marks.

DS toured NE last summer. Not impressed with anything about the school. The tour guides seemed very shallow and totally focused on the co-op aspect of the school, which, frankly cheapens it in my opinion.

" Lol....that's pretty much the textbook definition of being twice as hard to get into.

Jarvis Christian College acceptance rate - 8%
Williams College acceptance rate - 18%
Is JCC over 2x as hard to get into than Williams?

Liberty University acceptance rate - 20%
College of William and Mary acceptance rate - 34%

Is Liberty almost 2 x as hard to get into as William and Mary? "

That Lol comment is exactly why I know that NE will continue to go up the ranking list.

More and more people will continue to apply to NE because they think they can't get into Tufts but can get into NE even though both school have the same average SAT scores.

As fewer apply to Tufts and more apply to NE and their admissions rates swap, US News will invert their ranking numbers.

To answer a PP, tuition costs are not factored into US Blues & World Distort - it's one of the big criticisms of the report since it's driven behavior/practice at all colleges/univ in the country, since they all rely on rankings to drive recruitment. See article below. re: Northeastern's rise in rankings, I think spending boatloads to attract a more qualified participant pool (better grades, SATs etc) probably does make the school better. Don't you partially attend college/uni for the peer group? Smarter = better. But there's all sorts of probs with the race to game the USNWR rankings, not the least of which is how ridiculously expensive all schools now are.

How U.S. News college rankings promote economic inequality on campus

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/top-college-rankings-list-2017-us-news-investigation/

“I think U.S. News has done more damage to the higher education marketplace than any single enterprise that’s out there,” said F. King Alexander, president of Louisiana State University.

Alexander noted that a key to success in the rankings is paying higher faculty salaries and spending more per student overall, which drives up tuition in an era when sticker price has kept many low-income students from even applying to college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Tufts is twice as difficult to get into......good luck with that."

Having a 14% acceptance rate compared to a 28% acceptance rate is NOT the same as being twice as difficult to get into.

For example, many students will not even think about schools that take 5 years so NE's potential student pool is smaller.

I suspect the gaming will continue and NE will pass BU, BC and Tufts in the rankings, not that BU, BC and Tufts are just going to roll over.

That says nothing about the fact that all 4 schools are over priced compared to RIT and U of Cinc.

Why isn't price more important on US New list?

Lol....that's pretty much the textbook definition of being twice as hard to get into.

Jarvis Christian College acceptance rate - 8%
Williams College acceptance rate - 18%
Is JCC over 2x as hard to get into than Williams?

Liberty University acceptance rate - 20%
College of William and Mary acceptance rate - 34%

Is Liberty almost 2 x as hard to get into as William and Mary?