<p>I’ll post this in both threads to see the different responses from current students.</p>
<p>Basically, I want to go to BU. I’ve been accepted to both. However, BU is giving me 2k in loans (which isn’t even financial aid), and nothing else. Northeastern is giving me 12k in a scholarship.
Financially, NU makes sense. If you have any opinion on that go ahead to comment… :</p>
<p>But I really want student’s opinions on the schools.</p>
<p>1) Truly, how is comparison in the social life? The night life? The size of the schools?
2) Which school will prepare me more for a job? (I’m a bio major but not pre-med, and I don’t know how i feel abotu the co-op program at NU)
3) How does the administration treat it’s students? Is it a blur if you need help, or will you get it? Is it easy to go abroad?
4) What has greater diversity? What kinds of people are at each school? Or are they similar? I want to be exposed to the world- which is why I’m chosing between these two.
5) Which has the better science program?</p>
<p>I know this is a lot of questions but i really need help!!
Please please feel free to post questions or comments- this is an impossible descision for me, I truly don’t know if BU is worth about 100k of debt, although I can just picture myself there more. Hmm.</p>
<p>Yay, I’m not the only one with the same dilemma. According to a reliable college website, Northeastern and BU are pretty much the same in terms of environment and social life. Facilities and stuff seem better in Northeastern however.</p>
<p>All great questions, and I’m a current BU student, so I think I can help.
I’m not currently getting all that much in scholarships either, but I am commuting from home, which makes the cost more managable. Be prepared to pay upwards of 50k if you live here, as you’ll be paying room/board/food and anything else you want to do in Boston; which rules by the way. One thing that’s great about NEU is the co-op program. It’s VERY hard to get a job these days without prior work experience in your field regardless of how much “theory” you’ve covered in class. I’m and electrical engineer, and it’s still tough to find an internship.
Regarding help, you’re going to find that most professors WANT to help you. They have clearly posted office hours, answer questions pretty readily via email, and are in general very helpful. I’ve been fortunate enough to have great professors thus far, and for most majors in CAS or ENG, you’ll have similar professors for the core classes.
Talking to some of my bio major friends, they say it’s tough and pretty rewarding. There’s alot of material and sometimes the tests can be worded so that you spend alot of time comprehending the question instead of answering it. Over all though, in relation to the rigor of the courses and how much you get out of them, BU is superior. It takes alot of initiative and effort on your part, however, so don’t expect to learn “well” without putting forth alot of effort; you only get out of a class as much as you put in.
These are two very good schools, and you really can’t go wrong, but I’d say go BU. I chose it for similar reasons.</p>
<p>I know zero about bio at Northeastern. Here’s sort of a history.</p>
<p>Northeastern became huge, really freaking huge, by offering part-time schooling - with ads all over the T and on radio. They claimed at one time to have 30 maybe 40 thousand students. They then changed tack. They cut the school way, way down in size and started increasing the percentage of OOS. (One holdover is the radio ads they sometimes run which inflate the number of Northeastern grads in the area. Well, duh.) They built a campus. The part that’s genuinely nice is north of Huntington. The part that abuts the not-so-nice section of town is on the other side - though that area has improved. </p>
<p>Northeastern has improved a great deal. I have friends and neighbors who teach there. (Obviously not in Bio.) In the area, the test scores and grades of admittees from good high schools are lower than for BU or BC but it’s clearly no longer a 2nd rate commuter school. </p>
<p>In the areas that I know, the way Northeastern teaches, meaning curriculum, tends to be more traditional in design than at BU or BC. BU is more ethnically diverse while Northeastern is more economically diverse, though given what diversity is (and is not) in college these days that’s not a major difference.</p>
<p>You would not be making a terrible choice going to Northeastern. Or BU. Or most other schools.</p>
<p>I am a graduate of Northeastern when it was “a second rate commuter school”, to use your words. Northeastern provided back then a quality education to Boston area students at a time when Massachusetts provided minimal public higher education in the Boston area. As UMass Boston grew, it took over that role. Remember that prior to 1960, BU, NU and BC were all commuter schools, the original “streetcar colleges”. BC and BU transitioned a couple of decades earlier than Northeastern. </p>
<p>As for advertising, Harvard Extension School has more ads than Northeastern does today. Also, if you look at the College Board data, NU and BU have similar SAT and GPA stats.</p>
<p>@laurenp</p>
<p>Both are great schools but I would not want to accrue mega debt to attend BU.</p>
<p>By 2nd rate, I mean how it was perceived, not whether it gave a good education. Northeastern was also more affordable because of the co-op program.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, schools that focus on first generation college students are often viewed as “second rate”, often by people who claim to be advocates for “the disadvantaged”. </p>
<p>Massachusetts was way behind in developing public higher education in the Boston area. NU, BU and BC took up that role. Catholics tended to go to BC, Career oriented students went to NU, those seeking a liberal arts education went to BU. Back then there were no rankings but it was conceded that BU was the “best” of the three schools. Today BC is far more selective than BU and NU. In fact NU has exceeded the selectivity of BU to an extent since it has frozen freshman enrollment at 2800. BU has an entering class of 4100. </p>
<p>UMass Boston now caters to first generation working class students from the Boston area. Because of that, it is considered “second rate”. Unfortunately.</p>
<p>All true. Selectivity is a poor metric, though. I’ve gone through this in other posts. </p>
<p>One sad thing in this state is that public education is looked down on because we have so many big name private institutions. I hear people say, “Maryland is a terrific school.” You don’t hear that about UMass but they are more similar than different.</p>
<p>We seem to have hijacked this thread LOL One reason that UMass is looked down on is because the state treats the school like a derpartment of state government. The State House tries to micromanage the school. The appointmennt of Billy Bulger as President (Chancellor?) a few years ago was a joke. A political hack appointed to a position that should be held by an academic.</p>
<p>Other states treat their flagship schools like autonomous entities. While they ultimately control the appropriation, the universities are free to manage themselves.</p>
<p>And it wasn’t until recently that politics let them designate Amherst as the actual UMass though everyone knew it was. The political fear was that would drive more resources to Amherst. And politics meant they put the med school in Worcester, which is a mixed bag; good for Worcester but bad for the university because they can’t attract as much research money. (Though UMass gets more than UConn.) </p>
<p>It really bothers me. Clemson is highly, highly rated - though of course they’ve admitted manipulating the metrics - but SC schools are well below average. I think the best SC schools have been is 36th. MA schools are near the top so sensibly the students at UMass should be better prepared and more capable. (As for example, check what you need to score for National Merit in MA versus SC. Big difference.)</p>
<p>I happen to be from Michigan and went there for law school. Great school but most of the reputation comes from the grad schools and the research and the relation to undergrad education is actually pretty tenuous. Are the kids brighter? On average, they seem about the same except Michigan is more desirable, has higher quality OOS, and tends to be a first choice for the best students in the state. At a rational cost, mind you. </p>
<p>When I look at school programs, I try to find things that matter. BU’s chemistry department, for example, is small at the undergrad level but large at the grad level. They thus integrate research more into the experience. That’s a plus. SMG follows an advanced pedagogical curriculum. The programs in COM are similarly set up to be on the edge. </p>
<p>As for selectivity, schools try to hide these facts but they can be dug out. NYU’s big selectivity reasons are the number of applicants from greater NYC and the number of Jewish applicants. It is a very desirable school for Jewish kids - BU is desirable but literally 10% of the student body less. Since NYC is the main Jewish population center, then … BC’s main drivers are size and being Catholic together with much higher name recognition because of athletics. It’s become a much more popular choice among Catholics and there are a lot of Catholics in the US. These are “selective” but not in the abstract, not purely selective, just by circumstance. </p>
<p>BTW, I’ve posted many times that it’s the person not the name on the degree.</p>
<p>LOL My dad and I and Lergnom sort of got off on a tangent there but I hope you got the message. Overall, BU and Northeastern are great schools. But if you can save $60,000 in debt at one over the other, that should be a major factor!</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that Northeastern is a 5 year program and BU is a 4 year. Both schools will cost 50,000+ tuition, room and board (depressing no?) Does your scholarship cover the 5th year? Otherwise NE will become more expensive.</p>
<p>You do not pay for 5 years of tuition at Northeastern. You only pay for the normal 8 semesters. The rest of the time you are on coop which is most likely paid depending on your major. You will have to use that income however to pay room and board during your coop.</p>
<p>this needs a serious bump.
after going to the BU open house and finding there’s no way I’d ever get merit money from them, the cost became a reality at 54k a year and rising 3-8% every year.
the open house only assured me I wanted to go to BU even more, but after doing the math, it seems like I will be leaving BU with about 110+ of debt while NU will only be about 60. am I crazy for still wanting to go to BU?</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer because you’re talking about big debt at either school. Is there a cheaper alternative? I don’t know if your particular interests are better served at which school, etc.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think you should go with less debt whenever it comes to a substantial gap like the one you mentioned. You want to keep the debt burden as low as possible, and as it is $60,000 is a lot. These days, graduate school is considered necessary to advance in many careers so you have to think about the cost of that as well. It’s ultimately your decision but remember that both schools are comparable in what they will offer you. I don’t think one is vastly better than the other in bio either. Save money. Chances are you’ll be happy with whichever one you choose anyways.</p>
<p>I think you’re best bet is NEU. If you MUST attend BU, I would spend a lot of time now looking for scholarships and possibly even over the next four years to defray costs. Part time jobs and even summer jobs will help diminish some costs.</p>
<p>When it comes to selectivity, Northeastern is now more selective than BU. Northeastern has higher SAT scores, higher average incoming freshman GPAs, and a lower acceptance rate. Plus, Northeastern has one of the best job placement programs in the country because of its co-op program. Over half of Northeastern students get job offers from one of their co-op employers. Also, many students at Northeastern choose to graduate in four years, so you do not necessarily need to go for five years. In addition, campus-wise, Northeastern is much nicer. There is a campus with quads, rather than a bunch of buildings along one street. If these qualities are important to you, I’d say Northeastern would definitely be the better bet.</p>